Holy Trinity (Year A - Lutheran Service Book Readings)
Saturday, June 18, and Sunday, June 19, 2011
This sermon is inspired by D. Brent Laytham's article, "The Narrative Shape of Scriptural Authority: Plotting Pentecost," where he says, "Peter's speech reads Israel's Scriptures as 'a story in search of a conclusion,' and reads Jesus' story as that story's searched-for conclusion."
The car screeched to a halt on the boulevard leading away from the lake. Marty stepped out of his car, looked back at the now-defunct power plant, shook his head, and pounded his fist on the roof of the car.
Let’s play a little game that we’ll call “Search for the Conclusion.” You’ve heard the beginning of a paragraph of a story about Marty. Now let’s see if we can find the conclusion to the paragraph. We’ll search for the conclusion.
Let me read the start of the story again, and then I’m going to ask you to pull a possible conclusion out of this basket. We’ll decide if those conclusions seem appropriate.
The car screeched to a halt on the boulevard leading away from the lake. Marty stepped out of his car, looked back at the now-defunct power plant, shook his head, and pounded his fist on the roof of the car.
(Hold out basket with possible conclusions in it, ask people to pull out one slip of paper and read them to see if they fit as the conclusion).
o He then jumped into a speedboat and got away from the gangsters.
o He then walked off into the sunset, enjoying every moment of retirement.
o He was so happy that he pulled out his guitar and sang a tune right there in the street.
o Suddenly two large vultures came, plucked him off the ground, and carried him off to a distant land.
o Then his phone rang.
o He dented the roof, so he quickly took out some tools from the trunk, hammered the roof back into shape, repainted the roof with black and flames because that’s who he felt, and meanwhile, the whole town came out to watch him.
o He knew work was over, but his family—and his severance pay—were waiting for him at home. So he got back in the car, slammed it into gear, and left the plant behind.
Why play a game of “Search for the Conclusion”? Because at the time of Jesus, even on the day of Pentecost, the day that Peter said the words recorded in Acts 2, the reading for today, even on that day, the Jews were searching for the conclusion, searching for the conclusion to the Prophets and the Scriptures, searching for the conclusion to all of God’s promises. They were searching for the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Savior who would rescue God’s people.
They were searching for the conclusion, and so far, they had come up with a lot of conclusions that didn’t work, Messiahs who turned out not to be Messiahs, Saviors who were only pretenders. They were searching for the Messiah, and yet, they had rejected the true Messiah, they had rejected Jesus, they had rejected Him and killed Him on the cross.
So on the day of Pentecost, Peter stands up among the Jews, stands up, filled with the Holy Spirit, stands up and proclaims to them that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is the One they had been waiting for, Jesus is the searched-for conclusion.
Peter explains this by going back to the Psalms, quoting the psalms, talking about how David wrote the psalms but wasn’t just writing about himself, that David was a prophet writing about the Messiah to come, writing about Jesus, writing about how Jesus would conquer death and rise from the dead.
Peter shows that based on the Psalms that Jesus is the One who fulfills Scripture, Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Savior of God’s people. Israel’s Scriptures are a story in search of a conclusion, and Peter shows that Jesus is that searched-for conclusion.
This is great stuff, to explore how the Psalms point to Jesus, to explore how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament, this is great stuff, the stuff that I love studying, I love preaching about, the stuff I’ll be teaching our 7th and 8th graders in Confirmation starting this fall, this is great stuff, the connection between the Old Testament and Jesus, this is great stuff—unless you’re not searching for the conclusion to the Old Testament, unless you’re not even asking whether Jesus is the Messiah, unless you’re not asking if Jesus is the Messiah because you’re not even sure what a Messiah, a Savior is, you’re not even sure why God needs to come and save us.
In other words, exploring the connection between the Old Testament and Jesus is great stuff if you’ve already started to step inside the faith, are already inside this ballpark, already believing that Jesus might be the One, the One to give you hope, and now you’re wanting to learn more, wanting to learn how all of this fits together, wanting to learn how the Old Testament connects with the New Testament. This is great stuff if you’re already there—which we are, we are there, we do study this stuff, we do learn and grow from seeing how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament, but this week I started seeing this from the perspective of people outside the Church, outside the ballpark, outside this discussion, I started wondering what we can learn from this section of Acts chapter 2, what we can learn to apply to the ways in which we reach out to the people outside the faith.
And here’s what I realized: just because people aren’t asking whether Jesus fulfills the Old Testament, just because people outside the faith aren’t necessarily looking for a Messiah, just because they wouldn’t be convinced that Jesus is the Savior if we use the Psalms to make our point, just because they’re not asking those kind of questions doesn’t mean they’re not searching for a conclusion. People outside of the faith are searching for a conclusion, they’re searching for a conclusion to the story that they’re in, searching for a conclusion to the life they’re living, a conclusion that brings everything together, brings everything together into a beautiful, hopeful conclusion. They may not think that Jesus is that conclusion, but that doesn’t mean they’re not searching. People around us who don’t believe in Jesus are still seeking answers.
One of my professors at the Seminary, Dr. Kolb, always talks about this search as the search for identity, security, and meaning. Identity, security, and meaning. That's what people are searching for. They may not say they're looking for a Savior, definitely won't be talking about needing a Messiah, but they may want to know if God could give them identity, security and meaning. They want to know who they are, who they really are. They want to know their future is secure, including any kind of life after death, they want that to be secure too. And they want to know the meaning of their life, does it have more meaning than day-to-day existence?
What makes this difficult at first is that they’re not asking questions about Jesus, they're not like the Jews on Pentecost who had the Prophets and needed to know that Jesus fulfills those words from God. The people today, the people searching today aren’t in that same spot, which at first glance means it seems tougher. We’re not going to be quoting the Psalms to prove that Jesus is the Messiah because people aren’t even sure there are Scriptures. So at first glance it seems tough, like something we’re unprepared for.
But if you think about it, we’re really primed for these conversations. We didn’t necessarily come to faith in Jesus through the Old Testament prophets either. Now that we believe we can see the connections, but our growth in faith has probably happened through someone explaining how Jesus answers our deep needs, questions, searchings. The truth is, we, too, know that search for identity, security, and meaning. We, too, have that search going on inside of us, a search that by God’s grace has led us to Jesus, but a search that didn’t necessarily start with the Old Testament. It was a search, a growth in our faith that happened when we realized that Jesus gives us identity, security, and meaning.
In fact, that’s what happened for me. I grew up going to church, I grew up in Sunday School, I got confirmed, I was in youth group, and I suppose along the way I learned about how the Old Testament points to Jesus, but a big step in my faith, a big growth in my faith happened in college—and it had everything to do with my search for identity, security, and meaning in life.
Jesus took on more significance for me when I saw that he was the answer for my identity, security, and meaning.
I came back to my dorm room from marching band practice. It was one of the first weeks of my freshman year, and I had completely forgotten that my roommate had said he invited a Bible study leader over that afternoon. I walked in, mistook the Bible study leader for another student, and I said to my roommate, “Where’d you find this guy?” kind of joking about how my roommate was quickly finding friends. Then as my roommate explained who this guy was, I realized I had completely forgotten about the appointment.
A bit embarrassed, I introduced myself and asked if I could sit down and talk too. As Mark, the Bible study leader, told us about what he did on campus, the Bible study of freshman guys he was gathered, as Mark talked about the Christian faith and asked us questions about our faith, I realized through his words that Jesus gave me the security of life after death, a very sure security based on what Jesus did and not on what I did. I believed in Jesus before that, but that conversation showed me that Jesus is the searched-for conclusion to the deep questions I had. All of my searching to make my life real and safe and meaningful, all of my searching for my life to be a lived out experience of joy and grace, all of that searching led right back to the Jesus I had always known, to the Jesus I had known but had never realized how much He gave me identity, security, and meaning, how much Jesus gave me hope for everyday and hope for life after death. That conversation that day in my dorm room with a Bible study leader I had just met, well, that conversation led me to know Jesus in a deeper way. It wasn’t a conversation based on proving that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament; there’d be time for those conversations and study later. That day the conversation was all about how Jesus—His love, His grace, His forgiveness, His way of doing all the work of saving me—Jesus was my searched-for conclusion, the conclusion I needed to the questions of identity, security, and meaning swirling inside my head and my heart. Jesus had been crucified for my sins, crucified for the sins and the guilt that plagued me, and Jesus had been raised from the dead, been raised as Lord and Messiah, as a Savior for the things that kept me from having true identity, true security, and true meaning. I was searching, searching for what would give my life meaning and direction, searching for what would lift me up and give me confidence and help me to believe that I was loved by God. Mark helped me to see that Jesus gives me this identity, security, and meaning.
That conversation with Mark in my dorm room was a completely different kind of conversation than the one Peter had with the Jews on the day of Pentecost, but the conclusion was very, very similar: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” I grew in my faith that day, grew in faith because I saw that Jesus could answer all of the questions, all of the needs inside of me, that Jesus is the searched-for conclusion for my life.
That’s the kind of conversation we’re going to need to have with people outside of the faith, people who don’t believe in Jesus, people who aren’t sure about Jesus. It’ll be a conversation that helps them to see that Jesus gives them identity, security, and meaning. It’ll be a conversation that helps them know that they have an identity in Jesus, that they are children of God. It’ll be a conversation that helps them to know they have security in Jesus, that they are secure in God’s love, that their lives are secure for eternity. It’ll be a conversation that helps them to know they have meaning in Jesus, that their lives mean something because God has created them, God has made them to be unique individuals, God has made them to be His people to serve Him and serve others. It’ll be a conversation that leads to the same conclusion as Peter’s sermon on Pentecost: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” God has made this Jesus—crucified for our sins—God has made this Jesus to be Lord and Messiah, Lord over our lives and Savior of our lives. God has made this Jesus to be the searched-for conclusion. God has made this Jesus to be the One who gives us identity, security, and meaning.
So as we engage others in conversation about spiritual things, remember that we’re playing a game called “Search for the Conclusion,” we’re in a conversation with people who are searching for a conclusion in their lives, searching for identity, security, and meaning. If you want to practice this, go back to the short little story we had about Marty in our “Search for the Conclusion” game. We learned that he was just let go from the closing power plant, was without a job, seemed upset about that, but that he was finding hope in his severance pay and his family. Marty is on a search for identity, security, and meaning. Today try imagining what you would say to Marty to help him find that identity, security, and meaning in Jesus.
Those conversations won’t always sound like Peter on Pentecost, but they’ll lead to the same conclusion: Jesus is Lord and Messiah. How we lead others to that conclusion might not be through using all of the Psalms and explaining that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament, that conversation might come later. What we can do at the beginning, though, is share our story. Just like I did today with telling you about my Bible study leader, Mark, you can share a time in your life when your faith grew because you saw that Jesus gives you identity, security, and meaning, that Jesus is your searched-for conclusion. And through your story, like Peter, you will proclaim that Jesus is Lord and Messiah.