To begin with this morning, we are going to try to imagine what it was like to be a child of God in and around Jerusalem 700 years before Jesus was born. There were no hospitals and urgent care centers. There were no pharmaceuticals.
Today we have the Lakeside Lutheran High School A Cappella Choir joining our worship services. Lakeside is located in Lake Mills, Wisconsin and provides a Bible based Christian education for high school students 9 – 12th grade. The choir is directed by Steven Springborn and preaching today is Pastor Dustin Yahnke from Lakeside.
“How’s it going?” “You know, same-old, same-old.” How many times has that little dialogue been repeated? Perhaps you have been the one to answer with the “same-old, same-old.” Just what is meant by that… “same-old, same-old”? Same-old, same-old means things are routine, normal, ordinary, unchanged and unchanging. Some might say boring, tedious, unexciting.
Jericho is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It was already a walled city when the Israelites crossed into the Promised Land in about 1400 B.C. We remember the story of how the walls of Jericho came tumbling down at the trumpet blast of Israel. At the time of Jesus, it was busy and active. King Herod even built his winter quarters at Jericho. To this very day, you can still travel to Jericho. If you do, you can go to the town center called Al-Jummezeh Square and there you will find a little monument built around the stump of an old sycamore tree.
There is no doubt whatsoever what Pontius Pilate wanted people to see when he had Jesus of Nazareth crucified. Pinned onto the cross along with Jesus was a sign Pilate had prepared. It said: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” He had it printed on the sign in three languages. It was written in Aramaic so the Jews could read it. It was written in Latin. Latin was the official language of the Roman empire. And just in case there was anyone in town who didn’t know Aramaic or Latin, he also had it written in Greek, which was pretty much known throughout the Mediterranean world.
Our text from Luke this morning is intensely fascinating to many Christians. It is part of Jesus’ “End Times” discourse spoken on Tuesday of Holy Week. In this discourse Jesus speaks at length about the end of the world and what fascinates so many about this topic, the signs of the end! And certainly Jesus gives us information here that we don’t get anywhere else.
Last week we concluded our worship service by singing the hymn “The Church’s One Foundation.” As we sang, one verse really grabbed me. In verse 4 of that hymn, we sang this about the Church on earth: “Though with a scornful wonder, men see her sore oppressed, by schism’s rent asunder, by heresies distressed.”
Our text this morning is from the book of Galatians. I don’t know how much you know about Galatians, but Martin Luther LOVED the book of Galatians! Martin Luther was that German monk who nailed the 95 Theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany.
The matter at hand in our text this morning is a biggie. In fact, it is THE biggie. People can be busy and concerned about many things in life, but finally, this is the one every person must deal with. There is no avoiding it. In the end, this is the only thing that matters.
Martin Luther said our text is one of the most obscure sections in all of Scripture. There are things about it that are hard to understand! It is difficult to understand why God comes out of nowhere in the form of a man and wrestles with Jacob. Why does he do it on the night before Jacob is going to meet his brother Esau?
