Sermon for Trinity's 125th Anniversary

Series: Sermons on the Historic Lectionary

September 20, 2017
Pastor Thomas Christopher

Episode Notes

"It's Still All About Jesus"


Joshua 4:1-7

When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests' feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’”
    Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”

Hebrews 12:18-29

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
    See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

Matthew 7:15-27

[Jesus said,] “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
    “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
    “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

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SERMON
As it turns out, 1892 was a rather significant year in history. 1892 was the year Ellis Island opened. 1892 brought the first Sunday National League baseball game – the Reds beat the Cards 5-1. Later that year the Cleveland Spiders fielded the first pinch-hitter in baseball history in their game against the Brooklyn Beaneaters; John Doyle hit a game-winning single (by the way, John Doyle has the record of the longest baseball career — he was actively involved in baseball as player or manager for 70 years).

1892 brought the first electric clothes dryer, the first commercially produced macadamia nuts, the first paved concrete streets in America, the first escalator, the first long-distance telephone line (from Chicago to New York). 1892 was the first year there were more electric streetlights in America than gas ones. The first book matches were produced that year by the Diamond Match Company. The first modern air-filled tires were sold in the United States by an Irishman named John Dunlop and the same year a completely new type of fuel and an engine to burn it in were patented in the United States by a German engineer named Rudolph Diesel.

All of those inventions and developments that originated in the year 1892 still affect us today, 125 years later, and most of them happened in famous places like Chicago and Cleveland. At that time, and still today, almost no one in the United States had ever heard of a place called Spencer, South Dakota. It had only been three years since South Dakota had even been a state at all. But in that little town in that brand new state, an event took place that has had the most profound impact on the lives of every one of sitting here today. On June 6, 1892, under the leadership of Rev. William Zabel, serving St. Martin’s in Alexandria, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Spencer was officially organized.

The beginning of the congregation goes back a year before that. In early May of 1891 a dear saint of God, one of our baptized sisters in Christ whom we know now only by the name of Mrs. Carl Henning, died in Christ. Years before, at some unknown time by some unknown pastor faithfully serving the flock of God in some unknown place on this earth, Mrs. Henning was baptized into Christ, covered in His blood and righteousness that washed away all her sins, and given a new and eternal life as Jesus washed over her in water and the Word. Now, those many years later, God having kept her in the true faith through His Word, forgiving her sins, strengthening her through times of sorrow and joy, keeping her in the confession of the one true faith, the earthly life of this dear saint of God had come to an end and Jesus took her to be with Him forever.

Now her family, desiring the comfort of the Holy Gospel in this time of sorrow, called upon Rev. Meyer serving at Zion Lutheran Church in Canistota. Mrs. Henning’s funeral was the first Lutheran worship service to take place in Spencer: May 8, 1891. And Christ crucified was proclaimed and forgiveness of sins was announced, and the hope of eternal life and eternal glory was given to a family struck by grief and loss, and everything was about Jesus because that’s all we need in those times, isn’t it? We need Jesus, we need to be reminded of His love, of His sacrifice for our sins, of His death on the cross, of His blood shed to wash us clean of all of the dirt and corruption of our sinful nature. We need to be reminded of His three-day rest in the tomb where He made holy the graves of all His saints. We need to be reminded of His resurrection from the grave, giving us the promise of our own resurrection, that the grave does not have the last word, but God has promised and God will accomplish our resurrection on the last great Day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns in His glory and the trumpet sounds and the sky rolls up, and the graves open, and all who have died in Christ shall be raised and we who are left will be changed in a twinkling of an eye and we shall be forever with the Lord, no more tears or mourning or crying or pain because the old order of this life will have passed away and God will have made all things new. It is in the hopeful expectation of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come that the Church here and in all places where God’s saints meet together can proclaim with exultant voices: “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

We need to be reminded that until that blessed day when our risen Lord returns in His glory, He lives and reigns over all things for the sake of His Church so that nothing in all of history happens by chance or outside the control of our God; all things happen at the right time according to God’ sovereign will. When the time was right God sent His Son into this world to be our Savior, and when the time was right God sent Pastor Meyer and Pastor Zabel into this community because God needed a confessing Lutheran congregation here to proclaim Christ to the lost souls of Spencer. This congregation is God’s doing. He began it; He sustains it; He will keep it going until He no longer needs it here in this community and He does that because you and me and all the people of this place need Jesus. At that funeral in 1891, at the first official worship service of Trinity Lutheran Church in 1892, through 19 pastors and 125 years, this congregation in Spencer has always been about Jesus. It’s still all about Jesus. If it were not about Jesus, there would be no need for us to be here.

But we need to be reminded of that because our natural tendency is to think it’s all about us. So God sets up reminders for us so we remember it’s about Jesus. It has always been this way, God giving reminders to people: Nope, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a member here or how far back your family roots go in this congregation, Trinity Lutheran Church is not about you, it’s about Jesus for you – so God gives us stones of remembrance so we don’t forget this.

After Israel had finally, after 40 years in the wilderness, passed into the Promised Land, God knew the people would forget His mercy, He knew the fathers would not be faithful in teaching their children unless they were reminded to do so. So God commanded that 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan be erected into a memorial to the mercy and might of God in delivering Israel. The stones were to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever, so that in later years, when the children would ask their fathers, “What do these stones mean?” the fathers could tell them of the mighty deliverance of the Israel from the land of bondage and slavery into the Promised Land that God had provided.

It was not by the might and cunning of the Israelites, but by the mercy of God in Christ Jesus that the people were saved. These stones were all about Jesus. God had established His Church based on the promises of the Messiah and He wanted the fathers to teach their children these promises and the people to never forget His great deliverance, so He set up something that would always bring it to mind.

And so it went down through the years. People were more or less faithful to God, but through it all God remained faithful to us them and sent them prophets and signs to remind them of His mercy and His promises. And then, in due time, the Messiah was born into this world to bear the sins of us sinners, and God established His Church and the Means of Grace by which He covers and fills sinners with His Son and makes them acceptable in His sight.

So it was that on that day in 1892, in the blessed Means of Grace, God set up stones of remembrance as a memorial forever here on the South Dakota prairies in a little town called Spencer. God established this congregation, not people, and through all these 125 years, through prosperity and adversity, through drought and flood and tornado, through two World Wars and economic disasters, through weddings and confirmations and funerals God has preserved to us the preaching of His holy Word, the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit in Holy Baptism, and the meal of immortality in the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ given us to eat and drink in His holy Supper. The Word and Sacraments, which are Jesus for us, our life and salvation in His blood and merit, this is why God established Trinity Lutheran Church here and this is why He has preserved her through all these years. Word and Sacrament, wherein God gives us His Son and forgiveness and eternal life in His name, these are what make this place a place of grace and mercy. This is Mount Zion, and every time the saints through these 125 years have come to this place they have gathered on that mystical mountain of the Lord where God reigns as King and Savior and where all the saints and angels are gathered.

So do you see them here today, my friends? Are you aware of their presence with us now and every Lord’s Day that we gather together around these stones of remembrance, the Word and Sacraments? Here they all are, the festal gathering of angels singing their angelic anthems – the place is ringing with their music – do the ears of your faith hear it?

Here they all are, the firstborn, the Baptized saints of God whose names are enrolled in heaven, but whose lives are yet bound up in this world – all the saints alive today on this planet are gathered here with us in faith — do you see them? This building cannot contain them all!

And here with us is God, the almighty Judge of the living and the dead, enthroned above it all in His eternal glory, the Creator of the Heavens and the earth.

Here in this place are all the saints who have gone before us, the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Can you see them by faith? They all still worship with us here as we gather each Lord’s Day. Here still is Mrs. Henning, whose eyes are filled with the sight of the Lamb of God, whose voice still raises with ours in singing the praises of the One by Whose blood she was redeemed and saved. And all those saints – saints with names like Ron and Myrtle and Bryan and Bud and 125 years of names and faces which are not remembered by mortal minds any longer but are still remembered and loved by God– their voices still raise with ours here in this place crying out Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty. Do you hear them? Do you see them by faith? They are here and with the angels they fill this holy sanctuary to bursting and they surround this building and the cries of praise ring out so loudly in the halls of heaven that all of eternity hears it! And why? Because here in this place, here on the Altar, here in the Font, here in the Word proclaimed and preached, here is Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant in His blood. Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Here is His blood sprinkled upon us in Baptism, blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, whose blood cried out for revenge; Jesus’ blood is mercy and forgiveness and love and by that blood given to you, spoken into your ears, poured over you in Baptism, put into your mouth in the Holy Supper, your Lord Jesus Christ pleads for you day and night, interceding for you in the power and holiness of His own blood and righteousness. “Father, forgive them,” He says over and over as He shows His own nail-pierced hands and thorn-torn brow to the Judge of the living and the dead and God declares us righteous for the sake of Jesus His Son.

That’s why we are here, my friends, this is what this place is all about. It’s not about me or you, it’s not about Mrs. Henning or any one of the saints that have passed through these doors over the last 125 years. It’s all about Jesus. It always has been about Jesus. It’s still all about Jesus. And that’s what God reminds us of every time we see the blessed Word and Sacraments, these latter-day stones of remembrance. Left on our own we would soon forget, we would not teach our children, but God has established this congregation and given her His blessed Means of Grace so that our children may see these things and ask their fathers the Lutheran questions; “What does this mean?” Why do we go to church? Why does the pastor preach sermons? What is Baptism? Why do we eat the Lord’s Supper? And when they ask, we tell them: This is all about Jesus. It always has been and it always will be — Jesus, the Rock upon which we build. Everything else is sinking sand, but built on Jesus our house shall never fall.

We are pleased and blessed to be celebrating the 125th anniversary of our congregation in the same year that the Church is celebrating the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation. The Logo on the front cover of our service folder is taken from the Reformation Anniversary logo of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

"It's still all about Jesus." For Martin Luther in 1517 it was all about Jesus. For years he had been taught that his own efforts and works were what made him acceptable in the sight of God. Driven to despair by his futile attempt to appease God's wrath by his own righteousness, he was driven to the Holy Scriptures where, by the mercy of God, he discovered Jesus and learned that is by ‘grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9) and "since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:1-2).

So, as Martin Luther learned, our eternal salvation is based entirely upon what God has done for us in Christ Jesus our Lord. His righteousness and blood is what avails for us at the throne of the Father. His name is the only thing powerful enough to forgive all our sins and give us the hope of eternal glory.

It has been the pleasure and honor of the saints and pastors of Trinity Lutheran Church to proclaim this message in this part of the world to the joy and strengthening of God's holy people. From this pulpit and altar you still hear Christ proclaimed. “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:3-24).

So it is with joy and humble thanksgiving to God our Father that we come together this day to celebrate and commemorate 500 years of the free proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Lutheran Reformation and 125 years of that proclamation from the pulpit and altar of our own beloved congregation, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Spencer, South Dakota. Many faces and names have passed through the doors and sat in the pews of this congregation, many pastors have had the privilege of proclaiming Christ to the assembled saints – 19 of them serving for an average of six years each (except for this last guy who’s been around now for 21 years). We gather here today giving thanks that this ministry of the Word still goes on in our congregation and that, after 125 years, it’s all still about Jesus.

"We preach Christ crucified;" we always have and, by God's mercy, we always will and in preaching Christ crucified, may God also continue to keep set up here in this congregation the stones of remembrance, His Word and Sacraments, so that, sustained in the one true faith by the blood and righteousness of Christ our Lord, at last we may gather "with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven" in the halls of eternal glory, there to sing praises to our great God and Savior forever in eternal joy! And there we shall know for certain: It’s still all about Jesus.

1892 to 2017 — 125 years and all of them about Jesus. May it ever be so, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!









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