Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

It is always best to anchor to bedrock, that is, the rock that is part of the land mass itself. If you anchor to loose rock, you will become loose as well. If your anchor is just in the sand, then wind and wave can move it. It is important to be anchored to sure and stable rock if you want stability for your house, your fence, your retaining wall, your gazebo, your boat, your hot air balloon, and most importantly, your life.

 

The pressures on our lives are more than just those of the decaying natural world, although recently we have felt those pressures on our lives especially. We have had unusual weather systems of wind that knocked down large trees throughout Thorold; hail that damaged cars and houses in the south end of St. Catharines; torrential rains that produced flooded homes in the north end, and wildfire smoke across the continent that increased risk to those with respiratory and heart conditions. These natural forces threatened our stability in very real ways. But they are not the only forces that cause us instability.

 

St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians about “being tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14). We feel instability due to a reproachful world. Our sense of decency and morality is skewed by the society in which we live. Many of our assumptions and expectations of the behaviour of others is shaken when we fall victim to those who lie and deceive and cheat and steal.

 

And besides the outright criminal behaviour of some, there is the upsetting reality that people don’t stand by their word, they don’t keep promises, they take advantage of the good nature of others, and assume that is just the way that the world works. We cannot rely on what we thought was foundational for society and that makes our lives unstable.

 

It is all the more common in regard to our religious life. The pressure is on in Canadian society to reject the idea of God and sin and salvation. Not only has the understanding of what is right and what is wrong shifted, but the whole idea that we are accountable in any way has been ripped out from under our feet. If we have a leg to stand on, there doesn’t seem to be a firm place to set our foot down. Even the vocabulary begs for some kind of anchor. There needs to be an understanding, something under our feet which will not move. Things are shifting, eroding. We are losing the foundation.

 

In order to survive, we have been trying to fly by the wind, swim with the tide, and go with the flow. Sometimes it seems the only way to survive. If our anchor has nothing to hold to, then we have to let the stream carry us along with it. And so we give in to the changing moral decay of our society. We adopt deceitful and crafty practices, because that is the way that the world works. Instead of looking to God’s Word for what is right or wrong for our lives, we make up our own mind and justify it by pointing to what someone else has done. And by doing so we have let go of the one firm and solid rock that would give us stability and permanence.

 

This is sin. It is sinful to reject God’s Word. It is sinful to conform our lives to anyone else’s standard other than His. So we are even more unstable because we are no longer sure if God is on our side or not. We know we have thrown His rules out the window and tried to ride out the stormy wind and waves of life in a wicked and fallen world. We don’t feel stable even with God because our sins arouse His wrath and anger.

 

We are not the first people in history to feel this way. We are not the first of God’s people to feel these pressures and suffer instability and insecurity in our lives. The LORD spoke through the prophet Isaiah to people who feel as unstable as we do, and in speaking to them, He speaks to us. “Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness [what is right, in order to have the stability of knowing that everything is right with you], you who seek the LORD; look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug” (Isaiah 51:1).

 

God’s people in Isaiah’s day were tossed and buffeted just like you, by the pressures of a society losing its morality, and an unstable political situation, and a failing economy. You have become broken off from the bedrock. You need to be anchored to it once again. You have become a slab dug out of the quarry, separated from the immovable strata of stone. You need to become one with it again.

 

How is such a thing possible? Can a boulder broken off from bedrock become one with it again? What short of the Word of God which spoke at Creation for the dry land to appear and “called the dry land Earth” (Genesis 1:9, 10), could attach a boulder firmly back to the bedrock? Nothing. Nothing but the Word of God, and that is what you have. You have the creative power of the Word of the Almighty God to give you stability against all of the pressures that are exerted upon your life.

 

It is the Word of God that gave stability to Abraham when he was called to leave his country and his father’s house to go to an undisclosed land where God would make him the father of many nations (Genesis 12:1-3). God called to this one person with His Word of promise so that He might bless him and increase him and make him our father of faith. Truly his offspring are like the stars of the night sky in number (Genesis 15:5). It was God’s Word of promise that gave stability to Abraham through his life as the pressures of the fallen world, its wicked people, and his own sins stormed against him.

 

God’s Word of promise gave stability to the children of Israel as they wandered through the wilderness, having been freed from slavery in Egypt and heading toward the land of promise. Along the way, the LORD’s Word transformed the desert into oases of refreshment for them in their times of need. He promised to send them bread from heaven and He did every morning (Exodus 16:35). He promised to provide water in the waste places and He did when they thirsted (Exodus 17:6). He promised to give them victory over their enemies and He did when they were attacked and attempts were made to divert them (Deuteronomy 2:24-25). He promised to be with them to save them and He did, from the pressures of the fallen world, the wicked people in it, and their own sins of rebellion and rejection along the way.

 

God’s Word of promise is still there for you. It is all gathered together in a book for your convenience. And in that book we find a Word of promise about this fallen world: that the wilderness in which we live will become like the garden of Eden in paradise (Isaiah 51:3). In the Bible we find a Word of promise for the sadness and despair that we feel living in a wicked society: that the desert places will be filled with joy and gladness, thanksgiving and song (Isaiah 51:3). And in God’s Word we find the promise for the instability that we suffer over the knowledge of our sins: that God has sent His Word into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, to provide us with the righteousness of God through His death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins (Isaiah 51:5; John 1:14).

 

This is our consolation, consolation for all people, even consolation for the created world decaying under the curse of mankind’s sin. God’s Word that created all things in the beginning is our only hope for stability when things are falling apart. His Word anchors us to a place of stability, to the God who created all things, who promised redemption and restoration, who sent His eternal Son into our frail flesh in order to give us the stability we need: the forgiveness of our sins, justice and righteousness before Him, and the restoration of this world to a safe and stable paradise in the new creation.

 

Look to the rock from which you were hewn, the God whose Word of promise gives stability and strength against all of the pressures of this life. Peter grasped this when Jesus asked “’Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’” (Matthew 16:15-18).

 

Peter found the rock, the bedrock upon which he could rely. It is God’s Word of promise to send His Word into the world to bring justice and righteousness and salvation to our lives of instability. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. He is the Word of God made flesh and anchored to Him not even the gates of hell can prevail against His Church, His people gathered around His Word, you here today.

 

When life feels unstable, look to the rock from which you were hewn. Give attention to the Word of God, God’s promise to you in Christ Jesus. There you find the forgiveness of your sins of rejection, rebellion, and despair. There you find a solid confession of truth and justice against the wicked principles of society. There you find the promise of a paradise from the One who created this world now decaying under the curse of our sin. There is the stability you have been searching for, the place to anchor through the storm.

 

The Church is gathered around and anchored to the Word of God because we need stability in this life. The pressures against us will wear us down and wash us away unless we are anchored to the rock. The Lutheran Church has always been one that stands firmly upon the Word. When Martin Luther faced the trial at Worms, this was his individual statement: “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God... I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen” (Luther’s Works. AE. 32:112-113).

 

When the Lutheran princes of the German territories gave their confession at Augsburg they too took their stand upon the Word of God. “When the Emperor, after entering Augsburg, stubbornly demanded that the Lutherans cease preaching, Margrave George of Brandenburg finally declared: ‘Rather than deny my God and suffer the Word of God to be taken from me, I will kneel down and have my head struck off.’” (Concordia Triglotta, Historical Introduction, page 23).

 

Both as individual Christians and as a gathered body of the Church, we continue to stand upon the Word of God. Our Divine Service is grounded upon the Word of God. In the Lutheran Service Book you can see the Scripture references provided for what is said and sung in our liturgy. The Readings of the Word of God are interspersed with sung phrases from the Word of God. The Creed we confess is a summary of the Word of God. The sermon is always based on the Word of God and not on the cultural buzzwords of society. The hymns that we sing are founded on the Word of God and nothing contrary or inconsistent to His Word is present.

 

It is because we recognize that only by being anchored to God’s Word, the confession of Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God will we have stability in these days and throughout all days. And so it needs to be in our lives as God’s people even when we are not gathered together here. We still need to live anchored to the Word of God, every day, otherwise things are not stable through the storms.

 

There definitely are storms and turmoil. Abraham experienced them, Peter experienced them. All of the children of God experience them. But we are anchored to bedrock. We have the promises of God’s Word fulfilled in Jesus Christ our Saviour. Be anchored to the rock and you will have stability for the turmoil of life.