Second Article of the Apostles' Creed - “Why is St. Cyril of Alexandria Holding a Picture of the Virgin Mary Holding the Baby Jesus?”

Luther’s Explanation of the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed
Lent Midweek
Wednesday, February 28, 2007


St. Cyril is an anti-hero.

His picture there on the front cover of the bulletin. Cyril lived from 376-444, and he is known as “Defender of the Faith.” The Lutheran Service Book encourages us to mark his commemoration on June 27, celebrating this man who helped maintain the orthodox faith, the true Christian teachings.

But St. Cyril is no saint; he is an anti-hero. Defined by The Cambridge Encyclopedia (Second Edition), an anti-hero is “a central character in a novel or play who [goes against] or contradicts conventional values and behaviour,” and yet, the anti-hero still accomplishes some heroic act that produces a good outcome.

Huckleberry Finn is an anti-hero. Mark Twain made Huck Finn to be quite mischievous, causing trouble, breaking laws, but in the process, Huck Finn also helped Jim the slave get to freedom. Jack Sparrow, the character played by Johnny Depp in The Pirates of the Caribbean movies is another anti-hero, a pirate, often led by his own ambitions, and yet, one who sets aside his goals to help his friends Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner. Huck Finn and Jack Sparrow don’t have all of the virtues we think of in our heroes, but they end up doing heroic, good acts.

St. Cyril is another anti-hero—of course, Cyril isn’t a fictional character; he really lived 1300 years ago, but he has the qualities of an anti-hero: he isn’t always virtuous, often was motivated by his own self-interest, and yet, he accomplished a heroic, good outcome for the Church.

You can read the whole story if you want to—a version written by Martin Chemnitz, one of the Lutheran reformers—but the story is complicated. No one in the story is perfect. Cyril doesn’t always seem like the good guy.

However, theologically Cyril is our hero. In the end we call him St. Cyril, but what made him saintly is the same thing that makes you saintly: Jesus Christ, both God and man, the Savior who came to make us saints, holy ones, righteous in the sight of God. Cyril is our hero for the way he defended that very theology from attack. No matter his flaws, his motivations, his hot-headed responses, what emerges from Cyril’s work is the same theology about Jesus Christ that appears in Martin Luther’s Small Catechism in the meaning of the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.”

Without Cyril, our anti-hero, without God working through Cyril’s life, the Church may have wandered far away from this theology, and in the process, we may have lost the very important teaching that Jesus is both divine and human.

The cover picture tells Cyril’s story. Cyril is holding a scroll that presumably has the Creed or some similar statement of the Christian faith written on it, and Cyril is holding a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. The picture tells the story. Cyril held onto the faith—which meant holding onto the Virgin Mary who once held the baby Jesus in her arms.

But why? Why is St. Cyril holding a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus? To answer that question we need to tell the story of St. Cyril—for which I’m borrowing heavily from Martin Chemnitz’s version of the story, because as he tells the story, it’s clear that knowing all of the details of the story isn’t the important part. The important part is the theology. Why is St. Cyril holding a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus? There’s theology in the story that answers that question.

Chemnitz begins the story: “Now, it is said that this happened: [in the 5th century, there was a bishop named Nestorius.] Nestorius had as a presbyter [a local leader of the church, a man named] Anastasius, a man like [Nestorius] and one whom [Nestorius] therefore loved. [Anastasius] had said in a sermon on several occasions (perhaps not having sufficiently considered the matter) that Mary is not to be called the mother of God, as all antiquity called her, but the bearer of man.”

Let me explain here that Mary had always been called theotokos in Greek, which means “mother of God.” The Church had taught—and we still teach—that when Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus, she was truly giving birth to God. Jesus was divine and human from the time He was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit. We are right to call Mary theotokos, mother of God, because that isn’t saying anything about Mary. That is a term that says everything about who Jesus is—He is both God and man.

Anastasius and Nestorius were wanting to call Mary by a new term, Christokos, “mother of Christ,” meaning that Mary gave birth to Christ—leaving room for reinterpretation. Was Jesus really divine when He was born? Was Jesus merely human, the chosen Christ, who would later receive the divine Spirit? Christokos was a term that opened a huge door for changing the teaching of the Church, and many in the Church realized this.

Our story continues:
“[Because other church leaders realized that this departed from what the Church had always taught, they appealed to] Bishop Nestorius…about this matter, to compel [Anastasius] to retract the statement which he had spoken either in carelessness or dangerously. But Nestorius did not want to desert Anastasius, whom he favored. He therefore shamelessly began to argue, out of a love of controversy, in defense of this proposition, and as it happens in such disputes, when strange notions are defended, the matter proceeded to the point that Nestorius denied that God was born, suffered, was crucified, but said that only the man born of Mary suffered and was crucified and that God was present with the man just as He is present with one of the saints. For so he repeatedly said as a proverb, as it were: ‘Do not glory, Judas, because you have not crucified God but a man.’” [In other words, Judas shouldn’t act as if he had sent God to the cross, but that only the human Jesus died on the cross].

Do you see what is happening by what Nestorius is teaching? He is separating the divine and human parts of Jesus. He is limiting what happened to the divine Christ—saying that only the human Jesus died on the cross. He is denying what is taught in the Apostles’ Creed, that Jesus is both God and man. Nestorius is setting us up to forever argue whether the divine Christ was born, grew up, ate, drank, slept, got cold, suffered, or died. We could forever, then, wonder whether Jesus really had anything in common with us, and we might doubt that Jesus could do anything about saving us. We might always wonder just who died on the cross. That’s the problem Cyril saw, and so our story continues:

“When Cyril of Alexandria saw this fire springing up in [Rome] from where the flame…could spread widely and the whole truth of the church be destroyed, he wrote to Nestorius, admonishing him to [put] better thought to the matter, and he pointed out that [these] fountains of trouble [could bring] great ruin to major articles of the faith…. But when [Nestorius responded with harsh words and even more false doctrine], Cyril saw that there was no hope of improvement.” [He, then, took action which eventually led to the Church Council of Ephesus in 431].

Now here’s where the story gets murky. Nestorius was certainly teaching something dangerous, because if Mary isn’t theotokos, if Jesus wasn’t divine when He was born, it’s not clear from Scripture when He became divine. Nestorius and his followers needed to be stopped from teaching something so dangerous. Yet, Cyril didn’t really follow good order. He gets a council to meet before the official council, and this pre-council condemns Nestorius. That angers the Emperor, and many people side with Nestorius, just because he was wronged by how Cyril was handling the situation. Cyril’s actions don’t put him in a good light, so as I said, he is an anti-hero. The flaws of Cyril might distract us from seeing that in the end, he is still defending the true faith—as we see in the next stage of the story:

“But Cyril, burning with the zeal of the house of God, was not disturbed by those clamors, but wrote…books on the true faith…in which he showed [how] great [the] blasphemies and errors…of Nestorius [are]…. Cyril…set forth his conviction that there is not one Son who was born of the Father before all worlds and another Son who was born of the Virgin Mary, [but] Nestorius rose and said, “I will never confess faith in a God who is two or three months old.”

Do you see the struggle Nestorius was having? Maybe it is a struggle you’ve had in your faith. It is hard to believe that the Creator of the Universe, God Himself was actually born—just like any other baby. It’s hard to imagine the divine Christ having to go through things like dirty diapers, learning how to walk, the terrible two’s, puberty. It’s hard to imagine, but that is what Scripture teaches—Jesus shared in our humanity, and Jesus was divine from all eternity. It’s hard to imagine, but that is what is necessary in order for Jesus to truly be our Savior.

As the Explanation of the Small Catechism teaches, and as you have at the back of tonight’s bulletin, “Christ had to be true man in order to act in our place under the Law and fulfill it for us; [and] be able to suffer and die for our guilt because we failed to keep the Law” (125-126). “Christ had to be true God in order that His fulfilling of the Law, His life, suffering, and death might be a sufficient [payment] for all people, [and] He might be able to overcome death and the devil for us” (126-127).

Cyril is holding a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus, because Cyril was defending the true doctrine that Mary is theotokos, the mother of God, and if the Church lost this doctrine, it would lose the truth that Christ as man acted in our place under the Law and that Christ as God was able to overcome the punishment He took for our sins.

As I said, Chemnitz wrote out the story of Cyril defending the faith against Nestorius for the theology at the heart of the controversy. So Chemnitz concludes:

“[A]lthough a knowledge of the account is useful, yet it is more necessary to know what [Nestorius taught and how that went against teaching that Jesus is both divine and human]…. [I]t was not a controversy about the veneration of the Virgin Mary…. [Declaring that Mary is the Mother of God is] about the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God….”

That’s why St. Cyril is holding a picture of Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. That’s why St. Cyril is so strong in making sure that the Church continued to teach that Mary is the theotokos, the mother of God. This wasn’t an argument to venerate Mary, to pray to her, to treat her as if she was somehow divine and holy by herself. That’s not what is going on, and that’s not why I put St. Cyril on the cover of tonight’s bulletin.

Rather, knowing the story of Cyril, our anti-hero, is knowing the story of our theology. By his actions, Cyril preserved, held up the teaching that when Mary gave birth to Jesus, she was giving birth to the divine-man, the Son of God and Son of Man, the Savior from eternity who had come to take flesh. That doctrine, theotokos, is so vitally important to our faith.

We cannot look at the cross without wondering—who died there? And St. Cyril reminds us of the answer that comes from Scripture and also appears in Luther’s Small Catechism: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.”

Your Savior—true God—died on the cross. Your Savior—true man—died on the cross. Your Savior—God and man—died on the cross to save you from your sins and give you the victory over death. Mary gave birth to your Savior; she is the Mother of God, and yet, that doesn’t say anything about Mary. It says everything about who our Savior is. Our Savior is the eternal Son of God who humbled Himself, became human like us, kept His divine nature, let Himself suffer and die in our place, and used His divine power to overcome death on our behalf.

Who died on the cross? Son of God, Son of Mary. Your Savior. Jesus Christ the Lord.

Credits
St. Cyril of Alexandria's story comes from Martin Chemnitz's Loci Theologici written from 1554-1584. This translation is by J.A.O. Preus, published by Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, © 1989, pp. 114-115.

Luther’s Small Catechism quotes from the Concordia Publishing House 2007 version.

St. Cyril of Alexandria Defends the Church Against Nestorius:Background Story for Lent Midweek Sermon, Wednesday, February 28, 2007

St. Cyril of Alexandria's story comes from Martin Chemnitz's Loci Theologici written from 1554-1584. This translation is by J.A.O. Preus, published by Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, © 1989, pp. 114-115.

Now, it is said that this happened: Nestorius had as a presbyter a certain Anastasius, a man like himself and one whom he therefore loved. This man had said in a sermon on several occasions (perhaps not having sufficiently considered the matter) that Mary is not to be called the mother of God, as all antiquity called her, but the bearer of man. Bishop Nestorius was appealed to about this matter, to compel his presbyter to retract the statement which he had spoken either in carelessness or dangerously. But Nestorius did not want to desert Anastasius, whom he favored. He therefore shamelessly began to argue, out of a love of controversy, in defense of this proposition, and as it happens in such disputes, when strange notions are defended, the matter proceeded to the point that Nestorius denied that God was born, suffered, was crucified, etc. but said that only the man born of Mary suffered and was crucified and that God was present with the man just as He is present with one of the saints. For so he repeatedly said as a proverb, as it were: “Do not glory, Judas, because you have not crucified God but a man.”


When Cyril of Alexandria saw this fire springing up in the royal city from where the flame, fed with fuel, could spread widely and the whole truth of the church be destroyed, he wrote to Nestorius, admonishing him to [put] better thought to the matter, and he pointed out that with the fountains of trouble opened, what great ruin to major articles of the faith this dispute would bring with it. But when, from the invectives and blasphemies with which Nestorius responded, Cyril saw that there was no hope of improvement, he called a provincial council at Alexandria and also wrote to the western churches. But Nestorius at the royal court in the meantime had obtained an imperial rescript of the ruler in which Theodosius sharply rebukes Cyril because he had stirred up such commotion against Nestorius without demanding an investigation by the church of Constantinople. Among other things Theodosius said, “We will not permit that both the cities and the churches e disturbed.” [Cyril] was also criticized in the Sixth Epistle by the clergy, because he had too strenuously stirred up controversy against Nestorius.

But Cyril, burning with the zeal of the house of God, was not disturbed by those clamors, but wrote to Theodosius and to the royal sisters of the emperor books on the true faith, which are extant, in which he showed with how great blasphemies and errors the view of Nestorius abounded. And since the matter pertains to the whole church, he asked that there be an inquiry in a universal council, for the calling of which the authority of the emperor was required. The emperor called a general council at Ephesus [431] A.D. And on June 20 [actions prior to the opening] began, when, after Cyril had set forth his conviction that there is not one Son who was born of the Father before all worlds and another Son who was born of the Virgin Mary, Nestorius rose and said, “I will never confess faith in a God who is two or three months old. Therefore I will no longer come to meet with you.” Therefore, since he would not appear, though he was often called, when his writings had been read, he was condemned by lawful decision of the council.

But John of Antioch, who arrived three days after the condemnation of Nestorius, moved by a certain ambition, became angry at Cyril because he had taken so much on himself that he condemned Nestorius without the expected preceding arrival of the Bishop of Antioch. Therefore out of hatred and with love of controversy he took the side of Nestorius and in turn condemned Cyril.

Also Theodoret, the bishop of Cyrus [in Syria] who was called “the wise” because of his great learning, wrote against the Anathemas of Cyril and in favor of Nestorius. Cyril very learnedly refuted this writing, as can be seen in the fourth volume of Cyril’s works.

Therefore the emperor, aware of the dissension of the bishops, did not want to consider the condemnation of Nestorius settled; and the eastern [bishops] took Nestorius away with them and took respectful care of him for four years in a certain small dwelling near Antioch. But John of Antioch, finally fearing the judgment of God, when he saw that many were infected with that pernicious notion of Nestorius, wrote to the emperor who by the imposition of his official authority brought about a reconciliation between John and Cyril. But the emperor ordered Nestorius to be sent into exile. While in exile, Nestorius indeed pretended to recant, saying, “Mary should also be called the Mother of God, and let the sad contentions come to an end.” But because he still held on to basics of heresy, he was again deposed into exile. Now, it is written that his life in exile was most miserable, and people even say that he was swallowed up by a hole in the earth. But Evagrius testifies that before his death his tongue was eaten by worms. The rest of the story is copiously set forth in the Trip. Hist. and in Nicephorus.

Again, although a knowledge of the account is useful, yet it is more necessary to know what his teachings were, against which doctrine of the communication of attributes was later very carefully set forth. For it was not a controversy about the veneration of the Virgin Mary when the question was debated whether she was to be called the Mother of God, but about the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God.

It is commonly said that Nestorius taught that in the incarnate Christ there are two persons, just as there are two natures. But this must not be understood as if Nestorius was so crass as to believe that in Christ there are two persons, just as I and you are two persons. For he himself says in his confession that Christ is one. “Perish all suspicion of a duality of Sons and Lords!”

But this was his error, as is evident from the Council of Ephesus and from Cyril: Those terms which are predicated of Christ in Scripture he divided like this: He said that some applied to the man Christ, some to Christ as God. For he said that the man Christ is born but not God. For it is written, “I am God, and I do not change” [Mal. 3:6]. And he said that God was present with the man Christ when He was born, in the same way that the Holy Spirit was present with John the Baptizer when he was born. For in the womb of his mother he was filled with the Holy Spirit [Like 1:41], and yet the Holy Spirit was not therefore said to be born. So also in other things. He said that also those words, “Let this cup pass from Me” [Matt. 26:39], were unworthy of God the Word. Likewise, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” [Matt. 27:46]. On this basis he posited two persons in Christ, because he attributed some actions to the man Christ, others to the Christ as God, whereas the actions are to be attributed not to the natures but to the persons.

Therefore Nestorius totally denied the communication of attributes. He indeed confessed that Christ was born of a virgin, but because He was born according to the humanity, not according to the Deity, which was from eternity, therefore he said that Mary had given birth only to a man, not to God. This is almost the same as saying that Elizabeth gave birth to John the Baptizer according to the body, not according to the soul, and therefore she is not the mother of John the Baptizer.

Luke 4:1-13 - “40 Days of. . .Rain, Wandering, Taunting, Running, Warning, Temptation, Lent"

1st Sunday in Lent (Year C - Lutheran Service Book readings)
Saturday, February 24, and Sunday, February 25, 2007

40 days of rain, wandering, taunting, warning, running, temptation, and Lent. The Church has traditionally made Lent to be 40 days long, 40 days of preparation for Easter, 40 days of repentance—turning away from sin, 40 days of contrition—sorrow over our sin, sorrow over knowing that it is our sinfulness that sent Jesus to die on the cross. It seems the idea of Lent lasting 40 days goes all the way back to the 300’s, 1700 years ago. And we’re still celebrating Lent in this same way today—40 days.

Of course, the Church didn’t just pick 40 days out of the blue. 40 is a number that comes up over and over again in the Bible—40 days, 40 years. The Church probably chose Lent to be 40 days because of Jesus being tempted in the desert for 40 days, as we saw in today’s Gospel reading. The Temptation of Jesus is also closely connected symbolically with the 40 years that the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. In fact, as Jesus quotes Scripture back to Satan, all three times Jesus uses passages from Deuteronomy, the words of Moses who led the people during those 40 years in the wilderness.

Yet, there are other periods of 40 days in the Bible, and there’s a basic theological idea that loosely ties them all together, a theological idea at the heart of Lent, at the heart of the Christian life. By having 40 days of preparation in Lent before we celebrate Easter, we are mimicking how Christ worked salvation in this world: suffering came before glory.

Christ didn’t come to Earth and immediately declare victory, show His glory, and conquer evil. The salvation of Christ didn’t come through glory. Instead, Christ saved us through suffering—humiliation, pain, sorrow, judgment, death. Christ didn’t skip the cross to get to Easter morning. Christ didn’t skip the suffering to get to the glory.

That’s one of our biggest temptations: skip the suffering to get to the glory. We’d like to skip the cross and go straight to Easter morning. We’d like to skip the repentance, contrition, the confession of sins, and go straight to the part where Jesus says He loves us. We’d like to skip the trials, temptations, difficulties, persecution, and struggles of this life and go straight to the eternal blessings of God. We’d like to skip the suffering and go straight to the end, the glory, the Resurrection.

Thankfully Christ didn’t skip the cross and go straight to Easter, because it is on the cross that Jesus paid the price for our sins. Thankfully Christ didn’t skip the suffering so that He could be glorious, because without suffering in our place, His glory wouldn’t do us any good.

Lent, 40 days of meditation on our sin and our need for a Savior, this tradition preserves the order. Oh, I know, it’s so tempting to start eating the Cadbury’s Crème Eggs right now—instead of waiting until Easter. It’s tempting to just plan for your Easter Day dinner and wonder why make such a fuss about Lent. It’s tempting to think that Lent is just an old, old tradition, that doesn’t really have much to do with us today. Yet, if Lent is all about reminding us that the suffering comes before the glory, that Christ suffered before He rose from the dead, that we must admit our sins before receiving forgiveness, that we must also die before rising again, then Lent isn’t just some dusty tradition. Lent is our theology—on a calendar. Lent is 40 days of suffering before the glorious day of the Resurrection. Lent is 40 days of seeing that Christ saves us through humility and dying for us before seeing that He has the power over death. Lent is theology.

Today I want you to see that in so many of the 40’s of the Bible we can see the same theology of Lent, the same theology that says that suffering comes before glory, that God works through suffering in order to bring us into His glorious riches. And then, whether you’re thinking about the 40 days of Lent or one of the 40’s of the Bible, you’ll remember the theology—not just the number—the theology that shows us that God saves us through times that might look like defeat.

40 days and 40 nights of rain. Noah and his family built the Ark, got two of each kind of animal on board, and saw the other people reject Noah’s warning of God’s judgment. It was 40 days and nights of rain and floods and darkness. It was 40 days and nights of seeing the world completely changed. It was 40 days and nights of being in the middle of God’s wrath—literally poured out from the skies, from the thunderclouds. It was 40 days and nights of fear as life was ripped away from the Earth. It was 40 days and nights of suffering before glory, before God’s gracious salvation.

The water receding. The new life beginning. Leaving the ark. The sun shining. The rainbow in the sky as a sign that God would never again flood the Earth. All of those gracious, wonderful gifts of God came after the suffering.

In that same way, we ride out the flood during these 40 days of Lent, we sail in the darkness of our sinfulness, waiting for the glory of Easter—the day that the waters go away. Ride out the 40 days and watch for the rainbow to appear on Easter Sunday. Try to remember that one. I’ll mention a lot of symbols of suffering and glory in this sermon, but try to remember the rainbow. Watch for the rainbow to appear on Easter Sunday.

40 years of wandering. The Israelites had been freed by God’s power, freed from slavery in Egypt, but as Moses led them across the Sinai Peninsula, they wandered. They lost hope and faith. They grumbled against God. It was 40 years of saying they believed in God, but then their actions showed that they really didn’t trust God. It was 40 years of suffering the consequences of living in the desert. It was 40 years of God trying to get them to come to their senses and admit their sinfulness, admit their need for Him.

Then, when the 40 years were complete, then they came and saw the Promised Land. They were told to go in and take the land. God showed that He was with them, that He would give them victory over their enemies.

In that same way, we wander through these 40 days of Lent, a season of wilderness, a season of seeing just how lost we are without the Lord. And so we wait for the glory of Easter—the day that the Lord shows us the Promised Land, the promise that one day He will raise us from the dead and bring us to everlasting life. Even though these 40 days are a season of wilderness, watch for the Promised Land to appear on Easter Sunday.

40 days of taunting. Goliath, a giant of a man, the champion fighter of the Philistines, issued a challenge: he would fight one Israelite, and whoever won the fight would win the war for their side. It’s a great deal, because they could avoid an all out war, but no one was willing to go up against Goliath. No one wanted to suffer at his giant hand, no one could stand up against his taunts which went on and on, 40 days.

Then, as the 40 days came to a close, when it looked like no one would take Goliath’s challenge, when it looked like there would be no other choice but to go to battle—army against army——that’s when David, the young shepherd, stepped up and said he would go out to fight Goliath. The 40 days of suffering the taunts of Goliath came to a close as David rose victorious using his slingshot to kill the giant. First came the suffering, then came the glory.

In that same way, we suffer the taunts of Satan during these 40 days of Lent. Satan stands there accusing us of all of our sins. Satan stands there mocking our hope in God, trying to tell us that God won’t let us go unpunished. And so we wait for the glory of Easter—the day that the Lord defeats the giant, defeats Satan. Watch for your glorious warrior to appear on Easter Sunday.

40 days of running. Queen Jezebel issued a death warrant for Elijah, because she didn’t like how Elijah was preaching the Word of God. Elijah was afraid for his life, so he started running. He had only been running for a day when he sat down under a tree and asked the Lord to take his life right there. Elijah had already suffered as a prophet of the Lord, and he seemed to be giving up. Instead, though, an angel of the Lord provided Elijah a meal that kept him running for 40 days, getting far away from Jezebel and her soldiers.

40 days Elijah was running, probably amazed at how the Lord’s meal gave him so much energy, but 40 days Elijah was looking over his shoulder—wondering who was following him. 40 days Elijah probably was afraid to meet anyone on the road, because that person might carry out Jezebel’s order to kill him. Elijah suffered through 40 days of fear until he arrived at the mountain of the Lord.

There God revealed Himself to Elijah. God showed His glory, and in that moment, Elijah received hope: Elijah wasn’t the only faithful one left, and God would raise up another prophet to take over for Elijah. Elijah received this glorious, gracious news after running and suffering for 40 days. The suffering came before the glory, the fear came before the hope, Elijah endured difficulty before he saw how God would work things out.

In that same way, we’re running through these 40 days of Lent. Because of living as God’s people among a world that is turned against God, we know there’s a death warrant issued for us; the enemies of the Lord would like to silence the words of God on our lips. And so we wait for the glory of Easter—the day that the Lord appears to us, gives us His Word of hope, tells that He will protect us as we speak His Word. Watch for your glorious Lord to reveal Himself on Easter Sunday.

40 days of warning. Jonah runs away, gets swallowed by a whale, and eventually, the Lord causes the whale to spit up Jonah on the beach. Jonah had been trying to get out of preaching to Nineveh. God had told Jonah to warn the people for 40 days, warn them to turn away from their sins. After those 40 days, if the people had not repented, had not confessed their sinfulness, then God would bring judgment.

What Jonah wanted to happen is another matter, but when you read his story, you realize that everyone in Nineveh—from the king down to the common people—all of them took the warning seriously. God had said they would have 40 days of warning, 40 days to turn things around, but the people of Nineveh kind of turned those 40 days into their own Lent. They all put on ashes—just like Ash Wednesday—and put on sackcloth, symbols of humility, mourning, sadness, and repentance. They spent those 40 days admitting to God where they were wrong.

So, then, the glory of the Lord was revealed to the people of Nineveh. God saw how the people confessed their sins, and so He did not bring His judgment and wrath on the city. God showed His mercy, grace, and favor. God showed how He would save people from the punishment they deserved. After the suffering—the days of repentance and sorrow, then we see the glorious blessing of the Lord.

In that same way, we receive warning during these 40 days of Lent. God has sent us His prophets to show us our sin, and so we’ve turned these days of warning into days of confession, repentance, and contrition. We’ve put on ashes; we’ve humbled ourselves before the Lord. And so we wait for the glory of Easter—the day that the Lord shows us that He will not punish us forever, that He will hold back the punishment we deserve, that He will save us. Watch for your glorious, gracious Lord to appear on Easter Sunday.

Lent is a calendar thing, a way of marking time, a tradition in the Church, but Lent is theology. Lent is the suffering that comes before the glory, Lent is the admission of our guilt before receiving forgiveness. Lent is 40 days of seeing how Christ saves us through suffering—not through glory. Lent is 40 days of our theology, of understanding who our God is.

Yet, let me tell you one more thing about Lent and this theology: today is about the glory of God. Yes, I know I’m wrapping up a sermon which just explained that Lent is about seeing that the salvation of Jesus Christ comes through suffering not glory, that the glory comes on Easter, and that we can’t skip the suffering to get to the glory.

Yet, today is about the glory of God, because today is Sunday (or at least a service based on a Sunday of the Church Year).

See, if you were checking your calendar, realized that Lent started this past week on Ash Wednesday and lasts through Saturday, March 31, the Saturday before Easter, you’d figure out that it doesn’t add up to 40 days. In fact, it adds up to 46 days.

That’s because Sundays don’t count. Today is the First Sunday in Lent, in other words, the First Sunday during Lent, but today is not a Lenten day.

Sunday is the day of the Resurrection. Every Sunday we aren’t just coming together to confess our sins; we’re also remembering that early on the first day of the week, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Every Sunday is Easter, so that’s why the Sundays don’t count towards the 40 days of Lent.

Lent is about the 40 days of rain, wandering, taunting, running, warning, temptation. Lent is about the suffering. But every Sunday is about the glory of Easter. In Lent, we wait for the Lord to come and save us. In Easter, we see He has come. In the weekdays of Lent, we confess our sins and humble ourselves before the Lord. On the Sundays of Lent, we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord.

So today watch for the glory of the Lord. Watch for the rainbow, the Promised Land, the glorious warrior. Watch for the Lord to reveal Himself, your glorious, gracious Lord who appeared on Easter Sunday, and now appears to us again today in His Word. We have seen the suffering, and now today is about the glory of the Lord.

Luke 5:1-11 - “Peripeteia”

5th Sunday after Epiphany (Year C - Lutheran Service Book Readings)
Saturday, February 3, and Sunday, February 4, 2007

The kernel of this sermon comes from Frederick Danker’sLuke commentary in Proclamation Commentaries from Fortress Press (1987).

Peripeteia (PAIR – UH – PAH – TEE –AH). There is plenty of peripeteia in our reading from Luke. Peripeteia is a term coined by Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, a term used to describe an essential part of a tragedy, a drama, the highest form of literature in Aristotle’s opinion. Perhaps you’ve never heard of peripeteia, but see if you can figure out what it means if I tell you the examples of it from today’s Gospel reading.

It’s peripeteia when instead of just standing on the shore and speaking to the people, Jesus asks to go out into a boat and speak from there. It’s peripeteia when Jesus the Preacher starts giving orders to the fishermen. It’s peripeteia when the nets don’t come up empty—as they had all night—but instead come up bursting full, threatening to sink the boats. It’s peripeteia when this miracle doesn’t cause Peter to rejoice but to confess his sins. It’s peripeteia when Jesus doesn’t judge Peter for his sin but instead asks Peter to be part of His mission. And it’s peripeteia when Peter, James, and John leave everything—even that incredible, miraculous catch of fish—leave everything so that they could follow Jesus.

Do you have a guess on what peripeteia means? According to the American Heritage Dictionary, peripeteia is “a sudden change of events or reversal of circumstances, especially in a literary work.” A sudden change of events, an event that goes just the opposite of what we might expect to happen.

Most of the things I listed from our reading aren’t really peripeteia—since they’re not the central turning point of the story—but they certainly are reversals of what we might expect. We didn’t expect that Jesus the Teacher would use a boat as his pulpit. We wouldn’t think that Jesus the Teacher—who grew up as a carpenter—would suddenly start telling the fishermen how to do their jobs. We’d probably agree right off with Peter—they fished all night, they didn’t catch anything, it’s the middle of the day now, this isn’t the right time to expect to catch fish. And yet, there’s the miracle, there’s a reversal as the nets come up chock full of fish.

That last one comes pretty close to being a true peripeteia, “a sudden change of events,” and a lot times that’s the only peripeteia we concentrate on in this passage. We think of this story as the story of the miraculous catch of fish. That’s the miracle, after all. That’s what has power in this story; that’s what caught the attention of the disciples, pun intended. The catch of fish was unexpected, and it shows the power of Jesus.

And yet, if we go back to Aristotle, his definition of peripeteia, his eye for the key elements in a tragedy, the things that cause true drama, the catch of fish isn’t the peripeteia in this story.

True drama reflects life. Tragedy is meant to let the audience envision themselves in the same situation because there’s something universal about it. The catch of fish isn’t the universal truth that really applies to our lives. It’s not even the thing that applied to the lives of Peter, James, and John. The catch of fish is an attention grabbing miracle, but the peripeteia, the reversal of circumstances on a theological, spiritual, supernatural, universal level, that peripeteia happens after the catch of fish when Peter falls at the Lord’s knees and says, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”

When Peter says this, we as readers would expect Jesus to distance Himself from Peter. Jesus is holy, without sin, having the power and glory of God the Father, and certainly, Jesus wouldn’t allow Himself to be corrupted, dirtied, soiled, defiled by being with a sinner like Peter.

But this is a story with a reversal worthy of the great Greek tragedies. This is drama. This isn’t what we’d expect; this is peripeteia.

Jesus forgives Peter—“Don’t be afraid,” He says. In other words, “Don’t run away from Me, don’t be scared, because your sin is forgiven. I am overlooking your sin, I’m not even paying attention to your sinfulness, because I want you to follow Me.” Forgiveness is peripeteia; it isn’t what we’d expect. It’s the exact opposite of what we deserve.


That’s drama; that’s what we don’t expect; that’s peripeteia, and it goes one more step. Jesus calls Peter, James, and John to be His partners in His mission—“ordinary fishermen become privileged partners of” the Savior (Danker).

The Lord’s purpose is to preach the Gospel, and everything He did was toward accomplishing that goal. Just before Jesus comes to the lake, in the reading we had last week, Jesus had been in Capernaum, healing people and doing miracles, but when He tells the people that He must move on, must go to other cities, He doesn’t say that He needs to go do miracles in other places. No, Jesus says, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

The Lord’s purpose wasn’t the miracles, and so the Lord’s purpose at the lake wasn’t catching fish. That’s why the miracle isn’t the true peripeteia, the turning point of this narrative. His purpose was to preach the Gospel, and the Gospel is forgiveness, and forgiveness is peripeteia, the Gospel is all about reversing our circumstances, a sudden change of events so that God can save us from sin and death.

On that beach we can see that His purpose trumped any expectations that the religious leaders might have had of how this whole thing would go down. Jesus had been in the synagogues; Jesus had taught and preached among the religious leaders, the established authorities of the Jews. Yet, that’s not where Jesus found His disciples. Apparently, Jesus wasn’t swayed by pomp and circumstance, by authority and hierarchy, by the expectations and customs of society.

It’s peripeteia that Jesus finds His disciples on the beach of the Sea of Galilee, finds His disciples out on a boat pulling in nets of fish. The religious leaders of the day would’ve fully expected to be the ones chosen for service in the Kingdom of the Messiah. The general congregation would’ve expected this, too; the religious leaders seemed to be in line for the important positions in God’s plan.

Whatever religious leaders were there that day on the shore of the lake must’ve had a visceral reaction, a gut-wrenching shock, a prideful “what about me?”, an immediate rejection of Jesus as someone who doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand who’s really in charge. They may have even expected that Jesus wasn’t serious—that getting Peter, James, and John to follow Him down the beach was just some elaborate teaching method.

But Jesus didn’t turn back. Jesus didn’t change His mind and choose some of the religious leaders to be His servants. Instead, Jesus kept walking down the beach, Peter, James, and John following Him, the three men who became His inner circle, His most-trusted disciples, friends, partners, and leaders of the Church after He ascends into heaven. This is drama, this is true drama, this is real life, this is peripeteia, and God in His grace is a master of the reversal of fortunes.

Jesus reverses our expectations—finds that ordinary people can be His servants, isn’t swayed to change His mind even when we protest that we’re too sinful. And I suppose we could find ourselves on either end of that beach—with Peter or with the religious leaders.

We probably can see ourselves as being like Peter—just an ordinary person, having no special qualities, not someone in line to be God’s chosen servant, and yet, no matter what we may think of ourselves, no matter how shocked we are that Jesus would want “a sinner like me,” still it’s peripeteia in our lives. It’s a sudden change of events when we realize that Jesus isn’t kidding when He says that He is choosing us for the team.

You’ll have to answer this one for yourself, but what is it about you that makes it seem unlikely that Jesus would choose you to be His partner in the mission of the Gospel?

Before you try answering that, it’s important to remember that you are a partner in the Gospel, serving God in ways you might not even realize. You can be a partner in the Gospel in many different ways—in all the different ways that people make sure that the ministry of this congregation continues. From the people who helped make sure we got the heat working this week [A BIG THANK YOU, by the way] to the people who teach Sunday School, you all have been chosen by God to use your time and talents in His kingdom.

Yet, what is it that makes you second-guess Jesus, what makes you wonder whether Jesus really meant you when He picked you out from the crowd, what makes you think, “I couldn’t possibly be helpful to the mission of the Gospel, because I’m just. . .because I’m too. . .because I was never. . . .” However you fill in those blanks, whatever your objection, concern, worry, or doubt, watch the peripeteia that happens in your life through the work of Jesus. Watch how Jesus reverses everything for you—just like Peter—and calls you to go out and catch people with the Gospel.

Of course, as I said, at times we may find ourselves at the other end of the beach, standing with the religious leaders, standing there in shock and awe as we see Jesus making some really surprising choices for His partners in the mission. The religious leaders of His day probably thought Jesus was making a foolish choice in those fishermen, Peter, James, and John. Yet, don’t we sometimes find ourselves in that same position, questioning the choices Jesus makes for leaders in the Church today? We protest, “How could that person serve? They’re so. . .they’re too. . .they never. . . .”

Yet, as soon as we go down that road, using our criteria to judge God’s servants, as soon as we begin to think that we know better than God about who could be His partners in the Gospel, well, that’s when we’ve forgotten that peripeteia is a grace word, a grace event.

We didn’t show up for service in God’s kingdom already meeting all of the prerequisites. We weren’t qualified for the job, but that’s what made it peripeteia—an unexpected change, something we didn’t see coming.

Well, we’ve got to allow God to do that same work of peripeteia with other people, too. Sometimes it’s hard to set aside our thoughts, ideas, and judgments, and just watch God work. Yet, peripeteia is drama, real drama, real life, God really working to do things in ways we wouldn’t expect. It’s peripeteia happening all around you—God choosing servants that you might not have chosen, God using people in ways that you wouldn’t expect, God choosing fishermen instead of the religious leaders, God finding His partners down on a beach instead of up in the synagogue.

Whatever end of the beach you find yourself today—with Peter or with the religious leaders, shocked by being chosen as a servant or shocked by God choosing others as servants—wherever you find yourself today—and maybe like me you find yourself on both ends of the beach—the key comes back to remembering that it’s all about peripeteia. . .and the peripeteia comes through the Lord’s preaching.

Peripeteia is a gracious act; it is God’s work. It’s God’s Word that transforms us, changes us from sinners to mission partners; it’s God Word that reverses our expectations and suddenly changes our circumstances. It’s the preaching of Jesus that moves Peter to go back out and let down the nets. It’s a gracious act, a work of God that causes Peter to respond; it’s God’s Word that brings the peripeteia in Peter’s life.

If this was a self-improvement seminar, I’d use phrases like: “Make the change,” “Renew yourself,” “Become who you want to be,” or “Transformation begins on the inside.” But you know what? That wouldn’t be peripeteia. That wouldn’t be an unexpected reversal—we’d be trying to do the reversal, we’d see it coming. That wouldn’t be a sudden change of events—most of the time it takes a lot of effort over a long period of time to change our lives and habits. And that wouldn’t be grace—we’d be talking about doing the work ourselves.

Peripeteia is just the opposite of all those self-improvement phrases. We don’t make the change; Jesus makes the change in us through His Word. We don’t renew ourselves; Jesus renews us with His life-giving Word. We don’t become who we want to be; Jesus makes us to be who He wants us to be. Transformation doesn’t begin on the inside; transformation comes from the outside, comes from Jesus, comes from His Word, comes through hearing the Word, receiving the Word in baptism, eating and drinking the Word in the Lord’s Supper. Jesus does the work of peripeteia in our lives, and it is miraculous, gracious drama to see that we are now His forgiven people called to be His partners in the mission of the Gospel. That’s the real peripeteia today.