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“A Letter from Christ
2 Corinthians 3:3

 

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas

Second Sunday after the Epiphany—January 18, 2015

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Our text is today’s Epistle Reading from 2nd Corinthians, in which the Apostle Paul says that YOU are “A Letter from Christ.”  You are invited to follow the sermon outline on the last pages of the bulletin.

An old story tells about a member of a church’s pastoral search committee, who was frustrated as candidate after candidate was rejected for some perceived flaw.  Every pastor they considered was either too young, or too old; too inexperienced, or overqualified.  So this board member stood up and read a letter supposedly from a candidate:

“Understanding your pulpit is vacant, I should like to be considered for the position. I have many qualifications. I’ve been a preacher with much success and also have had some successes as a writer. Some say I’m a good organizer. I’ve been a leader most places I’ve been. I’m over 50 years of age and have never preached in one place more than three years. In some places, I have left town after my work caused riots and disturbances. And I must admit that I have been in jail three or four times, but not because of any real wrongdoing. My health is not too good, though I still accomplish a great deal. The churches I have preached in have been small though located in several large cities. I’ve not gotten along well with religious leaders in the towns where I have preached. In fact, some have threatened me and even attacked me physically and more than once I was forced to leave town, sometimes secretively. I am not too good at keeping records. I have been known to forget who I have baptized. However, if you can use me, I promise to do my best for you.”

The board member then turned to the committee and said, “Well what do you think? Should we consider him?”  The committee members were appalled! How could they consider a sickly, trouble-making, absent-minded, former prison inmate? Was the board member crazy? Who sent the letter? Who had such nerve? The board member who read the letter replied: “It’s signed. . . The Apostle Paul.”

There is more than a little truth to that parody.  We now recognize the Apostle Paul as one of the greatest geniuses in world history, who literally changed the course of history, perhaps more than any person other than Jesus Christ himself.  But, as Paul himself tells later us in 2nd Corinthians, in his own day many people said of him, “He is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.”

Paul had spent a year and half preaching and teaching in Corinth, and when he left to continue his missionary work other places there was a good-sized and growing Christian congregation.  But, after he left, the trouble started.  False teachers and charlatans out for money came and led the Christians at Corinth astray.  These false teachers turned the people not only against the true doctrine, but also against the Apostle Paul himself.  That hurt Paul deeply, and it shows in 2nd Corinthians, a letter he wrote to urge them back to the true faith which he had taught them.

“Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?”  Paul had heard how the false teachers who came to Corinth got into the congregation’s good graces with impressive letters of recommendation.  These letters might have been phony or from other gullible people who had been led astray.  Because of these impressive references the Christian congregation at Corinth welcomed them and turned over to them the preaching and teaching ministry.  These false teachers even claimed to be what Paul sarcastically calls “super apostles,” supposedly superior to Paul and the other apostles.  The teachings and work of Paul and the other actual apostles Christ appointed were dismissed by these new self-proclaimed “super apostles” as passé, and superseded by their superior new ways and new teachings.  As Paul writes later in 2nd Corinthians, “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.”

“Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.”  Paul is saying, “How could you forget so soon what I did and taught among you? The proof of my true apostleship, the proof of my true teaching, isn’t some mere piece of paper.  The proof is YOU.”  As he wrote the Thessalonians, “Your faith in God has become known everywhere . . .  how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.”  The Word which Paul preached to them and the power of that Word to bring them to faith and transform their lives was a far greater and more impressive testimony and letter of recommendation than any piece of paper brought by the false teachers.

“Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?  You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.  You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

Martin Luther explains in his commentary on Deuteronomy that the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were originally engraved symbolized the natural hardness and coldness of our hearts toward God on account of our sin.  We pray in Psalm 51, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  The first successful human heart transplant was performed in 1968 by Dr. Norman Shumway.  ALL of us need a SPIRITUAL heart transplant, replacing our dead, cold hearts of stone with new heart and a right spirit.  Only God can perform this spiritual heart transplant: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

God performs this spiritual heart transplant through the Gospel, as Paul writes the Corinthians: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this Gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. . .  God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

That Good News Paul wrote for the Corinthians 2,000 years ago is still God’s personal message of Good News for you.  Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, your sins are not counted against you, you are reconciled to God and righteous in his sight. Paul tells the Corinthians that God has “put his Spirit in our hearts” and “made his light shine in our hearts.”  Like Dr. Shumway transplanting a physical heart, through the Gospel proclaimed in the Word and administered in the Sacraments, God the Holy Spirit spiritually creates a NEW heart within you, to trust in Christ your Savior.  “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

“You are a letter from Christ.”  Like the Apostle Paul, God has made YOU his ambassador to the world, to share the Good News that “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not counting men’s sins against them.”  For God not only communicates to the world this Good News of salvation through the epistles, or letters, found in the Scripture.  He also communicates the Good News to the world through YOU.  Luther says that we are, “living epistles of Christ, written by the Spirit, inscribed not like the Law on tablets of stone, but inscribed on human hearts with the ink of the Gospel and Sacraments, so that our very hearts are living letters from God, aglow with his love.” 

“You are a letter from Christ” to the world. There are many different kinds of letters.  What kind of letter are you?

You are first of all God’s Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s cards to the world.  As a Valentine you share the Good News of God’s love.  As the Apostle John writes, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us.”  But, it’s not just a generic message of love from some higher power, but the specific Good News of God’s love for the world in CHRIST:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.   Whoever believes in him is not condemned.”  That is why you are also a Christmas card and Easter card.  Sharing the Christmas message that “for us men and for our salvation [he] came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man,” and the Easter message that for us he “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried . . . [and] the third day he rose again from the dead.”  You are God’s Christmas, Easter and Valentine’s cards to the world.

“You are a letter from Christ.”  As you share the Good News of full forgiveness in Christ, you are God’s bill for the sins of the world—but stamped in red “PAID IN FULL” by the blood of Christ.  As Paul writes in Ephesians, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”  The Good News we are to share as living letters from Christ is that the bill for the sins of the world has been “PAID IN FULL” by his blood.  As the Apostle John writes, “the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin . . .  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”  As you share the Good News of full forgiveness in Christ, you are God’s bill for the sins of the world—but stamped in red “PAID IN FULL” by the blood of Christ.

“You are a letter from Christ.”  You are also God’s sympathy card to the world, his messenger of compassion and kindness and comfort, for suffering, sorrowful people in our troubled world.  Paul begins 2nd Corinthians beautifully describing our role as God’s sympathy card to the world: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”  You are God’s sympathy card for suffering, sorrowful people in our troubled world.

“You are a letter from Christ.”  In the New Testament we distinguish between the “General Epistles,” which aren’t directed toward specific persons or congregations, and the epistles such as 2nd Corinthians, which were originally meant for specific people.  You are not only God’s “general epistle” to the world, but he has also sent you “special delivery” for certain, specific people.

To your spouse, you are God’s special delivery LOVE letter.  As Jesus said, “At the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?  So they are no longer two, but one.” And as Paul says in Ephesians, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”  To your spouse, you are God’s special delivery LOVE letter. 

To your children and grandchildren, you are God’s special delivery word of counsel and guidance.  As Proverbs says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  And as Paul says in Ephesians, “Bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”  To your children and grandchildren, you are God’s special delivery word of counsel and guidance.

In your occupation, you are God’s special delivery REPLY to the prayers and needs of his people.  For example, we pray in the Lord’s Prayer “give us this day our daily bread,” and in reply God sends us farmers and countless others who through their occupations help provide us with all the wants and needs of the body.  The Apostle Peter puts it this way: “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.”  In your occupation, you are God’s special delivery REPLY to the prayers and needs of his people.

“You are a letter from Christ.”  But, there’s one kind of letter you aren’t.  If your mail is like ours, most of the mail you receive is probably junk mail.  But, as the American Gospel singer Ethel Waters famously put it, “God don’t make no junk.”

There’s quite a market right now in selling old cancelled checks signed by famous people.  I saw a fascinating selection of these in a store once.  One was signed by Carol Burnett for an oil change.  Another was signed by Doris Day for her phone bill.  They’re just old cancelled checks that the stars had thrown away. But, someone got ahold of them, and now they’re framed and matted and sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.  If they were from anyone else they would be junk, like the 30 years of old cancelled checks I shredded a few years ago.  But these are very valuable because of who they’re from.

Imagine if you received a personal, handwritten letter from the President; you wouldn’t throw it away like junk mail.  Because it’s from the President, it would be valuable and important.  Quite often I will have elderly people ask me, “Why am I still here?”  People of all ages can wonder if they are important, if their lives and work in this world are valuable.  Like a letter from the President or even a cancelled check from a star, because you are “a letter from Christ,” you are never junk mail, you are valuable and important.  Because, “God don’t make no junk.”

“Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?  You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.  You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

You are “A Letter from Christ.”

Amen.

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