A Son Dies, A Father Mourns

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrook. The Holy Gospel, selected portions of Luke 22, starting at verse 1.

Now, the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover, and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put

Jesus to death, for they feared the people. Then Satan entered into Judas Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve, and he went away and conferred with the chief priests and the officers how we might betray him to them, and they were glad and agreed to give him money.

So, he consented and sought an opportunity to betray Jesus to them in the absence of a crowd.

Verse 14, And when the hour came, Jesus reclined at table and the apostles with him.

And he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you that I will not eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, Take this and divide it among yourselves for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me.

And likewise the cup, after they had eaten, saying, This cup that is poured out for you is the covenant in my blood, but behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.

For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to the man by whom he is betrayed.

And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this. O Lord, have mercy upon us.

In the name of Jesus. Amen. Boy, that escalated quickly, didn't it? I mean,

Joseph went from being an annoyance to being hated. They couldn't say anything kind about him.

And next thing you know, all eleven of his brothers are thinking,

It's time for Joseph to die. I mean, could you imagine? I mean, these are men who are supposed to believe in Yahweh.

They believe in the one true God. I mean, isn't Jacob, their father, the man who wrestled with Jesus, won and had his name changed to Israel?

I mean, isn't that kind of the whole point? These are men who believe in the one true God. I mean, Judah himself, isn't he the direct descendant of, you know,

Jesus? The lion of the tribe of Judah? But could you imagine?

Like, here at Kongsvinger, I mean, we've had some pretty wild church council meetings, but could you imagine if, like, church council meeting,

Don Matheson wasn't there, and somebody said, I make a motion that we do Don Matheson in.

You know, it's time for Don to go. It's time for him to die. And somebody says, I like that. I second the motion.

And all in favor, unanimous vote. Next thing you know, Don's dead, right? This is crazy.

But here's the thing. Is it really that crazy? You see, scripture is clear that we are all conceived and born dead in trespasses and sins, children of the devil.

And while the devil was a liar and a murderer from the beginning, and because we have rebelled against God, well,

I think scripture's quite clear. It's pretty easy for all of us to be exactly like the devil.

And when we harbor hatred, we harbor unforgiveness, we harbor feelings of ill will and malice within our hearts towards others, it grows.

I mean, is it any wonder in our society? You know, people don't really watch television anymore.

They like watch Netflix or Hulu and stuff like this. But how many shows out there are dedicated to solving legitimate murders?

There's whole programs dedicated to that topic. In fact, the other day

I had a conversation with my biological father. It was kind of an interesting conversation, asked how he was doing and if he was still working as a substitute teacher.

He had retired from the police force years and years and years ago, actually decades ago now. And he said, no,

I'm no longer working for the school district. The police force in Sitka has hired me to solve cold cases.

That's a thing apparently. And I said, well, have you solved any? He said, funny enough that you would ask.

Very recently I solved a 24 -year -old cold case murder. I said, really?

And he said, yeah, it was kind of interesting. He said, back when the murder took place, it was a rape and a murder of a 19 -year -old girl 24 years ago.

He said, we got a good DNA sample, but the DNA evidence back then, they didn't have the technology to figure out whose family he was from and stuff like this.

Have you ever taken a DNA test from like ancestry .com? Boy, if you haven't done that yet and you end up doing it, you might find people that you're related to that you had no idea.

You know, see, I recently did a DNA test with ancestry .com, and every now and then

I get notifications that they've, well, re -evaluated my DNA. And from that,

I've been able to figure out, well, apparently there's a lot of Irish in me, a bit of Welsh, which I didn't expect, some

Scottish. But here was the big surprise a couple of years ago when the technology hit that next level plateau.

I found out that I had an aunt that I had no idea about. Apparently, my grandfather had sowed some wild oats and there was a young girl conceived as a result of it.

So I have an aunt who's my same age. Talk about awkward. We exchanged emails, but there was no denying it, our

DNA said that we were related. And so my dad, in his cold case, this murder that took place 24 years ago, they were finally able to start to branch out.

They figured out which family this guy was from, were able to get some DNA from other family members.

They narrowed it down and they were finally able to send some police officers to arrest him. He had moved from Alaska down to Arkansas.

And when they showed up, he didn't want to go quietly. So they had to go and actually get an arrest warrant.

And when they came back, he had done himself in. Horrible when you think about it, right?

But here's the thing. We are all capable of this.

And if you think, well, you know, murder is kind of a big thing. Well, let me remind you that murder,

Christ says, is committed every time we hate somebody within our heart.

Every time. It's without fail. And you'll note, how many times do we hear the word hate regarding Joseph's brothers?

He was his father's favorite. They hated him. Couldn't speak well of him. His father made him a coat of many colors.

Hated him even more. He had a dream. And then they hated him even more. And then he had another dream.

And boy, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. But in this

Lenten tide, we, again, are considering our own sin in this regard.

And we must recognize that we are all already guilty of murder, even if we've never physically killed anyone.

And Christ, in his word, calls us to repent and to bear fruit in keeping with repentance in love and forgiveness towards neighbor.

And so I would note that it's very easy to be slighted by somebody or to slight somebody, to hurt their feelings, to do something that could cause them to, well, have feelings of ill will towards you.

But as Christians, we are called to settle our accounts quickly with those whom we sin against and those who have sinned against us by forgiving them, going and telling our brother the sin that they've committed so that they would repent, be forgiven, and reconciled.

And you sit there and go, yeah, but you don't understand what a lousy brother I have. Yeah, actually, I do. And regarding that,

Jesus kind of anticipates it. Because at one point, somebody asked Jesus, how many times should

I forgive my brother if he sins against me? Seven times? And Jesus says, no, 70 times seven.

And he says, even if he comes to you in the same day and says, I'm sorry, 70 times you forgive him each and every time from your heart.

Boy, boy, is that hard. Boy, is that hard. But I would remind you that we are all greatly forgiven in Christ.

And it's here that we consider another aspect of this account. You'll note that the story of Joseph, so many ways, so many touch points, parallels the life of Christ, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and his saving of the world.

Joseph, out of all of the characters in the Old Testament, is the one who is most obviously like Jesus.

And these touch points are actually quite fascinating for us. And so, as we look at the story of Joseph here tonight, we note then the hatred, the absolute shutting off of their heart towards their own brother.

But note then that these brothers of Joseph, they conspired to harm their own father as well.

Knowing full well that Joseph was alive, they let their father mourn and weep for day after day after day for a long period of time, and they didn't even open their mouth to speak a word to him, to offer him any comfort, any solace.

They allowed the roost to stand. It's very sad when you think about it. How must someone hate his own father to do such a thing?

But there's another aspect to this. And as I was reading the Concordia Pulpit, kind of trying to figure out how to work the sermon here tonight, the fellow who put together a sermon on this exact same text in the

Concordia Pulpit noted that there's another similarity between Jesus and Joseph, and that is the silence of God.

Which is an interesting point if you think about it, because in the previous chapters of Genesis, we have seen

God communicating quite clearly with Israel. And as I've already pointed out, well, when

Jacob was in big trouble, he was heading back to Canaan because God verbally told him to go back.

When he was heading back, his brother Esau had 300 armed men and were heading in his direction, and he panicked, decided to take his whole family and his herds and break them up into two groups, thinking that if Esau attacks one group, then maybe at least one group will survive.

And you have to wonder if even Jacob himself was hoping, well, if Esau attacks, I hope he attacks this one, not that one.

He was a fellow who also played favorites with his own wives, if you think about it. And what happens?

God shows up that night and wrestles with Jacob, wrenches his hip, renames him

Israel, and blesses him face to face. And he calls the place itself where this took place,

Pen -e -el, which means the face of God. God is communicating with Israel throughout his life, and then when his son goes missing, it is complete and utter silence.

Not a word. God was a willing participant.

It's a little weird when you think about it, but it's really not. And this is where we want to consider something here, and that is that another parallel between Joseph and Jesus is that when

Jesus, well, when he had been betrayed, not for 20 pieces of silver, but 30, and when he, not thrown into a pit, but was beaten to within an inch of his life, when he was scourged, mocked, and punched in the face, had a crown of thorns driven into his skull, and he was bleeding, and then nailed to a cross and suspended between heaven and earth, why?

Because he was bearing the punishment and the guilt and the iniquity of all of us, you and me included, that when he was on the cross, when the sun darkened,

Christ cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? While Jesus languished, while he suffered in soul, in mind, and definitely in body,

God the Father remained completely silenced, practically turned his face away from Jesus to allow this to all go down.

And if, well, if Israel, if Jacob is any indicator of what the

Father was going through, it had to be horrifically terrible, but yet God remained silent.

And it's here where we recognize that in our walk with Christ, as we journey from our baptismal waters through the wilderness of this life to the world that is to come, the promised land of the new heavens and the new earth, that along the way, there are times when it seems like in the midst of our sufferings,

God isn't, well, offering any words of comfort at all.

Christ says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The psalmist cries out, how long, oh

Lord, will you forget me forever? And it's here that we note that sometimes

God does some of his most important and difficult work. He does it on us in complete silence.

It's painful, but we'll note this, that sometimes the most painful things we have to go through are exactly the things that we need to go through in order to be healed of some of our own sin sickness.

I remember when I was a kid that when I would get the belt from my dad, my dad would always tell me those stupid words, this is going to hurt me more than it hurt you, and it never did, never did ever.

But I think of another time when I had to experience great pain in order to experience a healing.

I know it seems kind of weird if you kind of put it in those terms, but the day before I started the seventh grade, it was the last day of summer, and I didn't want to go shopping with my mother.

Because have you guys noticed this about women? When they go shopping, they wander. Okay, when

I go shopping, I know what I want, I know what aisle it's on, I sometimes even work it out on the app that I have for the store, figure out which aisle, which bay, whatever.

And I go to that store, park my truck, go in, go straight to where the item is, pick it up, go to the self -checkout, and get out.

Women not so much. Women, they just wander around aimlessly. And I don't understand what this is all about.

Well, when I was getting ready to go into the seventh grade, right before school started, my mom decided she wanted to go shopping.

Shopping at, of all places, a place called Savon, it's a drugstore in Southern California.

And I didn't want to go in with her. It was the last day of summer. So what did

I do? I had my roller skates on. And I was roller skating on the sidewalk in front of Savon's while my mother was shopping.

And I hit a bit of uneven pavement. And my roller skates came to a stop, but I didn't.

I went flying like Superman without the ability to fly.

And when I hit the ground, I felt a very weird, warm sensation in my right arm.

And when I looked at it, one of my bones was sticking out of my arm. And I decided it was time to scream bloody murder.

And bloody murder I screamed. And so they figured out who my mother was, brought her out.

And she didn't even put me in an ambulance, she just threw me in her car and we went to go see my stepdad. My stepdad's an

ER physician. So he puts the x -ray, puts my arm under the x -ray, says, yeah, you broke it.

Really? Okay, I knew that. And he says, yeah, but setting this thing's going to be a little bit beyond my skill.

So he called the orthopedic surgeon, who happened to be a personal friend of his. The orthopedic surgeon comes in, takes a look at the x -ray, takes a look at my arm and goes, yep,

I, oddly enough, think I can set this thing and you won't need any surgery. He says, however, because of the way you broke it,

I'm not going to be able to numb it up though. But don't worry, it'll be really quick. It won't be that bad.

Terrible, terrible things to tell a child. So he went ahead and put the plaster on it while it was still soft.

He said, all right, we're going to count to three on three. Ready? One, two, and at two he went and you heard the crack and the scream and the throbbing.

But he said it right. He said it right. But man, did it hurt. It really legitimately hurt.

But you know what? Never broke this arm again. And it works perfectly fine.

That's what I needed at the moment. And so we note that sometimes what we need in order to help us overcome, if you would, by the power of the

Holy Spirit, some of our desire for sin is we need

God's discipline. And God's discipline in the book of Hebrews is oftentimes described in terms of a scourging in and of itself.

It's painful and it's difficult. And you know what? By the silence of God here in this text and by the silence of God while Christ was suffering,

I think it's good that God is silent while he's scourging us. Because we can see that when he is silent, he's working pretty important things.

When he was silent in the case of Joseph, he was working the salvation of the world at that time.

Joseph needed to go into slavery. Even worse, he needed to go into prison for a crime he didn't commit.

And he suffered greatly, the Psalms tell us, as a prisoner. And God didn't speak a word to him.

And he didn't speak a word to Jacob. Had he spoken a word to Jacob, Jacob would have come and rescued him.

And in saving Jacob, he would have imperiled his own life and the life of his own family. And so, as we consider this account, there's so many facets, so many different ways in which we can work this.

But since we're working it in light of our own repentance, let us understand this, that it is a painful process to go through to have

God's law convict us of our sin. It is a painful process that the Holy Spirit goes through in pruning us, in sanctifying us, and God disciplining us because of his great love for us.

And we'll note that it took Jesus himself, bearing our sin on the cross and suffering greatly for us to be reconciled to God.

So let us again repent of all of our malice and hatred, but also let us repent of the ways in which we somehow throw a finger at God and blame him for the suffering that we're upon ourselves, or even worse, when

God is disciplining us and we are not bearing up properly underneath it.

I assure you that each and every one of us deserves far more than the sufferings that we go through. And yet God doesn't give us what we deserve, not now and not in eternity.

So let us repent of disdaining God's silence and embrace it and know that he hasn't forsaken us because Scripture is clear,

I will never leave you or forsake you. But in the midst of that silence, he may in fact be working something very important for our own salvation, just like he did for Joseph, just like he did for Jacob, and just like he did for Jesus.

In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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