We preach Christ crucified

1 Corinthians 2:1-5 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. ² For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. ⁴ My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, ⁵ so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

This past week, my 8-year-old daughter, Lydia, was helping me put up a Training Camp poster on the bulletin board in the school stairway. A pushpin fell on the floor. Lydia said, “Let me get that for you, Dad.” Now, before you think she is as sweet and innocent as she looks, she really said, “Let me get that for you, Dad … because you’re old.”

Well, if I’m too old at 41 to bend over to pick up a pushpin off the floor, then, certainly, Epiphany must be too old to do anything of any importance at age 85. Except, look at what God has accomplished through His saints here at Epiphany.

We’ve come a long way from a mission congregation in a storefront on Taylor Avenue. Lutherans typically do not like change very much, but over the years, Epiphany has changed and grown tremendously. The main entrance to the church was changed and a car port created. Stained glass windows representing the Means of grace were added on the west wall. The choir loft and the picture of Jesus praying in Gethsemane were removed and replaced with arches and symbols of the Holy Trinity. A school was started with the Kindergarten classroom where the Friendship Room is now. Then a school addition was built with huge classrooms, a cafeteria and a kitchen. Epiphany joined with First Evan to run the joint school called Wisconsin Lutheran School. These are just some of the wonderful changes that have been seen at Epiphany as she grew older.

Then in her late 70s and early 80s, when many people might be nearing retirement and considering slowing down, Epiphany picked up momentum again. A new, lighted sign pointed people to the epiphany that was happening inside the church. The coatroom was removed and new bathrooms installed, while the downstairs bathrooms also received a huge makeover. Then we wanted to make the interior of the church look as nice as our bathrooms. So the walls were repainted, the gold leaf was touched up and the woodwork was washed and stained. New white sound fabric and beautiful oak arches were added in preparation for our tryptic. But perhaps the biggest change was noted by some of our littlest ones who commented last year, “All the cracks are gone!”

In the meantime, we paid off a $50,000 mortgage within two months of fundraising. Now at our last voters meeting, we voted to call a new first grade teacher, expand the size of our school to a possibility of 190 students and a budget of a staggering $1.2 million dollars.

Then to celebrate Epiphany’s 85^th anniversary and honor the 12 beautiful stained glass windows that grace our church, additional oak woodwork and grand artwork were created and installed. New lighting was added throughout the church to brighten the mood and imitate the light and joy within God’s sanctuary. Epiphany isn’t slowing down with age … she’s only getting her second wind!

And yet, with all that God is accomplishing here at Epiphany, I wonder if we are taking for granted the work that God has put into this building, our ministries and His people. There are a number of reasons why I question whether all of us truly appreciate what is happening here.

Offerings are down $10,000 in just the past few months. God’s people aren’t giving because God’s people aren't worshiping in God’s house. I've said the same thing for 8 years -- we don't have a money problem at Epiphany; we have a spiritual problem at Epiphany. Attendance this past year for worship and Bible Class and important meetings has been abysmal. Pitiful. Frankly, embarrassing. We average less than 200 on a Sunday morning. That means about 60% of the adults and children who consider themselves members in our care do not think that it is important enough to be here on a Sunday morning. Sports, sleep, work, vacation, all take precedence over the priority of giving God the glory for the great things He has done.

It was a sad statement that someone made to me that we now have more members at Ridgewood nursing home than have shown up for some Sundays for church. Someone else asked the other night before our Wednesday evening worship, “Where are all the people?” I said, “It’s too nice outside, so people have other things to do.” He commented, “And when it’s too cold outside, the people stay away then, too.” Or if the children aren’t singing on Sunday, then the families are doing something else.

We have huge, ministry altering decisions to be made at our voters meetings, yet we had only 13 voters at Tuesday night’s meeting. 13 voters out of 200! And only 3 of them have children in our school.

We want fantastic Lutheran worship, but we don’t want to make the commitment to regularly take part in it. We’d rather just complain that its boring. We want growth in our school, but we don’t want the hassle of attending meetings and making decisions. We’d rather grumble and gossip in the basketball stands or in the school parking lot. We want our marriages to be loving, our children to be obedient, our work environment to be satisfying, but we don’t want to put in the effort to actually listen to the one tool God has given us for accomplishing these things – His Holy Bible. We’d rather get in another hour of fruitless labor. We want our called workers to be supported financially, the exterior of our church to be inviting, the school to teach more children about Christ and the Gospel to be spread throughout our community, but we don’t want to make the sacrifice of supporting our ministries with real money. We’d rather spend it on ourselves and hope others pick up the slack.

Thanks be to God that He has accomplished so much here at Epiphany through sinful people like you being led by sinful pastors like us. You can see how unsuited all of us are for these great and difficult tasks. If we had lacked God’s help, we would have ruined everything long ago. We would easily have wrecked it all.

Pastor Kraus, Pastor Wasserman and I can all join with Pastor Paul with both humility and confidence in saying, “I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. … I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.” This church and school did not change and grow over the years because of its leaders. Nor did it change and grow because of the people who sat in the pews. It all happened because of the message that was preached from this pulpit, played from the pipe organ, sung, confessed and believed by the members and taught by the teachers in the classrooms. And what is that message that can cause such dramatic changes without the aid of pastor or people?

“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

We preach Christ crucified. Though the paint color has changed, the people have changed, the pastors have changed – one thing has remained exactly the same since January 1925 through January 2012 – we preach Christ crucified!

Or as Jesus said today in His Gospel, “Let us go … to the nearby villages so I can preach there also.” Why? Jesus added, “That is why I have come” (Mark 1:38).

We have worked hard over the years to beautify our church. But, I think, we have the tendency to also try to clean up the cross and turn it from an instrument of death into a thing of beauty. A brass cross to adorn the altar, a silver cross to wear around our necks, a wooden cross to afix to our walls. But the cross is not art – it is an instrument of death. But it was the instrument that the Father chose to allow His Son to die upon. There is no beauty here, only blood. There is no art here, only innocence. There is no pleasure here, but there is divine love.

We like it when Jesus says from the cross, “Father, forgiven them for they know not what they are doing.” But it pains us to hear Him cry out, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!” We like the comforting image of Jesus carrying the lamb in His arms, but don’t forget the image of the sacrficial Lamb upon the altar of the cross – the sour drugged wine, the heaving breaths, the nailed hands, the thorn-crowned head, the blood-stained robe, the pierced side. Images not pretty, but profound.

Beauty may be the reason for the paint, woodwork, stained glass and paintings. But the purpose of the cross is redemption. Dirty, messy, wounded, hurting and dying sinners required a God who would get dirty with them, who entered their messy world, who was wounded for their transgressions, who bled for their forgiveness and who died that they mighty live. A God who died so that He would end death’s reign over us and instead grant us life eternal. We nail our lack of worship to the cross. We bury our laziness and apathy in the open tomb. We take our stingy, greedy, self-centered hearts and have them washed and atoned for in Christ’s blood. We take our stubbornness, our gossip, our grumbling, our reluctance and resistance, our ill thoughts, our angry words, our improper actions – all of our many and varied sins – and we given them to the bloody Christ nailed upon the cross so He can then give the beauty of His forgiveness, life and salvation to us in exchange. No, there is no beauty in the cross, but there is beauty and power in proclaining what Christ accomplished on the cross.

And that’s why we are here. We preach Christ crucified. Yes, God has accomplished great things at Epiphany through His forgiven saints. But the truly great accomplishments are not on the walls of this church, but what has happened within the walls of this church. Bringing a man and woman together in a commitment of love as husband and wife for life. Pouring water upon a child’s head and ripping her out of Satan’s clutches and placing her into God’s holy family. Sometimes force-feeing 8^th graders the Bread of Life in classes so they are ready to taste the Body and Blood of Christ upon their confirmation. Comforting hurting souls with the message of Christ’s forgiveness in the Absolution; taking sins and putting them on Christ in the Kyrie, giving our Triune God praise for His salvation in the Gloria. Making sinners feel the flames of hell licking at the soles of their feet when the Law is preached in all of its severity, and then offering the gentle whisper of sins forgiven in the Gospel proclaimed in all its sweetness. Feeding desperate souls the strengthening meal of Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper; availing ourselves of God’s power in our prayers for Gods’ people; and consoling the grieving with the message of life eternal in the risen Lord. All through the crucified Christ.

Basically, we are still doing today the same glorious things that those before us were doing in this church 85 years ago. As much as things change, they also stay the same. Yes, though some people’s children may think that we are all getting older and slower, with more wrinkles and white hair, this church is not.

A lot has changed at Epiphany in 85 years. But one thing remains the same today as it did in the first sermon preached from this pulpit in January 1927. We preach Christ crucified. Amen.

85^th anniversary of Epiphany Lutheran Church on January 29, 2012