THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT - OCULI March 19, 2017 Seeing His reflection in our mirror! INTROIT Ps. 84:1-4; antiphon: Ps. 84:5 Blessed are those whose strength is in You,* in whose heart are the highways to Zion. How lovely is Your dwelling place,* O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD;* my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young,* at Your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in Your house,* ever sing- ing Your praise! Glory be to the Father and to the Son* and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the be- ginning,* is now, and will be forever. Amen Blessed are those whose strength is in You,* in whose heart are the highways to Zion. COLLECT OF THE DAY O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy, be gracious to all who have gone astray from Your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of Your Word; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Exodus 17:1-7: 1 All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink." And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?" 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" 4 So Moses cried to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." 5 And the LORD said to Moses, "Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink." And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"
Psalm 95:1-9: 1 Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! 2 Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise! 3 For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. 4 In His hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are His also. 5 The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! 7 For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you hear His voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put Me to the test and put Me to the proof, though they had seen My work. Romans 5:1-8: 1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 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. 3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- 8 but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. John 4:5-30, 39-42: 5 So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as He was from His journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." 8 (For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to Him, "How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." 11 The woman said to Him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." 13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." 16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." 17 The woman answered Him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true." 19 The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is
seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ). When He comes, He will tell us all things." 26 Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He." 27 Just then His disciples came back. They marveled that He was talking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you seek?" or, "Why are you talking with her?" 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 "Come, see a Man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" 30 They went out of the town and were coming to Him... 39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did." 40 So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of His word. 42 They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world." IN NOMINE IESU Precious Beloved of the Lord, Not long ago Kawai and I were baby-sitting our granddaughter. She was playing, which at her age means toddling about the house, ever in motion. As she was toddling about she walked in front of the sliding glass door that leads out to the patio area at her home. She paused for the sun coming in through the windows was just right to cast her reflection back at her. She stopped when she saw her own movements and then smile. Today is Oculi Sunday. This historic Introit is from Psalm 25:15-16, Psalm 25:15, My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. This Introit begins with the Latin word for eyes or oculi. Our eyes are ever turned to the Lord, for indeed, He has granted us His salvation, He has plucked us, He has plucked your feet from the net. When our precious princess turned her eyes to her own reflection she was pleased. We all rejoiced in her discovery. She saw life and light and that was good. I used to wonder what it was that God saw when He looked at me. Was there delight or was there trouble. The answer, Biblically, is both trouble and delight. Moses gives the name of the place where the people grumbled, at the Rock at Horeb (Sinai) Massah and Meribah that is temptation and strife for there the people succumbed to the temptation to question the goodness of God, and there they provided strife or contention against Him. This was right after the mighty deliverance of Passover and the Crossing of the Red Sea on dry ground, right after being provided for with Manna from heaven for the first time. Yes, when our God looks through the glass at our reflection He sees trouble. He sees the true wages of sin, which is death. He sees what St. Paul calls the ungodly - that is the irreverent and godless, He sees you and me. When Jesus looked at the Samaritan woman at the well, He saw someone whose sin not only made her to be an outcast from the chosen people by her birthright, but one who was leading an immoral life and so an outcast from her own society.
When God looks at you, beloved, what does He see? With part 1 of this sermon, I can tell you that He sees one whose heart is rebellious against Him, whose blindness due to sin is so deep that His mercies are ignored. He sees a child tantruming because he or she didn t get his or her way, He sees the irreverent and godless. Behold what the Holy Spirit says about our condition: Psalm 14:2-4, 2 The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. 3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. 4 Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the LORD? This sentiment is echoed almost verbatim in Psalm 53:2-4 and then Paul picks up on this earlier in Romans: Romans 3:10-12, 10 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." So, the verdict is in! All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God! All of us, Period! So, when God looks upon or reflection in the glass He sees a terrible need. He sees death. It is that severe. So what does God see when He looks at you and me? I say, He also sees Delight! He sees the face of His Son in your eyes, in your face, beloved. Did you catch the opening words of our Epistle? They are powerful: 1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, but in the Greek it is all the more powerful. In Greek as in English, the word order is pretty standard. Word order helps us understand the meaning. Ah, but in Greek, you can violate the normal word order and still get the sense of the sentence. When you put a word out of its logical order, placing it first or last in a sentence then that word takes on great Emphasis. It is like underlining it in red or italicizing it. Let me read Romans 5:1 to you from the Greek word order: Having been Justified, then, by means of Grace, peace we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ! In the two clauses, the first word of each clause is positioned first. Justified (passive: We having been) stands out with great clarity. Here is the set of glasses through which the Father now sees us. Justified, by Grace,.. Here comes the beginning of the second clause, peace! Yes, peace we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ! Did you catch what the Holy Spirit did while holding Paul s Pen? He made us to see that Justification and Peace is ours, and that this comes to us by Grace through Jesus and His finished work on the Cross.
Justification and Peace, the gift of God is the source of that being made right, that having the relationship of peace. The Samaritan Woman at the well looked everywhere to justify herself. Did you know she is my sister?! Oh, the Samaritans were considered as dogs by the Jews. They were once a part of the Jews through intermarriage, but were rejected as being unclean. They felt they had no right to the promises of the Jewish Messiah. Thus this dialogue: 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." Jesus was telling her that justification and peace come only through what Jesus is about to bring about through the Cross! We worship in Spirit and Truth. That is with His Spirit and with His Truth. These are freely given through the Cross and Empty Tomb. The upshot of all this is that the woman who was a 3-time looser was now called a Child of God. Yes, she who was a) a woman, b) a Samaritan, and c) living in open sin, that is one who was ungodly, to borrow from St. Paul... this ungodly woman could not save herself. Ah, but what she was unable to do, our God in Christ Jesus did. It is accomplished, it is finished. She stands as one who is justified and at peace with the Father through Jesus blood and merit. Now all that is standard Lutheran fare. We do believe that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Christ Jesus nor come to Him... but... the Holy Spirit has called us by the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, sanctified and kept us in the one true faith through Christ. Yes, this is Luther s explanation to the 3 rd Article of the Creed in the Catechism. It is a message I need daily and I suspect you do too. Why? Because I am a grumbler and a dis-truster. I am a direct blood relative to those blessed Israelites by the Rock at Horeb who complained. And, as is always true with the Gospel, there is that But wait... There is More! realities: The Samaritan Woman left the well. She runs into Sychar, her hometown, and tells the town s folk all about Jesus and His mercy. They come and hear, and the miracle of saving this threetime looser is multiplied many times-over. This Gospel is so grand that we dare not take it for granted. We need to kneel here at this Altar and make confession... and... receive mercy and grace in the very Body and Blood of our Redeemer. And then, like the woman, we need to run into our hometown, our Sychar, and tell everyone. Now this is not harsh law. I am not commanding you to witness. I am telling you that this good news is so grand that it pours over, it spills, it gets everywhere. What does God see when you walk by the glass, beloved? Yes, He sees the sinner! Ah, but He also sees the blood of His Son, He sees your Baptismal drowning. He causes you, the dead, the dry bones, to come alive. What does God see when you walk by the glass. He sees delight, He takes delight, for His Love is so grand that it overcomes your blind, deaf, and dead heart. Let us then declare what David declared in the ancient Introit from the 25 th Psalm: My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for He will pluck my feet out of the net. Let us declare what the
townspeople of Sychar declared, 42 They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world." We go forth with delight, then, beloved, for behold, as we go, we see His reflection in our mirror. Even so, Amen! Augsburg Confession, Article IV: Justification The following is the crowning center-piece of our faith. Read, enjoy, and if you dare: read, mark, and inwardly digest it! Our churches teach that people cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works. People are freely justified for Christ s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven for Christ s sake. By His death, Christ made satisfaction for our sins. God counts this faith for righteousness in His sight (Romans 3 and 4 [3:21-26; 4:5]). Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions: Reader s Edition, 2 nd Edition, CPH, 2006, p. 33.