church

INI
The 50th Anniversary of the CLC
May 16, 2010
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

The CLC at 50:
REMEMBERING A GREAT DELIVERANCE
Exodus 12:21-27

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you from God the Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, Amen. The text selected for our meditation
on this important day comes from the Old Testament Book of Exodus, chapter
twelve, beginning with the 21st verse, as follows:

Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and
take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb.
And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin,
and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin.
And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. For the
LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood
on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and
not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. And you shall
observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. It will come to
pass when you come to the land which the LORD will give you, just as He
promised, that you shall keep this service. And it shall be, when your children
say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ that you shall say, ‘It is the
Passover sacrifice of the LORD, who passed over the houses of the children of
Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’”
So the people bowed their heads and worshiped. Here ends our text.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, our Great God and Savior, our “Help in ages past
and our hope for years to come,” Dear Fellow Redeemed,

June 6, 1944 is perhaps the most important date in either American or
European military history. You don't have to be much of a history buff to know
that that's the date on which the Allied armies stormed the beaches of
Normandy in the invasion of France. It was the beginning of a great deliverance
as, mile by bloody mile, brave Allied soldiers liberated Europe from the
clutches of a fanatical dictator. Very few of those veterans are left to tell the
story anymore, and those who are left are in their eighties. Memories of that day
are fading. What's not fading - what will never fade - is the tremendous
historical significance of the deliverance that began that day.

Today we are commemorating a deliverance of another sort. It was the
deliverance, fifty years ago, of a small group of Christians from a church that
had fallen into error. In this case, too, the memories are admittedly beginning to
fade a bit. Many of the CLC's founding members have gone home to the Lord,
and those who remain are mostly in retirement. But today, in 2010, it's more
important than ever that we recall the principles that led them to do what they
did. They took a stand for the Gospel, and we must as well. Even more
important, though, we want to focus on the great grace and blessing that the
Lord bestowed upon them and upon us in providing deliverance from the
condemning power of sin. And for that purpose there is an even better analogy
than D-Day, and that's the way in which God delivered His people Israel on the
occasion of the first Passover. That’s our text for today. Join me on this
important occasion as we consider the theme:

The CLC at 50:
REMEMBERING A GREAT DELIVERANCE

I. A deliverance made possible by the blood of the Lamb
II. A deliverance to be held precious in all generations

Anniversaries seem to be all over the place lately. Yesterday was the 30th
Anniversary of the Mt. St. Helens eruption. I read about a father who, on the
day of the eruption, slapped his four-year-old son in the face (something he
never did). “What was that for?” said the surprised boy. “It’s so you will
remember this day,” replied his father. “This day is important.” The events of
our text were a slap in the face for God’s people in Egypt. It was the eve of the
first Passover. Great and momentous things were about to happen, and God
wanted them to remember them and commemorate them to all generation. God
was bringing a great and terrible judgment upon Pharaoh and his people. Israel
would be delivered from that judgment, and delivered from their slavery in
Egypt. That deliverance would come through a lamb’s blood.

Today we are REMEMBERING A GREAT DELIVERANCE. And just as it
was for ancient Israel, it’s important for us to bear in mind that it was a
deliverance made possible by the blood of the Lamb.

God made one thing clear to the Israelites – there was a fearsome judgment
coming upon the land of Egypt. Every first-born son – from the house of
Pharaoh right down to the home of the commonest laborer – would be
destroyed this night. The Israelites could escape that judgment, but only by
following God’s Word to the letter: Pick out and take lambs for yourselves
according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. And you shall take a
bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and
the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go
out of the door of his house until morning. For the LORD will pass through to
strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two
doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to
come into your houses to strike you.

Knowing human nature, I daresay there were a few among the Israelites who
did NOT follow God’s Word to the letter. Who didn’t believe God’s promise of
deliverance. Who thought this business of dabbing blood on the door was silly.
So they didn’t do it, or they didn’t do all of it, or they changed something, or
they left out the part about the blood. The consequence for those people was
death. They were not delivered. On those houses the judgment fell, and the
destroyer slew.

There is a lesson for us. We Christians need to follow ALL of God’s Word. It’s
not safe to do otherwise! God has told us that there is coming a day of fearsome
Judgment upon sin. There’s no doubt about it; it could arrive at any time. When
it does, the vast majority of this world’s people will be cast into the chains of
everlasting darkness in hell. Now, God has prepared a great deliverance for us –
a way to escape that judgment – and that is by trusting in the blood of the
Lamb, Jesus Christ our Savior. Our problem is that we tend to minimize our sin.
I tend to view my situation as not all that bad, my life as fairly upright, at least
compared to others. But the Hebrew word for “deliverance in verse 27 of our
text is a very emphatic term. It indicates a radical rescue from a desperate
situation. We’re not just mildly sinful, we’re desperately sinful. We need a
radical rescue, one that can only be provided by the blood of the Lamb of God.
As Scripture says, The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

The people of Israel were in for a great deliverance. But that deliverance meant
some radical changes. They were leaving the land in which they’d lived for 430
years. They were heading out into a desert. They had nothing to rely on but
God and His Word. Sound familiar? When the founders of the CLC came out of
their former fellowships in the late 50’s and early 60s, there were some radical
changes, too. For many pastors and laymen, their wives and their families, it
meant leaving former fellowships to which they had very close ties. For many
there was the pain of separating from old friends, even close family members.
For some it meant moving to a different part of the country. There are a number
of people in our congregation this morning who went through those changes
and can remember them quite vividly. Perhaps we should ask you: why did you
do it? Was this whole upheaval because of some arcane dispute over a minor
point of doctrine? Did this exodus of people from their former fellowships stem
from the fact that the Wisconsin Synod interpreted Romans 16:17 slightly
differently than we did? Of course not. Far more was at stake than that. L. W.
Schierenbeck, who was pastor of a large church in Austin MN at the time of the
break, may have said it best: "We didn't leave Wisconsin for the doctrine of
church fellowship," he said, "we left for the Gospel."

We left for the Gospel. At the core of the exodus that later became the CLC
was a concern, not over peripheral issues, but over the very heart of the
Christian faith. It wasn't some arcane dispute about endless genealogies. It
wasn't over a “minor point of doctrine;” there's no such thing as a minor point
of doctrine. Jesus said, If you abide in My Word, then you are indeed My
disciples. God's Word is clear, and every single teaching of God's Word is
precious and irreplaceable. Martin Luther once said that, if you allow a single
teaching of Scripture to be lost, what you really lose is this: "... the Word, faith,
Christ, and eternal life. Therefore if you deny God in one article of faith, you
have denied Him in all; for God is not divided into many articles of faith, but
He is everything in each article and He is one in all the articles of faith."
(Lectures on Galatians, 1535).

The founders of the Church of the Lutheran Confession left for the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. They left because they realized this vital truth: that the blood on
the doorposts is the only thing keeping us from the destroyer. The blood of the
Lamb means our very life. And as the people of Israel learned, when your life is
at stake, then it’s not safe to do anything but follow God’s Word to the letter.
The founders of the CLC realized that to tolerate even the most seemingly
minor of errors puts the very Gospel itself in jeopardy. And that they would not
allow, and did not allow. And that's how the CLC came into being, fifty years
ago.

Today we are REMEMBERING A GREAT DELIVERANCE, the deliverance
not just of our church body, but the deliverance of our mortal souls through the
blood of Jesus Christ. And just as it was for ancient Israel, it is important for us
to bear in mind that it this a deliverance to be held precious in all generations.

As a commemoration service, the Passover was pretty graphic. By comparison,
our commemoration of God’s deliverance is downright sedate, isn’t it? We’re
wearing our nice clothes, we’re speaking in a reasonable tone of voice, there is
beautiful music. But what if I did something shocking? What if, as part of our
worship service, I held a living baby sheep in one hand and a knife in the other?
What if, right before your eyes, I killed the lamb by cutting its throat across and
emptying its blood into a basin? It wouldn’t be pretty. In fact it would be very
messy and disturbing. On the other hand, it’s safe to say that this would be a
church service you’d remember for a long, long time, wouldn’t it? Well that’s
what the passover was like. It was meant to be something memorable,
something that would endure in the memory of the Israelites for generations.
Repeated year by year, it was meant to be a graphic reminder to them of how
the Lord delivered them from slavery in Egypt. But more than that, it was a
reminder of how the Lord, through His Son Jesus Christ, would one day deliver
a world full of sinners from the slavery of sin. Isaiah reiterated that prophesy
when he said, All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to
his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was
oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a
lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened
not His mouth. –Is 53:6-7.

Like the passover lamb, Jesus’ death wasn’t pretty. Jesus didn’t die on an
ornate golden cross with hymns playing softly in the background. He died on a
rough-hewn wooden instrument of Roman torture. He died with nails through
His hands and feet. Jesus’ death was extreme and it was disturbing. It couldn’t
be any other way. For the very Lamb of God, innocent of any wrongdoing, was
being put to death – slaughtered – so that He could preserve us from death. So
that His blood, poured out so copiously on that first Good Friday, might
sprinkle sinners like us and make us clean in God’s sight. For if the blood of
bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for
the purifying of the flesh, 14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your
conscience from dead works to serve the living God? -- Heb 9:13-14.

It was a great deliverance when the Lord led our forefathers out of their former
fellowships to found the CLC. But deeper and far more significant is the
personal deliverance that God has wrought for you in Jesus Christ. Regardless
of the sins that lie in your background, God has provided a rescue for you.
You’ve been freed, by the blood of Christ, from the gnawing, clawing guilt of
your transgressions. What a great deliverance is your deliverance in Christ! The
destroyer has passed over your house. You’ve been rescued from hell. You will,
one day, be delivered to heaven! With what joy you can now accept the gentle
invitation of your Savior, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am
gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” – Mt 11:28-29.

For the original Israelites who left Egypt that night, none of them would forget
the events of the Exodus. How could they? They were eyewitnesses of the
terrible destruction of Egypt’s firstborn; the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of
cloud and fire, the manna, the quails, the water from the rock, the smoking Mt.
Sinai. They couldn’t forget, but what about their children, and their
grandchildren? Years pass. Memories grow dim. In a couple of generations the
Israelites would be comfortably settled in the Land of Canaan and then who
would remember the Lord’s great deliverance? So the Lord gave His people the
Passover, this commemorative service to remind them. Don’t forget! He said.
Remember what a great deliverance I accomplished for you! You shall observe
this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. It will come to pass
when you come to the land which the LORD will give you, just as He
promised, that you shall keep this service. And it shall be, when your children
say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ that you shall say, ‘It is the
Passover sacrifice of the LORD, who passed over the houses of the children of
Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.’

What about us? Will we keep alive the memory of how God brought about the
formation of the CLC fifty years ago? Or have the fires cooled since then? Have
we still got our first love, the commitment to the Gospel that those people had
all those many years ago? We'd better have! Because the stakes are just as high
or higher now than they ever were back then. If the pressure to compromise on
doctrine was heavy in 1960, it is crushing in 2010. Our synod and indeed our
own congregation have lost members, people who wanted to compromise on
doctrine, people who believed that the standard for joint worship should be
something less than complete agreement in doctrine and practice. But we will
not compromise. We in the CLC will continue to follow God’s Word to the very
letter. Why? Because it isn’t safe not to. We will continue to, as the Bible says,
“contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”
Jude 1:3. When we finish our race on this earth, may we each be able to say,
with the Apostle Paul, I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel
of God. – Acts 20:27. And when our children say to us in future generations,
“What is this service,” we will say, “It is the commemoration of the great
deliverance God has granted us in Jesus Christ!”

A while back the Today Show marked the 20th anniversary of a radical rescue.
Their special guest was a young woman named Jessica McClure. If that name
rings a bell for you, it ought to. 20 years ago she was known to the whole world
as "Baby Jessica," an 18-month-old girl who fell down a narrow, abandoned
well-pipe in Midland Texas. You may remember how, after 59 hours of
desperate work, the toddler was successfully rescued. It was a great and
heartwarming deliverance. Today our hearts are warmed on the anniversary of
another great deliverance. Not just the deliverance of our church body from an
erring former fellowship. Important as that is, it pales in comparison with the
truly great deliverance - God's deliverance of our souls from the death-grip of
sin. It's a deliverance made possible by the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus
Christ our Savior. And it is, surely, a deliverance to be held precious in all our
future generations. May God grant it, for Jesus’ sake, AMEN.