On This Day

 On This Day

Psalm 118:24[1]

On this day we come together to celebrate the heart of our faith: Jesus who died was raised to life! For those of us who have grown up with it, we accept that Jesus rose again on the third day as the heart of our faith. But none of us has first-hand experience with the resurrection of Jesus. At least not in the same way that his original followers did. They experienced his physical presence after he was raised from the dead. They ate with him. They could touch him. None of us has that kind of first-hand experience with the Easter miracle. But we can experience the risen Lord in our lives “first-hand” in a different way.

We can sense the presence of the Spirit, we can feel Jesus’ call to compassion, and we can enjoy the love of the God who is always with us wherever we go. At the end of the day, I think that’s what our celebration of Easter is about. We may not have the same kind of first-hand experience of Jesus the risen Lord as his disciples did. But we do have Jesus’ living presence in our hearts and in our lives. And we celebrate Easter Sunday because the same Spirit of the risen Christ that the first disciples experienced physically all those years ago lives in you and in me and in all who know his continuing presence.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you may have noticed that I do something different on Palm Sunday. We typically use verses from Psalm 118 for our call to worship. But one of the verses doesn’t sound quite right. It’s the one that usually says, “This is the day that the lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). That verse has become so much a part of Christian life and worship that some might think it’s going too far for me to tinker with it. But being the student of the Bible that I am, I have to read that verse in the context of Psalm 118 as a whole.

When you do that, when you read the whole of Psalm 118, you find that the Psalm is a celebration of a kind of death-to-life restoration. The psalmsinger speaks of being in distress, of being surrounded on every side (Ps 118:5, 10-11) and being “pushed hard” to the point of falling (Ps 118:13). It sounds like the psalmsinger was engaged in battle and at the point of what must have felt like certain death. It’s in that setting that the psalmsinger affirms, “The LORD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation” (Ps 118:14). He celebrates that the Lord has delivered him from what may have seemed like certain defeat.

Because of that, the psalmsinger rejoices that “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). That’s the way most English translations put it. But if we pay attention to the context, it seems like there’s more to this verse than just celebrating God’s hand in every new day. The psalmsinger is celebrating a special day of deliverance. And so that verse that’s so familiar to us probably shouldn’t be read as “this is the day the Lord has made.” It probably should be read as a celebration of “the day of the Lord’s victory” (Ps 118:24, GNT), an act so unexpected, so “marvelous” (Ps 118:23) that all we can do is to “rejoice and be glad in what he has done.” And so, in my humble opinion, we should say, “This is the day of the Lord’s victory, we will rejoice and be glad in what he has done.”

I think that’s what Easter is about. It’s a celebration that on this day, all those years ago, God acted decisively to break the power of everything that threatens to oppress or distort or destroy our humanity. It’s a celebration that, on this day, God took all our pain and sorrow and suffering and loss and death and turned it into new life. Easter is the celebration that the new life that came into being on that day will one day transform everything and everyone. It’s a celebration that, on this day, God acted to demonstrate that he is constantly working to restore the whole creation to the place where it is once again “very good,” as it was in the beginning. When that happens, “the Lord’s victory” will be complete.

I know all of that may sound very hard to believe, especially in the light of all that’s going on in the world these days. But I believe it’s part of the Easter miracle that began all those years ago. It may sound hard to believe, but our first-hand experience of the risen Christ alive and present in our lives serves as a basis for our faith in the Easter miracle that continues to “this day.” Because of what God did in and through Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Christ is alive and present in all our lives. And so “on this day” we “rejoice and are glad in what he has done.” Because of what God did in and through Jesus, we experience the “marvelous” work of the God who is bringing salvation—grace and peace and mercy and love and joy and new life—into every life. And as we celebrate that “This is the day of the Lord’s victory,” we experience that “marvelous” work of God in our own lives. And so we “rejoice are glad in what he has done.”

In one respect what we celebrate happened a long time ago in a land far, far away. But because we know Jesus’ living presence in our hearts and our lives just as the first believers did, just as faithful people throughout the ages have, we do more than remember what happened on that first Easter. For us, every Easter, indeed every Sunday, becomes a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Every Easter, indeed every Sunday, is meant to be a celebration of the new life that God has “injected” into this life to transform us all. It’s a day for us to celebrate that “this is the day of the Lord’s victory, we will rejoice and be glad in what he has done!”

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/5/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

The True Meaning of Obedience

 The True Meaning of Obedience

Isaiah 53:1-12[1]

One of the greatest challenges we may face in this life is undeserved suffering. It’s not hard to find plenty of examples. Especially with all the pain and suffering in this world inflicted by violence! In fact, if we pay close enough attention, we might be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who live with suffering that they didn’t do a thing to deserve. This can call into question our faith in God’s grace and mercy and love at its very core. We see that innocent people who put their faith in God the most are often the ones who suffer the most, and it’s a hard pill to swallow. And unfortunately, many good people lose their faith in a loving God because it’s all so overwhelming.

Our lesson from Isaiah is perhaps one of the best-known descriptions of undeserved suffering in the Bible. It’s one of several “Servant Songs” in Isaiah, where the prophet proclaims the role of the “Servant of the Lord” in carrying out God’s purposes. The “Servant” is the one who will set things right for those who have been oppressed (Isa. 42:1-4). The “Servant” will bring “light” to restore Israel, but also to grant the “nations” salvation as well (Isa. 49:1-6). In this chapter, the “Servant” takes the sufferings of “the many” on himself to fulfill God’s purpose to bless us all with salvation.

The “Servant of the Lord” in this passage willingly offers himself to endure undeserved mistreatment for the sake of others. As the Scripture puts it, “He was painfully abused, but he did not complain. He was silent like a lamb being led to the butcher, as quiet as a sheep having its wool cut off” (Isa 53:7, CEV). Unfortunately, for all his pain and suffering, he was despised by the very people for whom he was suffering. Again, the Scripture puts it this way, “He was hated and rejected; his life was filled with sorrow and terrible suffering. No one wanted to look at him. We despised him and said, ‘He is a nobody!’” (Isa 53:3, CEV).

As I’ve mentioned many times, in those days anyone who suffered was thought to have done something to deserve it. The idea was that if you obey God, you’ll be “blessed.” But if you’re suffering in any way, you must have done something wrong. But our lesson from Isaiah shows us that sometimes people suffer unjustly, like the “Servant of the Lord.” And all too often when they do so, those who benefit from their suffering may misjudge them. Isaiah puts it this way: “He suffered and endured great pain for us, but we thought his suffering was punishment from God” (Isa 53:4, CEV). And it also says, “Others thought he was a sinner, but he suffered for our sins and asked God to forgive us” (Isa 53:12, CEV). All too often, those who suffer for the sake of others are judged harshly for it!

One of the challenges this passage presents is the idea that somehow an “angry God” made Jesus suffer in this way to satisfy a need to punish us for our sins. But the image of God as a punishing God is a scary one in a world where there’s so much abuse and violence. If God is angry and punishing, perhaps he’s not much different from someone who’s violent and abusive. Simply put, I don’t think that’s the point of Isaiah 53. I think the point is that God’s “Servant” is called to suffer on behalf of others because that’s what God does. God suffers for us! The God who never quits loving us is a God who suffers for us and with us. That’s what our Study Catechism says: “In Jesus Christ God suffers with us, knowing all our sorrows. In raising him from the dead, God gives new hope to the world. Our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is himself God’s promise that suffering will come to an end, that death shall be no more, and that all things will be made new.”[2] The idea is that  it’s precisely through his suffering on the cross that Jesus accomplished all of this. And it was all what God desired for us all.

What we see when we look at Jesus on that cross is God’s love poured out for us, taking on all the pain and suffering of the world. God takes that suffering on himself precisely because it’s the only way to truly set things right in a world of violence and injustice. And the reason for it was that we might find God right in the middle of it all, using the undeserved suffering of the one who served him best to create new life. It’s one of the great mysteries of our faith. We see in Jesus a “suffering servant” who is willing to fulfill God’s love for us even when it leads him to a humiliating death on a cross.

I think that puts the undeserved suffering in our world in a whole different light. Our Scripture lesson speaks of the “Servant’s” willingness to suffer for others what he didn’t deserve. It says it this way in the Contemporary English Version: “By suffering, the servant will learn the true meaning of obeying the LORD” (Isa 53:11, CEV). The prophet Isaiah tells us that the experience of the “Servant of the Lord” who suffered for the benefit of others without deserving it was “the true meaning of obeying the LORD”! Instead of expecting obedience to lead us to God’s “blessing,” in the example of Jesus, we see “the true meaning of obedience”: the willingness to fulfill God’s purpose even and especially when it leads to undeserved suffering.

That can turn our whole approach faith upside-down. I’ve never been in the military, and I’ve never been in combat. I have a son who was in combat in Iraq. I had a friend in college who had been in combat in Vietnam. What I know from talking to my friend and talking to my son is that those who have gone to war were giving their lives for their friends. They were “suffering,” they were making at times great sacrifices for the sake of their friends. There are all kinds of political interpretations of the wars we get into as a country, but when it comes right down to it, soldiers in combat are fighting for the lives of their friends. I think that’s a great illustration of this very idea of the undeserved suffering that some take on themselves for the sake of others.

Most of us practice our faith for the reward we’ll get from it. But Jesus calls us all to take up our cross and follow him. I think that means that if we’re truly going to obey God, we may very well find ourselves undergoing undeserved suffering of our own for the sake of others. Instead of expecting to be rewarded for our efforts to obey God, Jesus’ example points us in a very different direction. His example shows us that the “true meaning of obedience” is to carry out God’s purposes in this world, no matter what it may cost us. That may not be what we want to hear. It’s a tall order for us to fulfill. But it seems to me that when we read this passage from the prophet Isaiah through the lens of Jesus’ death on the cross, we can rest assured that if our obedience to God leads us to undeserved suffering for the sake of others, we can do so in the assurance that we’re taking part in God’s work of renewing and restoring and redeeming this world and all of us in it. It doesn’t make it any easier. But our Scripture lesson reminds us that when we do suffer in this way, there’s a meaning and a purpose to it. There’s something greater that we’re giving our lives for. Our lesson for today suggests that’s the true meaning of obedience. Not obeying for the sake of a reward, but obeying for the sake of fulfilling God’s purpose for all people in this world.

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/2/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. “The Study Catechism,” 1998, q. 14.

Always in God's Care

Always in God’s Care

Psalm 31[1]

This morning I’d like to share with you another of my occasional stories about my experience with a particular passage of Scripture. I’d like to share with you my journey with Psalm 31. Like many of you, I probably first heard the words “Into your hands I commend my Spirit” from the story of Jesus’ death on the cross in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 23:46). My first serious Bible was a King James Version, and it had every verse divided separately, so it was hard to tell when people in the New Testament were quoting from the Old Testament. I soon switched to the New International Version, and they print things differently, so you can tell when someone is quoting from the Old Testament. That’s probably where I first noticed that Jesus was quoting from the Psalm. I don’t remember the exact timeframe for this, but it was a while ago.

I took my first Hebrew class in College, and then I took the required year of Hebrew in Seminary. But I found Hebrew to be harder and more confusing than Greek, and I wanted to try to master it. So I took a “Hebrew Exegesis” class to help level up my skills. It wasn’t until I started digging into the Hebrew Bible more consistently when I was in my mid- to late-twenties that I began to notice some interesting things going on with the language of the Hebrew Bible that weren’t always reflected in the English translations. And I was especially drawn to the Psalms. Along with Isaiah, they’re probably my favorite part of the Old Testament.

A case in point is the English translation of Psalm 31:5, “Into your hands I commend my Spirit.” It sounds like a prayer someone might pray when they’re dying. That’s likely influenced by the fact that Jesus prayed that prayer as he was dying. But just the language of “giving up” one’s “spirit” seems to lend itself to that understanding. When I read the verse with that in mind, I’m not sure I really paid all that much attention to the rest of the Psalm.

It was during the year that I spent living and studying in Germany in 1989-90 that I really began digging into the Psalms. One of the things I discovered about Psalm 31 is that the Hebrew word typically translated in English as “spirit” here refers to the psalmsinger’s whole life. That insight enabled me to read Psalm 31:5 more like “Into your hands I commend my life,” or as the Good News Version we read today puts it, “I place myself in your care.” It helped me see that, at least in the original context of the Psalm this is a prayer for living!

That helped me to hear the words of the whole of Psalm 31 better. A lot of us still have a problem with just lifting out verses of the Bible that we like. The reason that’s a problem is because we’re meant to read the whole Bible. And in this case, that means we’re meant to read Psalm 31 as a whole. The Psalm as a whole is the prayer of a person of faith struggling with the painful and sometimes unfair ways people can treat us. And as I mentioned above, Psalm 31:5 is not a prayer for dying, but a prayer for living with faith in God, no matter. We see that in other ways in the Psalm. The psalmsinger recounts all the hardships of his life, enemies who sought to undo him, the anxiety and sorrow he experienced from opponents. And yet, in spite of all the afflictions he endured, at the end of the day he could pray, “my times are in your hand” (Ps. 31:15). Or, as the Good News Version translates it, “I am always in your care.” With all of that in mind, it’s hard not to conclude that the whole Psalm is a prayer of trust, a prayer of confidence in the “faithful God” (Ps. 31:5). And the prayer “into your hands I commend my spirit” is a motto for living, not a prayer for dying.

In Psalm 31, as in other Psalms, the psalmsinger expresses the decision to entrust his life—his whole life—into God’s hands. That’s not an easy decision to make. Most of us like to keep the “important parts” of our lives in our control. But when try to do that, we learn that there is so much about life that is outside our control. For me, knowing that we can entrust all of that, all the things that seem too big for us, to God’s loving care relieves us of the heavy burdens we try to carry ourselves.

One of the last stages in my journey with Psalm 31 was when I read through the commentary on the Psalms by James Luther Mays in the Presbyterian commentary series called Interpretation. Yes, I did actually read through a whole commentary. I’ve done it more than once! One of the things I like about that commentary is that Mays, who himself was a Presbyterian Old Testament professor, really seems to pull together all the Psalms around some key themes. It helped me to read each Psalm, not as a whole in itself, but in the context of the entire collection of Psalms. And that only reinforced my conviction that the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life” is a motto for living, not a prayer for dying.

One of the things that Mays does is to inform the readers of his commentary how various Psalms have been used not only in the New Testament, but also throughout the history of the church. It should come as no surprise that, following Jesus’ example, a number of prominent Church leaders, including Martin Luther, used this prayer at the end of their lives. But as Mays says in his commentary, “in Hebrew and in the context of the psalm” the prayer is a confession of ultimate “dependence and trust” in God. He adds that this prayer, “Into your hands I commend my life” is essentially “a way of saying in the midst of affliction, ‘It is up to you, God, what becomes of me, and I am willing to have it so.’”[2] I find that to be a wonderful way to affirm my trust in God. I think Jesus paraphrased that prayer with his prayer in the Garden, “not my will but thine be done.”

If you think of it, what better place could we ever want to be than in God’s loving care? What more could we want than what God wants for us? That’s what I think about with this prayer, “It is up to you, God, what becomes of me, and I’m willing to have it so.” When you put it that way, the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life” really does become a prayer for living. In fact, it has been one of my primary prayers for living for over fifteen years. I haven’t prayed it every day. But I’ve prayed it most days. And many days I’ve prayed it more than once. I think one of the significant spiritual breakthroughs in my life’s journey was when I finally realized that I needed to consciously turn to God and entrust my life, all my hopes and dreams, into his care on a regular basis. This prayer has gotten me through a lot of up’s and down’s in life, and I think it will continue to see me through whatever may come in the future. Telling this story is my way of inviting you to join me in praying the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life,” following Jesus’ example, and the example of many faithful people who have gone before us. It’s a way of entrusting all of our lives into God’s hands. As we do so, may we discover that our lives are always in God’s care, and that there’s no better place we could be.

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/29/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] James Luther Mays, Psalms, 144.

Looking for What God is Doing

Looking for What God is Doing

John 9:1-7, 13-41[1]

We turn to faith for comfort. That’s one of the main roles faith plays in our lives. It offers us comfort when the realities of life can feel like they’re too much to bear. That’s why we love Scripture passages like Psalm 23. It’s a beautiful expression of the comfort our faith offers us. But when we only look to faith for comfort, it’s too easy to focus only our ourselves, and lose sight of those around us. That’s why our faith also challenges us. Faith that’s worth its salt not only offers us comfort, it also challenges us to see the suffering of our sisters and brothers in the human family. Especially those who suffer the most in this world, the very ones we may prefer not to see. When we let our faith turn in on itself, it becomes too easy to convince ourselves that their suffering is somehow their own fault. Instead of seeing them as beloved children of God who are suffering in the same way we all can suffer, which can be a scary thought, we convince ourselves that they must have done something to bring it on themselves. The idea that they must have done something to deserve their suffering somehow assures us that it won’t happen to us. But in the process, we let our desire for comfort and safety blind us to the compassion God wants us to give to the people who suffer the most in this world.

Our Gospel lesson for today addresses this issue. It’s the story about Jesus’ encounter with a man who had been born blind. But the irony is that it turns the tables on how we might expect the story to go. In this story, the “religious” people who claimed that they could see were in fact blind. They were blind to the compassion of God, they were blind to truth that Jesus restored this man’s sight. But it was a man who was despised as an ignorant vagrant was the one who was able to see what they couldn’t or wouldn’t see. The narrator emphasizes this irony by calling the one Jesus healed “the man who had formerly been blind.” But irony is that in this story, he was the one who was able to see the truth about Jesus. On the other hand, the “religious” people were blinded because of their assumptions.

The basic assumption in this story that blinded the “religious” people is that anyone who is suffering must have done something to deserve it. That’s an assumption that we still make. In the Gospel story, it was Jesus’ own disciples who voiced this assumption, asking, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). The very fact that he had been born blind meant that someone had to have done something wrong to cause his suffering. But Jesus exploded the centuries-old myth that suffering comes from sin. I like the way Gene Peterson translates Jesus’ response in The Message: “You’re asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG).

The hard truth is that we live in a world where any kind of suffering can affect anyone at any time. And we tend to use rationalizations like “they must have brought it on themselves” to assure ourselves that we won’t have to suffer the same pain! But Jesus turns all that on its head. He says that the suffering people experience in this world isn’t about blaming or shaming. Rather, it’s an opportunity for those of us who claim to follow him to demonstrate “the works of God” (John 9:4): kindness, compassion, and mercy! The suffering that people endure is an opportunity for us to “look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG), even and especially in the worst of the pain people can suffer!

Because Jesus healed “the man who had formerly been blind” on the Sabbath day, the religious people believed he had “broken” the Sabbath and therefore he must have been a “sinner” (John 9:16). They believed that following their “rules” about the Sabbath carefully and completely would act as a kind of magical protection from the suffering in the world. Because Jesus didn’t follow their rules about how to observe the Sabbath, he called into question their assumptions about God and the world. To keep their assurances intact they concluded that he must have been a sinner! Only if Jesus was a sinner could they keep their assumptions intact, assumptions that gave them false and shallow assurances that they would never have to deal with that kind of suffering. We still do that: we tell ourselves that if we follow all the rules, we’ll be spared from the worst hardships of life. And we reinforce that line of thinking by assuming those who suffer the worst must have “broken the rules,” and therefore they must be “sinners.” I would think that most of us have had enough experience with life to know that’s not the way life works. We can follow all the rules and still be hit with some of the worst kinds of suffering.

Again, in the Gospel story it was “the man who had formerly been blind” who exposed all these false assumptions. The religious leaders kept pressing him, trying to find a way to avoid the obvious conclusion that Jesus restored his sight. Finally, in exasperation they said, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner” (John 9:24). And an unlearned, marginalized, ragged, and dirty man, who just that morning had been living on the street, showed a depth of insight beyond all that they possessed. He said simply, “I do not know whether he is a sinner” (Jn 9:25). There’s probably a lot of wisdom in that when it comes to using the word “sinner” about someone else. But he said, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (Jn 9:25).

This man who had been blind was able to see the truth about Jesus. Those who claimed to see and know God’s truth were blinded by their false assumptions. That’s what the story is about. We see it in the end when Jesus makes an ironic and somewhat confusing statement about enabling those who are blind to see and making those who can see blind. The Message translation puts it this way, “I came into the world … , so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind” (John 9:39, MSG). I don’t think Jesus ever meant to keep anyone from seeing the truth about God, the truth about themselves, or the truth about life. I think what he was trying to do was to expose those who “make a great pretense of seeing” as people who can actually be blind. The story is about bringing to light something that happens all too often: those of us who think we see the truth about God and therefore view ourselves as “holier” than others are the ones who can at times be the most blind to God’s grace and mercy and compassion!

The hard truth about life is that we never know what we may have to go through. There are times when suffering just happens, not because of what we have done, but in spite of all we may have done. It’s natural in those times for us to look to our faith for comfort. But when we take that to an extreme and try to use our faith as an assurance that it won’t happen to us, we’ve missed something. Jesus made it clear that we’ve missed something when we use our “faith” to brand those who are suffering as “sinners” as a way of reassuring ourselves that we won’t have to suffer like them. What that really boils down to is an elaborate means of making ourselves feeling better at the expense of others. But Jesus framed the suffering people experience in this world entirely differently. He framed it as an opportunity for us to “look instead for what God can do” (John 9:3, MSG).

The Bible says that “nothing will be impossible for God.” We oftentimes think that some people may be beyond hope. And we tend to point the finger at them and assume that they must have done something to deserve it. It’s their fault somehow. But we really don’t know what life experiences have brought people to where they are. We really don’t know the burdens that people are carrying. I think that’s why Jesus taught his disciples and us to look at the suffering people experience not as a reason to point the finger and blame but as an opportunity to “look instead for what God can do.” Instead of shaming people, he challenged us to look for the good that God can do even and especially in the worst of human pain. After all, God raise Jesus from the dead after his suffering on the cross. If that’s true, what experience in this life is there that God can’t bring good from? And when look for what God can do when someone is suffering, not only does it change our whole perspective, but it also helps us to see that we have the opportunity to share God’s mercy and compassion with them. Maybe that’s what God “wants” to do. Maybe God wants to open our hearts to show kindness, compassion, and care, especially toward those whose suffering challenges us. I think Jesus challenges us to find the faith to look at the sufferings of this life and trust God enough to look for what God can do in any situation, come what may, and then try to join him in doing that.

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/15/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.