Ep 134 | Cover to Cover 13 | Pastor Chris Ryan | March 29, 2026

Hello, this is Pastor Ryan Clark.

You are listening to a message from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall declare your praises in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

What is the password? That is a question that I have struggled to answer at times since I was a five or 6-year-old attending Sunset Lake Elementary in beautiful Vicksburg, Michigan.

At that time on the Sunset Lake playground, there was a castle and it kinda looked like this, and that thing was awesome.

It had monkey bars going here and there tunnels going everywhere.

It had one of those slides that went round and round in a loop, you know, the kind.

And it was by far the most fun thing to play on, on that entire playground.

There was just one little problem.

It was password protected.

A couple of the older boys, big boys here.

We're talking fourth or fifth graders would make it their mission to stand outside of that castle every recess and ask that question, what is the password? And if you did not know the password, access denied.

And I'll tell you, as a kindergartner, it was tough to figure out that password.

And even if I did figure it out, sometimes it would be a word that I was simply not allowed to say.

And even if it was a word I was allowed to say, they would change that password each and every day.

Which means that for the most part, I would stand there watching jealously as many an older kid would get to act like royalty on that castle, having the absolute time of their life.

But I wasn't getting anywhere close to those kings, not at all.

Password troubles.

Anyone in here ever have password troubles before? Maybe you're amongst the many who forget their passwords rather regularly.

One study found that 51% of people, that's over half, by the way, forget at least one password on the internet every single month.

21% of people confess to forgetting at least one password on the internet every single week, and those are just the people that confess the crime and also the people that actually realize they've forgotten their passwords.

The actual numbers are probably a lot higher than all that.

Password troubles, not just a thing of the present, not just a thing of the near past and some poor kindergartner on the Sunset Lake playground, a thing of the distant past as well.

In fact, if you have been following along in our two year Bible read-through, in our readings this week, whether or not you realized it, the Israelites, God's people, they're experiencing little password troubles of their own.

The ultimate royalty, the God of the universe, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, he has settled to live amongst his people in the tabernacle.

He's right there.

There's just one little problem.

They're unable to meet with him seemingly because they don't know the password, if you will, to enter God's presence personally.

While our readings this week begin to present a solution to that problem, a solution that is oh, so important.

To us, and of course we're gonna look at that solution in this message today.

But before we do that, let's take one more look at the problem.

A couple of the last verses in the book of Exodus here from Exodus 40.

It says, then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, and the Book of Exodus ends.

Moses standing outside the tabernacle, God is right there in the tabernacle, and he cannot go meet with him at all.

What's the tabernacle you ask? A great question.

The Tabernacle was actually a portable sanctuary that the Israelites built where God would come and meet with his people personally, a very big deal, right? And they could worship him and give him the glory that he deserves on their way from Egypt to that promised land where they would eventually build a permanent house for God, that temple.

For our simple purposes today, the Tabernacle complex can really be made up of three parts.

There's the courtyard, that outer portion, this open space that was surrounded by a fence.

Then there was the Holy Place where certain acts of worship were to take place.

And then at the back end there, that little red circle that is something called the Holy of Holies.

That's where the Arc of the Covenant was.

That's where God himself could be met with personally.

And there's a big problem going on.

No one can get to meet with God.

No one can enter that tent of the meeting at all.

Not even Moses, the leader of the Israelites can enter.

Why, oh, why can nobody get to God? Well, if you think about it for just a second, I bet you can come up with the answer.

It has to do with that little three letter word.

It's because they all have sin in their lives, every single one of them.

You don't have to go back too far to see the big sin that the Israelites commit.

Exodus 24, God makes a covenant with his people, Israel.

He says, if you follow all of these commands that I'm lovingly giving to you for your own good, out of all the people in the world, you will be my personal people, Israel, and I will be your God.

And the Israelites say, absolutely, we're gonna do absolutely everything that you have said, God, and of course they don't.

You heard the story last week, right? A little incident involving a golden calf that they make with their own hands and then worship a serious first commandment issue.

They have replaced God with something else.

Moses has some first commandment issues of his own, by the way, and a little story involving some water and a rock back in Exodus 16.

And then again in Numbers 20, we're gonna see a story where God's people, Israel, demand water from Moses in the wilderness and God gives Moses some specific commands that he is to follow, to bring water out of that rock.

He doesn't follow them.

And then to make matters worse, he says, listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock? That word we is a big problem.

Sounds to me like he's splitting the credit with God for this miracle.

It's 50/50, me and God.

That's how the water came out of this rock.

Certainly a first commandment issue.

He's elevating himself to the place of God.

They are all sinners, and sin has dire consequences.

Isaiah 59:2 says, but your iniquities have separated you from your God.

Isaiah 59:2

Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.

Sin separates from God.

That's what it does.

Unholy people cannot be in the presence of a perfectly holy God.

Darkness cannot exist where there is light.

That is just the way it works in this separation.

It's a huge problem because people were created to be in a relationship with God.

That's why he made you.

That's why he made me.

When you're spending time with God, you are living out your purpose for being created, and the Israelites could not live out their purpose.

Thus, we get the book of Leviticus.

Leviticus is attempting to offer a solution to this big problem that the Israelites have.

How can we once again be in God's presence? How can we be made holy and be near God? How can we have our sins atone for.

Leviticus 1 starts to offer a solution.

It says, if you wanna have access to God once again, live out the reason you were created, the first thing you're gonna need to do is give some burnt offerings.

You must present a burnt offering at the entrance to the tent of meeting so that it will be acceptable to the Lord.

You are to lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering and it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you.

You are to slaughter the young bull before the Lord.

Then that offering would be burned up.

This young bull that was to be the best of your herd without blemish.

While the person offering it would confess their many sins before God, that animal would then symbolically die in their place and atone for or cover over their sins.

Remember that definition of atone, by the way, there's gonna be a quiz in about seven or eight minutes here to cover over your sin.

The burnt offering was one of three big, I'm sorry, offerings that Leviticus 1-5 discusses.

It also talks about the sin offering and the guilt offering, and they were very similar in both cases.

An animal that was without blemish would be presented and sacrificed before the Lord while you confessed your sin.

Let's say you are in Israelite.

You have gone to the entrance of the tent of meaning, you've offered your burnt offering, your sin offering, your guilt offering.

Can you now go into the Holy of Holies and have a personal one-on-one relationship with God? If that is all that you have done, access denied, password, rejected, because there is more to it than all of that.

Leviticus 2 and 3 says, you can't just say, I'm sorry.

You've gotta present your thanks offerings as well.

Leviticus two describes the grain offering.

Basically what the grain offering was, was flour, olive oil, and frankincense all combined together and then burned up before the Lord.

A great practice while you were doing this was to thank God for the many things that he has done for you.

Similarly, in Leviticus 3, there's the peace offering.

This involved, once again an animal from your herd, one without blemish, one of the best combined with a loaf of bread that was leave.

And a loaf of bread that was unleavened.

A small portion of that bread was then burned up before the Lord, and then the rest of it you would share with the priests and other Israelites in a fellowship meal.

And once again, a good habit here would be to thank God during that meal for the many things that he had done for you.

All right.

Let's say you're an Israelite.

You've gone to the entrance of the tent of meeting, you've given that burnt offering, that sin offering, that guilt offering, that grain offering, and that peace offering.

Can you now live out the reason you were created? Can you go into the Holy of Holies and have that personal relationship with God? Well, odds are, if that's all you've done, access denied password, rejected, because you also had to be a Priest from the Tribe of Levi.

If you wanted to go any farther, if you wanted to enter that holy place.

These Priests from the Tribe of Levi were specially set apart to mediate between God and man.

To become a Priest in the Tribe of Levi, you had to go through a very special consecration ceremony that's outlined in Leviticus 8.

You can read that later if you'd like.

Beyond that, you also had to be ceremonially clean, and Leviticus talks about what makes you clean and unclean depth.

Now, understand that being ceremonially unclean did not mean that you were sinful.

That's not what it means at all, but.

You had to be in a perfectly holy state of being clean to go into God's perfectly holy presence, and holy cow, all kinds of things could make you unclean.

You had to follow a kosher diet.

There were certain animals that you could eat that would make you unclean.

Now, I suppose some of those animals were easier to avoid than others, but certainly there are some kosher restrictions there.

Beyond following that kosher diet, you also had to steer clear of death and decay.

If you touched a dead body, you became unclean.

You had to steer clear of certain bodily fluids and emissions.

You had to steer clear of skin diseases, either having one or touching someone who had one, or sitting where someone sat had one.

You had to steer clear of mild or mildew and mild.

Mold and mildew.

There it is.

And specific types of mold that were on your clothing or in your house, they could make you unclean.

Let's say you've avoided all those things though.

Good for you.

You've gone to that entrance, to the tent of meeting.

You've offered your burnt offering, your sin, offering your guilt, offering your grain offering, your peace offering.

You are a Priest from the Tribe, Levi.

Wow.

And you are ceremonially clean.

Can you now go into the Holy of Holies and experience that personal one-on-one relationship with God, the reason that you were created? Well, I've got some bad news for you unless you are the High Priest.

Access denied, password rejected because the only one that was allowed into that Holy of Holies was the High Priest, and there was only one of them.

After he did all of these things, he could go into that Holy of Holies, but only on one day a year on that Day of Atonement.

Much more on that next weekend, I would imagine.

Which begs the question, what's the point of all this, and why, or why after all of that, are the Israelites still unable to enter God's presence personally? Well, it's still the same answer as before, actually.

It's still that sin.

You see that sin is still there and it has not been washed away.

So what's the point of all those sacrifices then Pastor Ryan, if it wasn't washing away the sin? Well, in Hebrews 10 says, but those sacrifices are just an annual reminder of sins, but it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

You see, their sins were being atoned for, but they were not being washed away.

Anyone remember what that definition I gave earlier was of atonement? Cover over, much better than last night, actually.

Yeah.

Atone or cover over sins.

What's the difference between atoning for sins and having them washed away completely? Well, think about it like this.

When I was a young man, and frankly even to adulthood a little bit here, there would be times when my room would become rather messy.

There would be people in my life that would say, you need to pull yourself together.

Clean up that room right now.

Well, I didn't always feel like cleaning up that room, so sometimes I would just push all the mess into one corner of the room and find the biggest blanket that I could and just throw it over it.

Is the mess still there? Oh yeah, it is.

The room might be more presentable, but that mess, it's still there.

It's only been covered over.

The Israelites, they needed someone to wash away and forgive their sins if they were going to be fully in God's presence.

Thus, we get to where we are in the church calendar today.

God's people could not make it to God, so God goes to them, doesn't he? Jesus gives up that heavenly throne room.

He gives up the castle, if you will, to come here to this earth, and he enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to remove that separation that was between you and God.

We see the beginnings of that in our highlighted verse of the day.

If you've got some time here, Matthew 21:5, a verse well worth highlighting.

Matthew 21:5

It says, say to Daughter Zion.

See your king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Jesus comes into Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday, and the people are all so excited, aren't they? They're laying down their cloaks for that donkey to walk over.

They're waving their palm branches.

They're chanting Hosanna! Hosanna! which means save us.

Save us.

Of course, they thought that Jesus was there to save them from that Roman empire that had taken over.

But he was there to save them from something far more sinister than all of that.

He was there to save them from their sins, their sins that could have and would've left them, separated from God for all eternity.

Unable to live out the reason that they were created, that you were created.

That's exactly what Jesus does.

Like I said, he gives up the heavenly throne room to come to this earth.

He lives a perfect life and then dies a perfect death on the cross.

And the moment that he dies, that separation that was there, it's been removed.

And if you don't believe me, look at what happens.

The very moment that he dies from Mark 15:38, it says, and the curtain of the temple was torn into from top to bottom.

Mark 15:38

That permanent house of God that reflected the tabernacle, that curtain separated people from the Holy of Holies where they could go in and have a personal relationship with God.

Well, that curtain was torn into from top to bottom because it was God himself doing the tearing.

The separation has been removed, the password has been accepted.

It was always Jesus.

Jesus' death on the cross is what gives you personal access to the God ff the Universe, and receiving gladly what he has done for you.

So, as we close out this message, what do we do with all of this? What do we do as New Testament readers reading about the Levitical sacrificial system? Well, there's all kinds of lessons we could learn.

We could talk about the silly passwords we think we need to enter in to have access to God still today, like our good works or avoiding certain sins long enough if we're gonna have that one-on-one relationship.

Jesus sacrifice was once and for all.

There are no sacrifices that we need to make.

I think the point that we should take away is much simpler even than all of that.

I want you to not take for granted for a single second how simple and easy it is for you to have access to the God of the Universe.

It wasn't simple and easy for Jesus, but it is simple and easy for you.

The password has been entered in, it's been accepted.

All you have to do is not reject that relationship that is right there in front of you, staring you in the face.

And yet unfortunately, that's exactly what we do sometimes.

I can only imagine what those Israelites would think as they look back and think about what all they went through.

For one guy to have access to God one day a year, all those sacrifices they made, and they ask you, why haven't you spent time with God today? And you say, well, I wasn't willing to sacrifice 10 minutes of sleep.

I wasn't willing to sacrifice watching another episode of that show.

Don't be like that.

Go and spend time with God regularly.

That's the reason you were created.

When you're doing that, you're living out your purpose for existing.

And as you do that, you get all kinds of blessings from that relationship that God wants you to have.

You get his wisdom, his grace, his love, his peace, his mercy and more, all because Jesus, Hosanna, he saved you, He saved you.

Thank you Jesus.

Amen.

You've been listening to a sermon from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

If you would like more information about St.

John's and any of our ministries to our community and beyond, you can go to our website, www.

stjohnsbuffalo.

org.

Thank you and God bless you.