The Burr in the Burgh

Concordia Lutheran High School , Fort Wayne, IN
April 22, 2009
Text: 1 Cor 12:12-20; John 15:1-8

Just to introduce myself: I am Pastor Scott Stiegemeyer.  I’m the Director of Admission at Concordia Theological Seminary.  I go all over the country talking to young men about becoming pastors and young women about becoming deaconesses, but that is not why I am here with you today.  I am here with you now to proclaim the good news of free salvation through Jesus Christ.

I understand that this is Fine Arts Week.  You are emphasizing the

importance of the fine arts: such as music, and painting and drawing and sculpture or graphic design, and poetry or drama or creative writing…

I also noticed, according to my Google calendar that today is Earth Day.  Many in our culture recognize this, not particularly from a Christian perspective.  Many in the green ecological movement are subject to various neo-pagan ideas about the earth and the place of human beings in the ecosystem.

As Christians, we can participate in these things in our own ways because we understand that God is the Creator of the planet and all that lives on it, everything from the mighty sequoia forest to the mold that grows in between the tiles in your bathroom.  Everything from the tiniest microbes that live their whole lives on particles of dust inside your pillow cases to you yourselves, young men and women, the pinnacle of God’s creative work.

God is the maker of all things, visible and invisible.  The earth and all that is in it belongs to the Lord.  We do not really own anything.  Not even our bodies truly belong to us.  We belong to God.  Everything we have is really a gift from God, or you might say, on loan from God.

God is a giver.  He gives us our bodies, our skills, our talents, our abilities and all of our resources.  Christians understands that with God as the creator and owner, we are merely just stewards or managers of the resources we possess.  That includes things like the forests and the seas and the soil beneath our feet.  It also includes our voices and hands, our minds and hearts.  We may use these things, but whatsoever you do, do all things to bring glory to God.

Just two weeks ago, in our churches and around the world, Christians

celebrated the most holy day of the year, the Queen of Feasts.

Easter, as you probably know, is the commemoration of the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  We believe that Jesus died on the cross, but that he literally and bodily came back to life again, arose and then ascended into heaven, where He sits at the right hand of the Father ruling and governing the universe.

The Christian story does not end there, of course.  We also believe Jesus will return and when He returns, He will judge the living and the dead.  If that happens a long time from now, and if you or I happen to be dead at the time of His return, He will raise you literally and bodily from the grave.  And all of us will be changed.

Now, I’m going to tie this in, you’ll see, to FINE ARTS WEEK and EARTH DAY, but first I need to make one other point.  And that point is that people today and people of all times have been concerned with death.  Understandably.  Death is really our number one problem.  Not the war in Iraq or the wobbly economy.  Those are big problems, but ultimately, the greatest problem we have is DEATH and the prospect of death.  Scientific study has shown that the death rate among living things is 100%.  All of us will encounter it.

The mythology of our popular culture tries to deal with the concept of death in weird and fanciful manners.  One of the most popular genres of entertainment for Americans your age is the horror genre.  And as I look at it, the horror genre is one of the few genres of entertainment that seriously wrestles with the hard question of what are we going to do about death.

My wife is an English professor and one of her favorite authors is Jane Austen.  You’ve probably heard of the classic, Pride and Prejudice. Well, now the big hit is this one: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance -Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!What do you think of that?

And here is another book I’ve been reading lately: Let the Right One In. It’s a best-selling Swedish vampire novel that was recently adapted into a critically acclaimed film.

In popular culture right now, especially for young adults, zombies and vampires are very in style.  Zombies are the living dead.  Vampires are the undead.  Think also of the Frankenstein story.  There you have science trying to overcome death with medicine and technology, to bring dead body parts back to life as a supreme man.  It always fails.  Our human attempts to conquer death will always fail.

God is the Creator.  His proper work is to create life and make it prosper and flourish.  It is not His proper work to kill or destroy.  Sin has caused that to happen in His otherwise good creation.  Like all the earth, we have been tainted with sin, polluted, if you will.

The Green movement teaches us to recycle.  Recycle your paper, your plastic, your metal good.  Recycling makes sense to me.  Then you can use a product once.  When it is all used up, you throw it away.  It gets recycled and then you can use it again.  And the circle goes on and on.

But God, as usual, has a better way.  Easter is not God’s ultimate recycling project.  A man lives, gets used up.  He dies, gets tossed away like garbage.  Then God recycles Him and He lives again and the circle goes on.  That is not the way it is with God.  When God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, it was not just a recycling.  It was a glorious transformation.  The life that comes after the resurrection will never wear out, it will never get used up.  Jesus will never need to be tossed away again.

The same thing that happened to Jesus, happens to you, for you.  Through your holy baptism, you have been united to Christ’s death and resurrection.  His resurrection power is now alive within you, which is just me saying that Jesus Christ is alive within you.  And though, yes, your current body and spirit will one day wear out, get used up and need to be planted into the ground.  But you, like Jesus, will rise with a glorious life that will never end.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.