WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.500 --> 00:00:02.400 Let's pray together. 2 00:00:06.200 --> 00:00:12.300 Lord Jesus let us be good soil upon hearing your word lead us to hold 3 00:00:12.300 --> 00:00:17.300 it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience. 4 00:00:17.300 --> 00:00:17.600 Amen. 5 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:23.900 It is just my luck that. 6 00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:32.299 I get to preach on what the Excel file for Chapel preaching said was 7 00:00:32.299 --> 00:00:37.400 the commemoration of Abraham. Being a fan of extreme people 8 00:00:37.400 --> 00:00:43.400 I jumped at the chance to preach about this beloved man to my fellow 9 00:00:43.400 --> 00:00:49.000 classmates, student, staff, faculty role models, everybody. 10 00:00:50.100 --> 00:00:56.800 But then I saw the text for that day and it was Isaiah 25 and that's 11 00:00:56.800 --> 00:01:00.300 not a text explicitly about Abraham. 12 00:01:00.300 --> 00:01:02.400 Neither his life things 13 00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:07.000 he said anything nothing about the prototype of all believers. 14 00:01:08.700 --> 00:01:12.900 But the text did launch me into a sort of thought experiment. 15 00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:20.400 What was it like to be a believer maybe in the time of Isaiah or maybe 16 00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:23.700 to even be Isaiah to be a prophet? 17 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:32.400 You have this vast history on one side of you all the history of your 18 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:39.000 people with really strange often, ethically bad people that were your 19 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:43.700 ancestors and you're constantly listening to or telling stories to 20 00:01:43.700 --> 00:01:46.000 your congregation about them. 21 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:51.500 And then on the other side of it all you have the prophecy that you're 22 00:01:51.500 --> 00:01:56.800 seeing given to you by God. You see Exile you see bleakness blatant 23 00:01:56.800 --> 00:01:58.700 suffering for you and your people. 24 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.400 But all the elders keep reminding you of Abraham. 25 00:02:05.400 --> 00:02:08.300 Abraham who is faithful to the promise. 26 00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:13.100 The elders are telling you, you're telling the people during worship 27 00:02:13.100 --> 00:02:14.800 remember the promise. 28 00:02:16.100 --> 00:02:21.200 Abraham I mean come on the guy that laughed at God when he was 29 00:02:21.200 --> 00:02:26.500 promised a child or the guy who slept with his handmaid/ And where is 30 00:02:26.500 --> 00:02:27.700 his promise right now? 31 00:02:31.200 --> 00:02:36.900 What about when things get really terrible like we're talkin your king 32 00:02:36.900 --> 00:02:42.400 is killing prophets your friends, your mentors and soon you're probably 33 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:43.400 going to be cut in half. 34 00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:48.700 Would you at that point doubt your call? 35 00:02:49.800 --> 00:02:52.500 Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? 36 00:02:53.700 --> 00:02:59.500 Even though, even though God is directly talking to you and through you 37 00:02:59.500 --> 00:03:00.800 as a prophet. 38 00:03:02.500 --> 00:03:07.400 Yeah, well, unfortunately this is simply the reality of human 39 00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:10.200 suffering it goes against all reason. 40 00:03:12.700 --> 00:03:15.300 Now another extreme person 41 00:03:15.300 --> 00:03:21.100 I'm often eager to talk about, I'm a big fan of especially as music, is 42 00:03:21.100 --> 00:03:22.900 Jerry Garcia. 43 00:03:22.900 --> 00:03:26.700 Now, if you don't recognize that name, maybe from his ties. 44 00:03:26.700 --> 00:03:32.500 He is the lead singer and guitarist of the jam band Grateful Dead. 45 00:03:33.500 --> 00:03:38.600 The guy seemingly did it all he had live albums, solo albums he had 46 00:03:38.600 --> 00:03:40.800 documentaries directed by Martin Scorsese. 47 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:46.200 He was nearly technically perfect at the banjo and the guitar. The 48 00:03:46.200 --> 00:03:50.700 Grateful Dead performed all over the world each day of the week in 49 00:03:50.700 --> 00:03:54.900 interesting and new places and people were leaving their lives behind 50 00:03:54.900 --> 00:04:01.900 to follow them around. With most daily concerts topping 100.000 people. 51 00:04:03.300 --> 00:04:06.700 But then the age of 53 he dies. 52 00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:15.800 He's obese diabetic he's addicted to smoking opiates like it's the 19th 53 00:04:15.800 --> 00:04:16.899 century or something. 54 00:04:18.200 --> 00:04:23.300 But do you want to know one the last things that he said to his estranged 55 00:04:23.300 --> 00:04:25.500 daughter before he died? 56 00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:29.500 She asked him dad. 57 00:04:29.500 --> 00:04:33.300 Why do you choose to live like this? 58 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:39.000 And he looked at her and he took a deep breath then he said, 59 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:45.500 Well, I live in a world without the Grateful Dead. 60 00:04:47.300 --> 00:04:53.500 All the fun, the music, the party's it all became work cursed labor 61 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:55.700 hellish gruel for Jerry Garcia. 62 00:04:55.700 --> 00:05:01.100 He had to go out on stage each night and be that dancing monkey the 63 00:05:01.100 --> 00:05:05.800 clown for everybody but himself, he never got to go chill out and see 64 00:05:05.800 --> 00:05:07.300 the Grateful Dead perform. 65 00:05:08.500 --> 00:05:13.900 How often do we find ourselves here at this place living like Jerry? 66 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:18.300 Is your work here becoming drool? 67 00:05:19.300 --> 00:05:23.100 Are you maybe a hamster on a wheel with all those readings? 68 00:05:23.100 --> 00:05:29.600 Are you burned out? Does a parent, a child, a friend have a sickness have 69 00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:29.900 they died? 70 00:05:31.200 --> 00:05:35.500 And you're in this funk where you can only open the Bible for academic 71 00:05:35.500 --> 00:05:37.900 study because it just doesn't taste right anymore. 72 00:05:39.200 --> 00:05:45.400 Do you live in a world without pastors without mentor professors 73 00:05:45.400 --> 00:05:47.700 without trusted Christian friends? 74 00:05:47.700 --> 00:05:53.600 Because you are the pastor, the professor, the friend all the time for 75 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:54.500 other people. 76 00:05:55.900 --> 00:05:59.400 Maybe you've even lost sight of your vocation. 77 00:05:59.400 --> 00:06:04.800 This isn't that great feast promised to me in those scriptures. 78 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:06.500 This just isn't fun anymore. 79 00:06:06.500 --> 00:06:11.500 You just want to chill out at church like a normal person. 80 00:06:11.500 --> 00:06:13.500 Enjoy worship. 81 00:06:15.400 --> 00:06:17.300 That is suffering. 82 00:06:17.300 --> 00:06:19.300 It hurts. 83 00:06:19.300 --> 00:06:23.500 It's lonely and everyone else is going through their own thing right 84 00:06:23.500 --> 00:06:23.900 now. 85 00:06:25.300 --> 00:06:28.100 But it's also what believers have been doing for thousands of years. 86 00:06:28.100 --> 00:06:31.300 It's it's it's one of Luther's marks of the church. 87 00:06:31.300 --> 00:06:35.500 It's what Abraham did it's what Isaiah did for sure. 88 00:06:35.500 --> 00:06:40.800 It's guaranteed by the scriptures, the prophets, Paul, Christ. 89 00:06:42.600 --> 00:06:47.500 But we do know that suffering passes through God's righteous hands and 90 00:06:47.500 --> 00:06:48.400 so we trust him. 91 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:54.000 You all in some way here have been given the awesome task of 92 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:56.200 proclaiming the Gospel to all nations. 93 00:06:56.200 --> 00:07:00.000 What you're preparing to do is really set apart. 94 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:00.600 It's good. 95 00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:06.300 It's holy. But Satan does not want you to do it because he hates it. 96 00:07:07.500 --> 00:07:09.600 And so we put a target on your back. 97 00:07:11.400 --> 00:07:18.400 So do it in spite of him, proclaim in spite of him continue going to 98 00:07:18.400 --> 00:07:23.500 chapel doing private confession and absolution receiving strength in 99 00:07:23.500 --> 00:07:28.600 the forgiveness of sins in the supper the great feast in spite of him. 100 00:07:29.900 --> 00:07:34.400 Talk to you Chaplain Sevieking your professor that you trust your 101 00:07:34.400 --> 00:07:40.700 wife your one friend allow them to point you back to God's word. And 102 00:07:40.700 --> 00:07:44.600 hold onto those means of Grace like the precious gifts that they are. 103 00:07:46.200 --> 00:07:48.600 Because guys let's stop kidding ourselves. 104 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:50.500 We know the ending. 105 00:07:51.500 --> 00:07:55.700 Stop worrying about the promises that God has made we get to see it 106 00:07:55.700 --> 00:07:57.500 multiple times throughout scriptures. 107 00:07:58.700 --> 00:08:03.100 God brings us there in his Word to the marriage Feast of the Lamb. 108 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:08.000 We're on the mountain with the Lord of hosts with all the nations. 109 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:09.900 We're eating rich foods. 110 00:08:09.900 --> 00:08:13.800 We're drinking well aged wine Raven sucking the marrow out of the 111 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:14.400 bones. 112 00:08:15.500 --> 00:08:17.800 And we turn and we look around and 113 00:08:19.500 --> 00:08:21.800 we wonder why is it Jesus eating? 114 00:08:21.800 --> 00:08:24.500 I mean, he's making me feel bad again. 115 00:08:26.100 --> 00:08:31.000 You're lost in thought why do I feel like trash if I'm supposedly set 116 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:32.700 aside for his holy work? 117 00:08:32.700 --> 00:08:37.600 Why do the scriptures promise eternal life while my friends my family 118 00:08:37.600 --> 00:08:39.400 myself are suffering and dying? 119 00:08:41.100 --> 00:08:46.700 We snap back to reality because something grotesque is happening at 120 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:52.800 this Feast. You look over in horror as Jesus swallows up death forever. 121 00:08:54.500 --> 00:08:59.600 Luther actually describes Jesus as the pestilence or disease of death 122 00:08:59.600 --> 00:08:59.700 itself. 123 00:09:01.100 --> 00:09:06.500 Jesus Christ truly God fully man dies on the cross and through death 124 00:09:06.500 --> 00:09:07.300 defeats death. 125 00:09:09.100 --> 00:09:13.500 And when he finally raises all who have died on the last day death is 126 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:16.100 defeated swallowed up forever. 127 00:09:18.500 --> 00:09:24.000 And you realize that this whole time at the feast you've been crying, 128 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:25.400 maybe your entire life. 129 00:09:27.500 --> 00:09:31.500 Even though you've been saying these wonder you've been eating these 130 00:09:31.500 --> 00:09:35.700 wonderful spiritual foods and drinking these wonderful spiritual 131 00:09:35.700 --> 00:09:36.900 drinks all your life. 132 00:09:36.900 --> 00:09:38.600 You've been hearing the word. 133 00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:39.600 You've been preaching the word. 134 00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:41.600 You've been receiving the sacraments. 135 00:09:41.600 --> 00:09:45.900 You've been administering the sacraments still you're crying. 136 00:09:48.800 --> 00:09:50.700 Because you've been doing it this whole time, 137 00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:52.900 in pain. 138 00:09:57.400 --> 00:10:02.000 But you're finally doing now you're perfect vocation what he's called 139 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:07.100 you to do. A good work for fit prepared beforehand rise from the dead 140 00:10:07.100 --> 00:10:12.900 with all the saints completely by his doing. Well done good and 141 00:10:12.900 --> 00:10:13.400 faithful servant. 142 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:19.300 And he wipes those tears from your face, your brother pastors face, your 143 00:10:19.300 --> 00:10:24.300 sister Deaconess face and after all that waiting he's done it. 144 00:10:25.300 --> 00:10:26.600 But why did he do it? 145 00:10:27.800 --> 00:10:32.800 He tells us right there in the scriptures in Isaiah 25 verse 8 he says 146 00:10:32.800 --> 00:10:34.900 because he said so. 147 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:37.000 He promised. 148 00:10:38.500 --> 00:10:43.900 And all you'll be able to respond is, behold this is our God we have 149 00:10:43.900 --> 00:10:46.200 waited for him that he might save us, 150 00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:48.300 this is Yahweh. 151 00:10:48.300 --> 00:10:50.500 We have waited for him. 152 00:10:50.500 --> 00:10:58.500 Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. Amen. Please rise for 153 00:10:58.500 --> 00:10:58.800 the hymn.