In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Brothers and sisters in Christ it is a bittersweet thing to address you in this written manner as an alternative to our regular Sunday morning gathering for Worship. The past week was trying for a number of reasons, including the unprecedented occurrence of realizing through the first few days of the week that come Sunday we would not be gathering for worship.
It is vitally important that we be able to gather for worship. We need to be together as a community of believers, receiving our Lord’s gifts. Yet the reality of the situation is that we were unprepared as a church and as a society for a pandemic. Gathering without first ensuring the safety of our neighbors had the potential to cause harm.
Expert scientists have described the Covid 19 virus as 5 to 50 times more powerful than the flu. We simply were not ready to responsibly deal with this threat while gathering for worship. Refraining from gathering and social distancing is not solely about self preservation- instead it is about protecting others- for if I have the virus and don’t realize it I could carry it for up to 14 days without feeling symptoms and infect others. This virus won the battle in recent days. Yet we will return to the Lord’s house. We will- if necessary gather in ways that practice the CDC recommendations of social distancing- until the danger is past.
As your pastor and spiritual leader, I must confess my own failure in not being prepared for how this could disrupt our worship life. In the months following the initial outbreak in China it did not occur to me of the importance of developing procedures and policies for how we could gather for worship in ways that would not jeopardize the health of one another and our neighbors. Perhaps collectively as Americans we need to repent of how we were unable to grasp or imagine that a plague befalling one country like China could also effect us. In our sin we as Americans tend to think that calamities that effect other nations will not effect us- that somehow our ways of life make us safer, or that God will protect us more than other nations of the earth.
Personally my memory was that SARS, Ebola, Mad Cow Disease- etc. were always far away and never seemed to reach America- at least to my recollection. As a result my pride led me to overlook a danger that would significantly effect our church in the middle of the season of Lent.
Join me in confessing the ways our sins of unpreparedness as a church have interfered with our worship life in this time, and interfered with our calling to be a refuge and place of hope for our culture who are afraid and in need of the comfort of our Lord’s reign over heaven and earth. Join me in confessing the ways in which our fears of illness and societal chaos, have led us to doubt God’s provision for us and think of our own well being instead of others.
Join me in confessing how I have in all my thoughts and deeds this past week sinned against my Lord Jesus Christ. Sins, as we typically confess each Sunday morning, that merit our temporal and eternal punishment. Join me in repenting of these sins. We pray to the boundless mercy of our Father and for the sake of the holy sufferings of His beloved Son Jesus Christ to be gracious and merciful to us poor sinful beings.
And join me in hearing the good news that Almighty God in His mercy has given His Son to die for you and for His sake forgives You all your sins. Know without doubt that your sins have been forgiven by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen now to the appointed Introit for the fourth Sunday of Lent. How beautifully God’s Word speaks to our time of need today!
My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. 5 For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock. 6 And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and will be forever. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.
Our eyes are indeed toward the Lord through this time of self sacrifice and adversity. We indeed long more than anything else to dwell in the Lord’s house all of our days.
Join me in praying the prayer of the day: Almighty God our heavenly Father, Your mercies are new every morning; and though we deserve punishment, You receive us as Your children and provide for all of our needs of body and soul. Grant that we may heartily acknowledge Your Merciful goodness, give thanks for all of your benefits, and serve You in willing obedience; through Jesus Christ Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
The gospel lesson appointed for the fourth Sunday of Lent is John chapter 9:1-41. Here are the first 7 verses for us to reflect on for this morning:
As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
The account of Jesus giving sight to the man born blind provides a timely insight into the role of sin in bad things in our world. As the Rabbis ask Jesus who sinned that this man was born blind they reveal the common assumption of the time that misfortunes in a family are directly related to wrong doings for which God has provided specific punishments. Yet Jesus refutes this thinking that sin is the cause of the blindness. The man and his parents in fact have sinned greatly- as all children of Adam have since the Fall. However the man or his parents have not sinned in some unique way different than others in order to deserve the curse of blindness. Instead the particular reason for his blindness was for the glory of God, that the works of Jesus would be shown through him. His blindness was for the exact moment at hand where Jesus was to heal him and give him sight for the first time.
It is no accident that blindness was the affliction Jesus healed on this day. Jesus gave the man sight for the first time to show something important about the new life He came to bring to us. He illustrated that there is a limited time for doing the purpose for which the Father sent Him. You work in the daytime wisely because when it is night you cannot work anymore, in the context of outdoor labor, prior to electricity of course. There will be a time when we cannot work anymore. It could be because of age or illness. Or it could be because Jesus will return and a night will set on the ways of this world.
Now is the time to do the work of the kingdom. Yet our sinful nature keeps us from doing this work. We need the light of Jesus to enlighten our path. Without Him, we might as well be working in the night, stumbling around and getting little if anything done. We need the spiritual blindness of our lives cleared so that we can see for the first time how beautiful God’s purpose for us is.
Jesus spit on the ground and made mud. He took the very same earth that was used to create Adam to create sight for the blind man. Jesus made him a new creation with the very mud in his hands. And Jesus has made us a new creation just the same. He has cleared away our blindness of sin through his perfect forgiveness.
We have no course to blame others for the existence of this pandemic. This is not a punishment for our sins or the sins of particular people. Instead this is a result of the Fall into sin, a fallen world has dangerous and hostile things to our livelihood. It is hard to endure the afflictions of the fall. It’s hard to make sense of suffering. We cannot see clearly in these questions of why now, why this situation. However, in Christ we see through the cloud of our sin and see right to our promised redemption. In Christ we cleanse our sins and wash ourselves with His forgiveness so that we can come back seeing. Through our Savior we can see how good can come out of evil. We can see how losing the comforts and conveniences of our daily life can bring us closer to Jesus.
In this past week I have been able to talk in counseling contexts about how this pandemic is effecting others. I have talked to some of you already and will aim to connect with all of you through phone contacts. Certainly the opportunities for simplifying life are all around us- even as we may feel distracted by disconcerting news headlines. Changed life circumstances can be opportunities for changed patterns in our life of discipleship. I heard from one woman this past week how surprised she was at how many people called to check up on her. Numerous parents have told me about unexpected advantages of spending more quality time with children.
The social isolation of the efforts to curb the disease is difficult, especially for those who live alone. My prayer is that this extra time of isolation will help us as the church learn how to make the time we have together count- caring for one another and connecting with one another through Christ.
This past week has been hard, seeing not only the threat of illness but threats of economic collapse. It’s hard to feel happy or secure when there are so many things up in the air in our culture. In these things we are brought to the cross, confronted with the fact that all of the things we count on in our society to make life secure can be lost. Our well being as a nation cannot save us. Instead we put our trust in our Savior. We put our trust that He is walking besides us every step of the way.
We know that we are not alone through this trial. The good news for us is that whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s safe in His faithfulness. Jesus has carried all of our sicknesses and infirmities on the cross. The day is coming when there will be no more disease, no more loss. May these promises of our Lord comfort us and guide us to live in hope unshakable that is our through Jesus Christ. Amen.
At this time I would like to close my message with prayers for ourselves and our nation provided by the LCMS:
Blessed Lord, You give sight to the blind, You open the ears of the deaf, and You make the lame to walk. Hear the prayers of Your people on behalf of all people as they have need.
Brief silence
In the darkness of sin and its death, we cry to You, O Lord. Open our ears by Your Word, our minds by Your Spirit, and our hearts by Your grace, that we may know and be thankful for all the blessings You have given to us in Christ, our Lord, especially the gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation. Strengthen us in faith, that we may serve You with all our body, mind, soul and strength.
Bidden by Your Word, we pray to You, O Lord, on behalf of Your Church and all Your people scattered and isolated. Give to us good pastors and servants of Your Word who will serve us faithfully and boldly even in chaotic times. Keep them safe, comfort them and their families, and raise up many more servants for full-time church work.
Defended by Your grace, we ask You, O Lord, to provide us with good and faithful leaders who will preserve the precious gift of liberty and protect the lives of our citizens. Give them special wisdom, and help them to work in harmony in the midst of this pandemic. Bless the members of our armed forces, and protect them as they defend us. Grant Your blessing to all emergency and medical workers who continue to come to our aid in times of great need.
Enjoying the riches of Your grace, we ask You, O Lord, to give us generous hearts, that we may share what You have provided with those in need and work for the common good of all. Give us patience in our seclusion, and comfort the lonely. Grant relief to the unemployed, the underemployed, the homeless and all their families.
Knowing Your healing will and gifts, we pray You, O Lord, to spare us from all calamity by pestilence, scarcity and fear. Remember the sick in their afflictions, calm those troubled in mind and keep steadfast the dying. [Hear us especially for __________.] Show us Your gracious will, O Lord, and sustain those who are afflicted in body or mind until that day when You will bestow upon us new bodies fit for the eternal life You have prepared for us in Christ.
All these things, O Lord, we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, asking You to grant our prayers not for our sake but for the sake of Him alone. Teach our hearts to be content with Your will and to trust that You will answer us with what is best for us and at the right time for our need. So do we pray, giving testimony of our confidence in Your gracious favor in Christ by answering with one voice. Amen.