Jesus Opens the Book

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

August 26, 2012

Mark 7:1–13

The Christian who wants to live by the Law opens the Bible but is reading a closed book. The Christian who lives by a standard that human beings have drawn up looks at other Christians and sees people who fall short, in comparison with himself. The Christian who supersedes the commandments of God with man-made commandments does not understand the purpose of God’s commandments and is therefore unable to keep what God has commanded. The Christian who opens the Bible and does not see Christ as at the center and as what the entire Scripture points to sees the words on the page but it is a closed book.

That’s not to say that’s all there is to the Bible. There’s a lot of good stuff you can get out of it and not even be a Christian. The Bible contains wisdom rivaling the world’s great thinkers and philosophers. The Bible gives us good old common sense. The Bible teaches us many lessons and morals that are extremely helpful in day to day life. The Bible shows us how to live in a way in which we are guided by positive values and lasting virtues. You could simply read the Bible for the great literature that it is. There’s a lot of good here and more power to those who read the Bible and get all this good stuff out of it.

Sadly though, it remains a closed book to them. They see the words but they are lost in their sin. They read and even understand the words written on the pages of the Bible but they are darkened in their understanding of what the Bible truly is communicating. It is a closed book to them and they may as well be reading their shopping list for the week. There’s value in the shopping list as well, but it is not a message which imparts to you salvation. You could see your shopping list for what it is or if you’re the literary adventurous type you could probably draw some symbolic value out of that shopping list in order to see it as more than just a list of food. But it will not open to you the way of eternal life.

And neither will the Bible. Only Jesus opens up the Bible in showing you what the Bible is for. It’s for salvation and salvation is only in and through Christ. The Bible itself shows this and the Bible itself opens itself up to us in and through Christ.

One thing in that Bible is commandments. Each of us is born into sin and the sinful flesh opens the Bible and sees the commandments of God as something we must do in order to gain God’s favor. Our sinful nature opens the Word of God and it is a closed book. We see those commandments and we begin determining what we ought to do. Of course, our sinful flesh just as easily dispenses with those commandments of God, not wanting the stranglehold God places on us. Who is God to tell me what I should do and not do? Ironically, it’s the sinful flesh that does God one better. Why do we need God’s commandments when we can come up with our own? So many of the things we do as Christians are things that other people and we ourselves have enjoined on us. We feel restricted by God’s commanding of us but then we turn around and restrict ourselves even further with an abundance of man-made rules and regulations.

There’s nothing wrong with rules, regulations, commandments, restrictions, etc. that we or anyone else have come up with. We Christians are not free to disregard the law of the land or the rules of others when we visit them in their home. What Jesus pounced on in the Gospel reading was the same thing God seized on in the Old Testament reading: our tendency as Christians to honor God with our actions, putting on a good show, but in our hearts placing our trust in ourselves rather than in God. Salvation is at stake here. Our sinful flesh looks to itself for salvation, God points us to His Son.

We miss the point of the commandments of God because in our sinful flesh we see them the way we see man-made commandments, as rules we need to follow. Jesus shows us that the point of the commandments of God is not placing a burden on us in order to gain His favor but is rather the natural outflow of His love for us. God gave us His commandments, specifically the Ten Commandments, in order for us to love others in the way He has loved us. And how is that? He gave Himself to us. He placed Himself before us. That is love and that is the essence of the Ten Commandments. The problem we run into with the Ten Commandments is that in our sin we are condemned by those very commandments of God. That’s why we can’t be saved by them.

But that’s also why Jesus does what He does. He opens the Bible to us. He shows us that the commandments of God are more than just a list of rules. He shows us that we get nowhere with God when we attempt to gain His favor by following a bunch of rules. What He does is open the book to us. The Bible as it stands is a closed book to us because we see it in our sinful eyes. He opens it up. He shows us that what is in there is all about Him. It’s not just that it’s information about Him. It’s that it delivers Him to us. It’s that it points to Him and is centered in Him and is fulfilled in Him.

Consider what Jesus is showing the Pharisees here. They are the ones who are constantly doing things to please God. They put everything and everyone else in the background so that they can do things that will be pleasing in the sight of God. The very first commandment says to put nothing before God, right? So this they do. They must do things to please God at the expense of doing things that will help others. What their eyes are blinded to see is that they are putting something before God. It is themselves. They are seeking to be counted as worthy by what they do rather than what God has done for them and then keeping the commandments as the natural outgrowth of that.

But aren’t the Ten Commandments what God has given us to do? Yes, in fact. But that’s the point. For those Christians who seek God’s favor by what they do they place that over the Ten Commandments. The Bible remains a closed book to them. The example Jesus gives to the Pharisees shows this. They put their works over loving their own parents. They put their own traditions over the commandment of God. The purpose of the traditions is to gain advantage for themselves, by doing good and wonderful things so that God may look at them and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Here are ten kingdoms just for you!” But this is not the purpose of the Ten Commandments. The purpose of God’s commandments is love.

How does the Fourth Commandment, the example Jesus uses, read? Does it say, “Obey your father and your mother”? Does it say, “Be kind to your parents unless it impinges on your ability to obey God”? Does it say, “Give your parents their due”? It doesn’t say any of those things even though those are all wonderful man-made things that we should gladly do. The problem the Pharisees, and so often we, had was not that they were doing these things or not doing them. The problem was they, and so often we, were not seeing the commandment for what it was. How it reads is this: “Honor your father and your mother.” There may be times you must disobey your parents. If they command you to go against God you must disobey them. But you never stop honoring them. You may not see eye to eye with them in every way but you never stop loving them. Obeying can be done without love. True honor cannot be done without love.

Showing honor or respect out of a sense of duty misses the point of the commandment. Anyone can do that. What Jesus is talking about here is God’s love for us in loving us as His people, because of His grace, and giving us those in authority over us to care for us. To show them honor is to respond to God’s love for us in honor and humility and love. God didn’t give us His commandments in order that we may do what we need to do. He saved us and then gave us His commandments so that we may live in this free-flowing way of living: loving others not out of a sense of duty or in order to please God but simply because we love as God has loved us.

This is how Jesus opens up the Bible to us. He shows us Himself. No sense of duty or desire to obey His Father drove Him to the cross. Pure love did. Jesus went to the cross purely for love. For you, for me, for those Pharisees who condemned Him, for everyone. This is how the Scriptures are opened up to us, by Jesus showing us that it is all centered in Him and what He has accomplished on the cross.

What does this mean for you? In your life, for eternity, how you live, what you do? What does it mean for us as a congregation in Allied Gardens? For you it means that you are forgiven. You don’t need to wonder what God thinks of you. You are forgiven, you are in His favor. He doesn’t love you because you obey His commandments. He doesn’t love you more because you try really hard. He loves you, pure and simple. Jesus assured you of that in going to Calvary. What it means for us as a congregation is mission, evangelism, stewardship, and serving. We serve one another, we love the people in our community, we make known the Gospel to our community and even to the ends of the earth. We serve God with what He has given us, our time, talents, and treasure.

This is who we are as individual Christians and as Christians gathered together as a congregation. Christ is at the center. Jesus is who we point people to. If Jesus opens the book then we open it up for others. Rather than be a closed book to them we can show them how it all is centered in Him. We can show them how it all points toward His love for them in their life, both in this life and forever.

Jesus opens the book. He is the one, after all, who has the words of eternal life. Amen.

SDG

Why Is the Easiest Thing the Hardest?

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Commemoration of Bernard of Clairvaux, Hymnwriter and Theologian

August 19, 2012

John 6:51–69

The nature of grace is that it’s free. There’s nothing you do, nothing that’s up to you, nothing about you that you have grace. It’s given to you, it’s not of you or by you or from you. It’s the easiest thing there is. Salvation is accomplished entirely by God and given you entirely by grace. There are some things you do that are pretty easy but you are still doing something. With salvation there is nothing you do. You can’t get easier than doing nothing.

Consider if you were extremely hungry and someone gave you food. You would be happy that you are being fed. You would be thankful that the person gave you food. You wouldn’t be consumed with thoughts of, “I’m glad I’m taking the food in my hands and exerting the energy to put it in my mouth. I’m glad I’m doing the work of chewing so that I can get the benefit of the food.” When we eat we’re thinking about the food, not the work we do of actually eating it. The food has been given you by grace, not by anything you have done.

Think about if you were given a lavish meal by a wealthy person or by a king. Your focus wouldn’t be on all that you do to get the food in your mouth. You would be amazed that you have been given this gift of this lavish meal.

This is the nature of grace. This is what God’s gift of salvation to you is all about. It’s Him giving it to you, it’s you being the recipient of love and mercy you don’t deserve.

So it’s easy, right? In that He does it all and you are simply the recipient of it, yes, it’s pretty easy. It’s so easy that it seems that everyone should be in possession of this gift. It seems that everyone should be saved. You hardly have to look around to know this isn’t remotely true. We hear often of the new atheists who are hell-bent on drowning out Christ and the religion of Christianity. We know people in our families, our neighborhoods, and where we work who are staunch members of Judaism, or Islam, or Mormonism, or any number of religions. You never have to travel to other parts of the world to meet and know followers of the world’s religions.

Most definitely, not all people are in possession of the gift of salvation from Christ. Why is this? It’s so easy, He simply gives it to us, why are so many people without it? Why is the easiest thing the thing that so many people do not have?

It’s because the easiest thing is also the hardest thing. Being in possession of eternal salvation is the hardest thing in the world even though it’s the easiest thing to receive. Why would this be? Why is the easiest thing the hardest?

In today’s Gospel reading after Jesus details how people receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation many of His disciples said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” Take note of who these people were. They weren’t the hard-core atheists that want nothing to do with Jesus. They weren’t Muslims who view Jesus as merely a prophet. They weren’t your run-of-the-mill humanists who could appreciate the timeless wisdom Jesus taught even if they viewed Him as nothing more than a great teacher. These were disciples of Jesus. They were His followers. And it wasn’t just a few of them who couldn’t stomach Jesus’ teaching. There were many of Jesus’ followers who took issue with what Jesus was teaching here.

Such an easy thing, and yet so hard to swallow.

You heard the words yourself when the Gospel reading was being read a short while ago. I’ve read those words many times and have to fight the thoughts that come naturally to mind and that are eerily similar to what those people said when they heard Jesus speak them. Jesus giving His flesh to us to eat? Giving us His blood to us to drink? If I weren’t a Christian I really think I would hear these words and think of this religion of Christianity as one that has some disgusting elements to it. Some religions throughout history have had elements that are just too much for most people to bear. Sacrificing children, self-mutilation, commanded to view yourself as a worthless person. These are teachings and rituals that rightly turn many people away.

We are Jesus’ disciples. We are His followers. How do we react to these words of Jesus? What is He teaching us when He says to us, “I give you My flesh to eat and My blood to drink?” Isn’t it a little disgusting to think of, eating flesh and drinking blood? Why does Jesus say, “Here, eat this, My flesh”? Is it any wonder that John tells us that many of His disciples said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” and then rejected Him?

There’s a reason we normally think in terms of our belief in Jesus as just that, belief in Him; or having faith in Him. If someone asked you, “Do you believe in Jesus?” you probably wouldn’t respond with the affirmation, “Yes, I wholeheartedly eat of His flesh and drink of His blood.” This way of talking that Jesus used in the Gospel reading about believing in Him is one of the many ways He and the Scriptures talk about believing in Him. As it is with the all the others, this faith in Him is completely the work of God in us. As Jesus Himself said in the Gospel reading two Sundays ago when His disciples asked Him what they must do, He responded, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” If it’s true that believing in Jesus is something you do it’s true this thing you do is actually the thing God does. It’s His work. You believe because God works it in you.

This is at the heart of why this is so hard. Who can listen to a teaching that removes you from the equation? What part do you play in your salvation? None. Who can listen to that? Who wants to be in a religion like that? So many people say, “No thanks, I’ll go to a religion where I hear that I have some good in me and it counts for something.” Not Christianity. Not Jesus. With Him what you get is, “Eat of My flesh and drink of My blood,” as if to say, “It’s all Me.” If you want salvation you can get it only if you believe that it’s not of you but of Him. If you are to be forgiven of your sins you must recognize that you are so utterly sinful that you are unable to do anything to get rid of your sin.

That’s why it’s the hardest thing. Jesus turned to His twelve disciples and asked them if they were going to turn away also. Every so often we are met with a confession of faith that we can simply step back and marvel at. We would do well not only to meditate on the words of Jesus in the Gospel reading but the confession of faith from the lips of Peter. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life? We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” At this point the furthest thing from Peter’s mind was how much he inserted himself into the relationship between him and his Lord. His confession of faith was of the one who had been sent by God, who worked in him the desire and ability to believe in the one whom God has sent.

Peter had many problems, as you and I often do in our faith life. But it is purely by the grace of God that we see that when we believe we are saved by grace we are saved solely by what our Lord has done and by nothing we have done. That it is purely by grace that we who are sinful are actually given the grace to do something amazing, believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of all of our sins.

But there’s another reason that the easiest thing is the hardest thing. When Jesus talks of giving His flesh for the life of the world and offering us His blood He is speaking in terms of who He is and what He came to do. His flesh was offered on the cross for the life of the world. His blood was shed on the cross for the taking away of the sins of the world. This was not easy, it was something no one could do but Jesus Himself. It was in fact the hardest thing and that’s why Jesus came, in order to accomplish it. He came in order to do what none of us could. He who has the words of eternal life is He who gave His flesh and blood for the life of the world.

This hardest thing that Jesus Himself has accomplished has now been given freely to you, by grace—His mercy, His forgiveness, His eternal salvation, all given to you. To whom shall you go? There is no one else who gives you such gifts. Your Lord has the words of eternal life and He gives them to you freely in your Baptism, which you live in daily. He is the one who gives them to you by grace and mercy in His Holy Supper where He gives you His body and His blood to eat and drink for the forgiveness of your sins, for your salvation, for your life. Amen.

SDG

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Congregational Retreat

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

Commemoration of Mary Magdalene

July 22, 2012

Luke 11:1–4

I’m really struggling to determine which is the greater prayer: the prayer our Lord has taught us or the prayer of the disciples to Jesus. The Lord’s Prayer is considered the preeminent prayer, and rightly so. How can you improve upon the prayer God Himself has taught us to pray? You may not know what to pray for but you always have the prayer your Lord has given you. In the Lord’s Prayer is contained everything that we need to pray for. The Lord’s Prayer cannot be exhausted. We can mine the depths of it and still find more treasurers. It is a no-brainer that there is not a greater prayer. It is the prayer our Lord has taught us to pray and it is the prayer that encompasses all that we know we need as well as all we’re not even aware of that we need.

So why do I have such a strange notion that the prayer of the disciples may be the greater prayer? I’m fascinated by how the Holy Spirit inspired the words of Scripture to be written as they were. It’s not that Jesus said to the disciples one day, “Okay men, today I’m going to teach you how to pray.” That certainly would have been a wonderful thing. I would love to have been in on that session. For all we know Jesus may well have done just that. But in giving us the Lord’s Prayer in the Holy Scriptures the Holy Spirit did not give us any such account of Jesus taking the initiative of teaching His beloved disciples to pray. No, it was those beloved disciples who said to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

There’s a big part of me that hears that and says, “I can’t think of a greater prayer.” We have it right there in black and white in the pages of the Scriptures. The disciples coming to Jesus and asking Him to teach them to pray. I wonder how different our prayer life would be if we approached Jesus in that same way. I wonder how different our Christian life would be if we approached Jesus in the humility of knowing that we need to be taught to pray and that we need to be taught by our Lord to pray. It’s one thing to jump right to the Lord’s Prayer and pray it. It’s another thing to learn to pray by learning from the Lord’s Prayer and by praying it and making it a part of us.

But we also need to realize that we need to learn to pray. We learn from our Lord. And perhaps, “Lord, teach us to pray,” should be a part of our daily prayer life. Even if we don’t speak those words as we do when we say the actual words of the Lord’s Prayer, then with the understanding each day that, Lord, I need to learn to pray. I need You to teach me to pray. Lord, teach us to pray.

In a sense, these words are indeed the greatest prayer. They are so in that they are at the heart of what is being prayed in the Lord’s Prayer. If we begin to understand our need to learn to pray we will see more and more that when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, “Lord, teach us to pray,” is exactly what we are praying. It’s so easy to recite the words of the Lord’s Prayer and forget that not only are we praying to our Heavenly Father when we pray those words, we are also praying this prayer: Lord, teach us to pray. It’s easy to forget that when we pray the Lord’s Prayer we are learning to pray. When we pray the prayer our Lord has taught we are not only praying as He has taught us we are being taught to pray.

The apostle Paul said something that has fascinated me my whole life: pray constantly. How do you do that? How do you pray all the time? How does one pray, as some translations have it, without ceasing? The answer, I think, is in this amazing prayer, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Praying is not just engaging in the actual act of saying words to God. Praying is assuming a posture, or perhaps better, a disposition, of humility and asking your Lord to teach you to pray. This is the posture Jesus assumed. It wasn’t in constantly walking around with folded hands and speaking words to His dear Father in heaven. It was in being one with His Heavenly Father’s will. It was in joyfully submitting to His Heavenly Father’s will.

Jesus didn’t need to learn to pray. He was in perfect communion with His Heavenly Father. His life was the perfect picture of what it means to pray constantly. But us? We need to learn to pray. We’re like the disciples coming to Jesus, with the request, the fervent prayer, “Lord, teach us to pray.” There is something immensely freeing about this prayer. It’s something of a confession of sin. Lord, I don’t know how to pray. Lord, I need to be taught by You to pray. When we don’t submit to our Lord and how He teaches us to pray in His prayer He has given us we end up with prayers that go far astray from what He has given us in His prayer He has taught us to pray.

Not that we shouldn’t pray for what we want or need or think are good things to pray for. We are the children of our Heavenly Father, after all. If children can’t come to their father in their needs and even their wants, what good is there for them to have a father? A loving and good father, though, will listen to his children and respond with what they truly need and what is truly beneficial to them. Children need to learn how to ask their father for what they need and want, learning to trust him that his answers may not always be what they want to hear but often are what is truly best for them. God our Heavenly Father bats .1000 every time. We don’t need to wonder about what He gives us. In the Lord’s Prayer we see what we truly need. In the prayer our Lord has taught we learn what ultimately benefits us. And so as we pray we do so with the mindset, that Lord, we need You to teach us to pray. Bend our will to Yours. Re-orient our desires with Yours.

Did you notice the prayer of the disciples in today’s Gospel reading? Lord, send these people away. They’re tired. They need food. They ain’t gonna get it here. Their prayer to Jesus wasn’t one of, we have a situation here Lord, teach us to pray. It was, this is the situation Lord, act according to what seems to us the best course of action. No, that won’t do at all, Jesus told them. I will teach you how to pray. His way was by taking the little that was there and providing for them in abundance. He didn’t need even the little that was there of course, Him being the Lord who brought into creation things from nothing. But it’s powerful to see abundance of bread and fish from five and two, so much so that there was a lot left over. Lord, teach us to pray.

The little we have, an Introduction, seven petitions, a conclusion, it’s not much, but out of it our Lord produces an abundance. In the few words our Lord has given us in what we call the Lord’s Prayer there is more than what appears to be. The beauty of it also is that it’s not even ours to begin with. He gives us the words. These few simple words He gives us and produces out of it an abundance. And in them He teaches us to pray. The words He has given us, the words of the Lord’s Prayer, He gave us in view of the cross. Just as He gave us the words to pray in His Prayer, “Thy will be done,” He prayed the very same words as He was about to approach the cross. We need to learn to pray, to pray to our Heavenly Father in light of the cross.

Our asking our Lord to teach us to pray may certainly be done by speaking to Him what the disciples did: “Lord, teach us to pray.” We also ask our Lord to teach us to pray by praying the Lord’s Prayer. Remember what is behind this. It’s not you. It’s not up to you. Learning to pray is not something you go to school for or in which you need to keep trying harder. God Himself is behind this. He is the one who has given you His word, where you are given an amazing prayer such as “Lord, teach us to pray.” And so you do. You pray your Lord to teach you to pray. To which He responds, Amen. It shall be so.

SDG

The Gospel Cannot Be Stopped

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

July 15, 2012

Mark 6:14–29

The Gospel cannot be stopped. A constant barrage of people and things try to stop it. There are people outside the Christian Church who try to stop it. There are even people inside the Church who try to stop it. Satan tries to stop the Gospel. Even you try to stop it, but we’ll get back to that in a bit. People acting alone and people gathered together attempt to bring the Gospel to an end but it cannot be stopped.

When what appears is that the Gospel has come to a crashing halt you can know that the Gospel cannot be stopped. This is invaluable knowledge when it seems that the Gospel has lost its power. You can hang on to this certainty when the world and your sinful flesh and Satan cause you to wonder if the Gospel really is all that powerful or beneficial. When this happens, know that the Gospel cannot be stopped. This is a fact. How things appear is that the Gospel may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. But the Gospel doesn’t operate in the realm of how things appear to be. Often it works in ways that appear to be the opposite of the power it’s really operating in.

You can see this in what happened to John the Baptist. Mark tells us about John the Baptist in today’s Gospel reading. I suppose if we were watching this as a movie this would be portrayed as a flashback. Mark begins with Jesus. Jesus is doing His thing and more and more people are taking notice. It’s so much so that Herod the king takes notice. In fact, Herod starts getting a little nervous, even scared. You see, he’s the one that got rid of John the Baptist and now here’s this prophet teaching all kinds of God things and doing all kinds of miracles and gathering a following. When you see the story of how Herod dispatched John you begin to see how Herod was becoming a nervous wreck. This guy who’s doing all the teaching and miracles must be John the Baptist! He must have come back from the dead!

But it wasn’t anything like that. John was safely dead, just as Herod had brought about, having him executed by beheading him. What Herod should have been worried about was that what he had really attempted to do was to stop the Gospel. The Gospel cannot be stopped. What he should have been fearful of was that he continued in his state of unrepentance and therefore he was not able to experience the Gospel as it was meant to be experienced. Herod continued to hold on to the things of this world rather than seeing that in the one he had executed was the voice of the Gospel; the thing that could bring him to things of value far behind what his kingship could bring him. But he was once again trying to stop the Gospel, in fearing that John had come back from the grave.

This Gospel cannot be stopped. God had called John the Baptist to be a preacher of the Gospel. When he was beheaded his voice stopped preaching the Gospel. But the Gospel wasn’t stopped. It continued on. It continued to be proclaimed and made known. Jesus Himself was proclaiming the Gospel and making it known. If Herod thought that he had had a problem on his hands with John the Baptist, what would He do with Jesus?

People don’t know what to do with the Gospel. That’s why they try to stop it. Mark says in the Gospel reading that “Jesus’ name had become known. Some said, ‘John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.’ But others said, ‘He is Elijah.’ And others said, ‘He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.’ But when Herod heard of it, he said, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.’ So many people didn’t know what to make of Jesus. Instead of just seeing Him for who He was, the Gospel incarnate, they through one way or another tried to stop the Gospel.

What had first brought about all this angst on Herod was Herodias, his brother’s wife that he stole. Herodias hated John the Baptist. Why was this itinerant preacher telling powerful King Herod how to live his life? Herodias wanted her new husband to just get rid of John. What she didn’t realize is that the Gospel cannot be stopped. There was one problem. There was something about this prophet that caught Herod’s attention. He was perplexed about him but there was something about him that made him want to continue to listen. The Gospel has a way of doing that.

Herodias was undaunted. She found a way where she could put an end to this once and for all. She used her own daughter to bring it about. Young daughter danced before Herod and that brought about the vow that Herod made; the kind of promise where you wake up the next morning, wondering what in the world you were thinking. He promised her whatever she asked for and obedient young daughter went to mommy for instructions in what to ask. This couldn’t have worked out better for scheming Herodias. Precious daughter of mine, go to the king to tomorrow and ask for a very simple thing: the head of John the Baptist. That will stop the Gospel. I will finally get my way and be able to do what I want without God getting in the way. The only problem is, the Gospel cannot be stopped.

Not that she wasn’t successful. That she was is obvious. She had a problem and she got rid of the problem. In doing this she may have thought her life was going to be easier but she didn’t realize that she couldn’t stop the Gospel. We’re not told what ended up happening to Herodias and Herod. But this isn’t about them. It’s about the Gospel. It’s about the fact that the Gospel cannot be stopped. If the likes of Herod and the evil woman he committed adultery with couldn’t stop the Gospel, what makes us think we could? Perhaps you don’t see yourself as one who would do what they did. But Satan is very persuasive in his temptations. The world is very enticing in its attempts to get you to join its ranks rather than letting the Gospel reign free in your life. So, yes, as stated at the outset, you are much more like Herod and his wife then you might care to admit in acting just like them and trying to stop the Gospel.

The good news is that the Gospel cannot be stopped. Herodias had her prize, unthinkable for most of us, but for her a perverse satisfaction, receiving the head of John the Baptist on a platter. For her, the final act was victory, his disciples coming for the body so that they could bury it. For them this final act was perhaps one of despair, certainly of sorrow. Their beloved teacher would never preach the Gospel again. But that is the way it is with the Gospel. All preachers at some point have no more voice to preach the Gospel. That doesn’t mean the Gospel is stopped. It means that in this fallen world we die. But the Gospel is not of this world. The Gospel can never be stopped by the things of this world and not even by death.

If the disciples of John were stunned by burying their teacher, imagine what the disciples of Jesus went through as they saw their Lord now lying in a tomb. It appeared to them that the Gospel had come to a crashing halt. But only we in our sinful flesh see it that way. Jesus laying in a tomb actually shows how the Gospel can never be stopped. Death could not hold Jesus. He is the Gospel in the flesh and that very body rose from the grave, the Gospel shown to be something that can never be stopped. At the moment when all seemed lost and their Lord succumbed to death while hanging on the cross, where Satan appeared to have the greatest victory, all eternity was given meaning. The Gospel cannot be stopped. It was in that very suffering and death of Christ that the Gospel was shown in all its glory. It was in this event salvation was accomplished, forgiveness attained for you. You see, the Gospel cannot be stopped. What this means for you is that you will live forever. Amen.

SDG

The Progression

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

July 8, 2012

Mark 6:1–13

There is a progression in today’s Gospel reading and it’s the same progression begun in the Garden when God promised to Adam and Eve that He would send them a Savior. The irony is not lost on God, that at the moment of man’s fall into sin, God begins a progression in order to restore man to his previous good and blessed state. While the world seems to be in a constant regression, with natural disasters and individuals and groups of people causing disasters of their own on other people, there is a distinct progression God has been bringing about throughout history. This has absolutely nothing to do with the notion many people have that the human race continues to get better and will continue to accomplish greater and great achievements. This notion really is at the heart of God’s command to have no other gods. The first and foremost god in mind here is not gods of any other religion but of man himself. There’s no doubt we as a human race have achieved remarkable feats and there are many to come. It seems even more clear, though, that mankind continues not to progress, but to regress, going back again and again to that first sin Adam and Eve committed of wanting to be their own god; of feeding the sinful flesh and all its evil desires.

Whether things are getting worse or getting better or staying the same, there is a distinct progress in the midst of it all. God never stops in His relentless carrying out of His salvation work first promised there in the Garden and first begun. The very speaking of the promise was the very first act and work of God in this accomplishing of salvation. His Word has power and that is why even though Adam and Eve were told that in the day they would eat of the fruit of the tree they would surely die, God’s salvation was already in effect. They were not dead but rather given salvation.

Much of the Old Testament is history and in that history we see this progression. How many times must Adam and Eve have told the story to their sons and daughters of that fateful day in the Garden? How often must they have reminded their children of the amazing salvation God promised to them on that day and that in fact had already come into play as they were given mercy by their God whom they had thrown under the bus? Some of the descendents of Adam and Eve and their children were some of the well-known people we know from our being in the Scriptures. Abraham and Noah and David come to mind. There are many others. How often did these people marvel at the grace of God even as they often continued to question God and go their own way over God’s way, going back again and again to the same sin Adam and Eve had committed? Much of the history of the Old Testament reads like a lesson in, Did you learn anything from your ancestors?

Through it all was this progression. God at work in His people, calling them to repentance. Giving them His grace and mercy. Pointing them forward to the Savior He would send. A striking example of this is in today’s Old Testament reading. God sends Ezekiel to the Israelites, God’s very own people, and God calls them nations of rebels, people who have rebelled against Him. His message to them is judgment. He is calling them to repentance. That’s what God does for His people. He loves them and is unwilling to sit by while His people go their own way. That’s why God didn’t abandon Adam and Eve in the Garden when they had abandoned Him. He reached out to them, calling them to repentance, embracing them with His love and forgiveness.

God says to Ezekiel that if he will speak God’s Word to the people, whether or not they will take it to heart they will know that a prophet has been among them. God has continued all along to make known His Word to His people through people who are sinful as they are. When they speak it’s not their own words they speak. It’s not their own opinion. It’s not something new or progressive. It’s the same word of God that was first spoken in the Garden when Adam and Eve desperately needed to hear that God was still for them, would never give up on them, would always love them, would give them a Savior and salvation.

In our day and age we think we’re so far beyond all those in the past. We know more, we’ve achieved more, we’re on the cusp of spectacular things never dreamed of in former times. But who are we kidding? We’re no different than anyone else throughout history. We think we know better than God. Sounds a little bit like all those people who went before us, doesn’t it? We think we’re so advanced. Sounds a little bit like Adam and Eve thought they could be. We never learn. We continue to regress even as God continues His progression of coming to us in His Word and with His salvation.

Paul knew something of being advanced and beyond all others. In many ways he was. But when Jesus came to him to bring him to his senses, Paul realized—well, I’ll just let him do the describing of himself—he realized he was the chief of sinners. He came to see that he was no better than anyone who had gone before him, that he needed salvation as every other person, that his heart and soul were rotten to the core. And in his new life given him by Jesus he realized something else. That in this life on earth there are problems, and hardships, and trials, and that he was very, very weak. His realization of this as a new creation in Christ was that he could, and even should, boast in these weaknesses. As he says in the Epistle reading, a thorn was given him in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass him, to keep him from being too elated. “Three times” he says, “I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

This is always the challenge our sinful flesh faces. It is the moment we face every day, and many times throughout each day, where we are met with the Word of God which says we should fear, love, and trust in Him above all things and our sinful flesh says that it’s got way better ideas than that. When God says to us that we should love Him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, our sinful flesh says that we should do what we think is best, what we feel like doing, what will not impinge on our own desires.

So the world, the devil, and our own sinful flesh will appeal to us: we don’t have to step out of our comfort zone and share the Gospel with our neighbor because the relationship there is nice and comfortable just in being good neighbors. We know we’re forgiven and don’t need to spend time each day in reading and pondering the Word of God. Since we have to take care of ourselves, our health, our peace of mind, we shouldn’t place extra burdens on our ourselves when others are in need.

Sound familiar? It should. You know these things to be true in your life. If for some reason none of these actually apply to you, never fear, because the Ten Commandments have you covered. God in His Law pins you to the wall in every corner of your life. You have no better chance of hiding from God than Adam and Eve did.

And it should sound familiar to you in another way as well. You are just like the people Jesus went to in the Gospel reading. God’s description of His people to Ezekiel sound a lot like them, don’t they? And if you are wise enough to hear it, you will see that it’s an apt description of you. It all boils down to this. Who you are, what you have done, how you have continued in the downward spiral as your ancestors in the faith have, means something. It means you need to repent. And it means that Jesus will keep coming to you. Just as He did with those people in our Scripture readings this morning. He continues His progression.

It’s remarkable how Jesus came to those He knew would reject them. God had said to Ezekiel that you need to go to them. Whether they listen to you or not, they’ll know a prophet has been among them. When Jesus came to those who had known Him as the guy who grew up down the street, they refused Him as their Lord. But they knew a prophet had been among them. And there’s another thing. Even though He marveled at their unbelief, even though He went on to the next towns, and continued His Gospel message to others, He nevertheless, and even was the reason, He went to the cross for those very people who rejected Him. He paid for their sins. He died for them, He took in His place what was rightfully theirs—their sin, their guilt, their shame of rejecting Hm.

While we should never think that it’s okay for us to do the same, we should marvel at the fact that we are just like them. And marvel at the fact that Jesus, just as He did for them, went to the cross for us. And knowing this, you can also know that He continues to come to you, calling you to repentance, and forgiving you of your sins. His progression never ceases, He continues on in His progression, always loving you and forgiving you. And when you hear Him as He is proclaimed to you and as He comes to you in His body and blood in His Supper, you will know that He has been among you. Amen.

SDG

What Would Jairus Do?

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

July 1, 2012

Mark 5:21–43

Now that the What Would Jesus Do? slogan appears to have gone away as a fad I’m going to campaign for a new one: What Would Jairus Do? The WWJD phenomenon, that is, What Would Jesus Do?, was always a well-intended slogan to get Christians to think about what the best thing to do is in a given situation. There’s a lot of good in that and we could probably use more of it than we have. The problem with What Would Jesus Do? is where it leaves you. It leaves you in a place where you in fact do not do what Jesus would do which is in fact why Jesus did what He did. That’s why the question of what has Jesus done is infinitely of more value to us than the question of what He would do.

We know what He would do in any given situation. He would do the right thing. He would do the best thing. He would do the thing that is of infinite value and benefit to us. We, on the other hand, often do what is best for ourselves. We do the opposite of what Jesus would do. We should always try to do the right thing and the best thing and the thing that is of value and benefit to others, it’s just that we fail so miserably at it, don’t we? There are moments where it really looks like we’ve got it. Where we do the right thing. Where we help the other person. Where we do the thing that is the best thing. And this is wonderful. But the thing about it is, it’s all by the grace of God and to the glory of God, not out of any notion that we can actually bring about doing the thing that Jesus would do.

That’s why a new WWJD slogan is needed to replace What Would Jesus Do? What Would Jairus Do? should be the question we ask. Okay, not really. And yet, the portrayal Mark gives us in today’s Gospel reading amounts to an exhortation to be like Jairus; even to do what he did. And Mark goes on also to show us a woman who touched Jesus’ cloak.

Jairus and the woman who tried to get close to Jesus were in need. They were in need and they were desperate. There was nothing they or anyone else could do for them in their need. So what did they do? They put themselves at the mercy of Jesus. They put their situation completely in His hands. The way we would say it is that they had faith in Him or put their faith in Him. This is what faith is. If the question were to be of what Jesus would do then we’d be left with unbelief because Jesus has perfect faith. We can’t have the kind of faith Jesus can. We try at times. But so often we fall short of the perfect fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

But that’s where looking at what Jairus would do comes in. The impetus for his faith in Jesus was his love for his daughter. There was nothing else he could do for his precious little daughter so he put all his faith in Jesus. There was no way he could do anything to prevent his daughter from dying so he did one last thing. That one last thing is the essence of faith. It is leaving it completely in God’s hands. And notice what leaving it completely in God’s hands looks like. It is going to God as He has made Himself known to us. Namely, in the human being that is Jesus.

How could Jairus have possibly known that this person, this man, this human being just like him, could bring his dying daughter back to health? There was, of course, the word that had gotten around that Jesus had performed many miracles and that He was a great teacher. But think about it, there’s a difference between those miraculous things happening to others and them happening to you. Sure, I’ve heard He’s done amazing things, but could it really happen for my little girl? He went to Jesus with just that request.

And that is what we should learn from this. What Jairus did is what we should do. We are in need. We are desperate. Illnesses and injuries ravage our lives and we very much want deliverance from those things. But these are symptoms. They are symptoms of disease. Whether you are struggling with severe illness or are in good health, you are wasting away in the disease that infects us all. It is original sin and there is no cure. There is no what would Jesus do and we can do that, because He is without sin. He alone was born into this world without being infected with this disease.

But there are no crowds thronging around Him anymore when we look to Him. He is instead all alone; everyone, even us, has deserted him. When we look to Him in our need and our desperate state we look to Him as He hung all alone on the cross. It’s what He has done that provides for us what we need. In the Collect of the Day we prayed, “Heavenly Father, during His earthly ministry Your Son Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead. By the healing medicine of the Word and Sacraments pour into our hearts such love toward You that we may live eternally.”

Jairus got his daughter back. Not only did she recover from her sickness, she recovered from death. The woman who touched Jesus’ cloak was healed instantly from her long illness. But what did Jesus’ healing of these two people really accomplish? It accomplished just that and nothing more. The girl presumably went on to live a long full life and the woman at the end of her life presumably closed out the last years of her life free from the pain and suffering she had endured for twelve years. That’s why even as Jairus and the woman came to Him and fixed their eyes on Him, we ought to do the same. Jesus gave these two people a great blessing.

However, when we see them in heaven and ask them what it was like I imagine they’ll be much more interested in talking the way our Collect of the Day uses language to describe what we need from Jesus and what He has done for us. During His earthly ministry Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead. Here we are two thousand years later facing the very same illnesses and unable to keep ourselves from death. That’s why at a certain point Jesus discontinued His earthly ministry with the throngs hanging on His every word and seeking mercy from Him for healing and He walked alone to the cross where He was nailed to it. It’s why in being nailed to the cross every sin and sickness and guilt was placed upon Him. It’s why He who was without sin died Himself as the one who took all our sinfulness upon Himself.

That’s what the likes of Jairus and the woman ended up coming to see in Jesus: the one who had given healing they had sought was the one who delivered them of all their sin. It’s why Jesus having suffered on the cross for the sins of the world no longer continued on in His earthly ministry. It’s why, as the language of today’s Collect says, He comes to us by the healing medicine of the Word and Sacraments and pours into our hearts such love toward Him that we may live eternally. Faith is hard. It is not some simple thing of, whatever it is you pray for Jesus will deliver to you. It is fully trusting in Him to do for you what you truly need.

The prayer we prayed in the Collect of the Day is the prayer of faith. Praying that Christ would give us what we need in the healing medicine of the Word and Sacraments and pour into our hearts such love toward Him that we may live eternally. We may want to be delivered from the pain we’re suffering through. We may want to be removed from the trials we are experiencing. What will our prayer be? Will it be the prayer of seeking what we want, or what we truly need? Will it be the prayer of our sinful nature, or the prayer of faith? What would Jairus do? He would pray to Jesus fully trusting that Jesus would give him what he truly needed. And what did Jesus do? Exactly that.

He delivered his daughter from death, to be sure. That kind of power and love is amazing. But it gets even better. It’s the kind of power and love that points to the other things Jesus did for Jairus. He delivered him from his sins. He went to death Himself so that Jairus would be raised from death as his daughter was. In the healing medicine of Christ’s Word and Sacraments He gives us this power and love. It is power over sin and death and it is love which gives us life eternally—life in which we live now and forever, in body and soul. Amen.

SDG

Just Add Water

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

The Nativity of John the Baptist

June 24, 2012

Mark 4:35–41

There’s a question that keeps coming up that could be described as a nagging question. Not that that it’s necessarily annoying or even negative. Simply a question that keeps coming up, or hangs around there in the back of the mind. I’ve heard many people ask it over the years and have myself asked the question often over the years. It can be asked in various way but it’s along these lines: how do you grow the Church?

At the risk of being flippant, I would like to offer an equally simple answer: just add water. This answer may not be flippant at all. Oftentimes, the question that is asked is just as important as the reason for asking the question. When we want to know how to grow the church we so often look to things we can do. We look for ways we can change things in the church or add things or take away things. We look at what other churches are doing and wonder if we should imitate them. We think about how wonderful it would be to have more people and naturally we think about what we can do to make that happen.

We ask the question with good intent, but too often, out of context. When we’re asking how the Church grows we need to ask within the context of what the Church is and how it actually grows. The Gospel reading today is at the end of chapter 4 in Mark. The entire rest of the chapter is Jesus proclaiming parables of the Kingdom of God and the growth of the Kingdom, the Christian Church. Jesus is showing us that God grows His Church. It’s not what we need to do in order for the Church to grow. That’s a pretty big difference between the question of, how does God grow His Church, and the nagging question we so often ask of, how do we grow the Church?

God grows the Church. The point is not that we don’t do anything, though. The point is that when it comes to the Church growing, God grows His Church, it doesn’t grow by us changing things or adding things or removing things. Jesus’ parables of how the Church grows proclaim to us that there is a power that provides growth. There are no programs or activities we can do to make the Church grow. The power that provides growth in the Church is the Gospel. The Holy Spirit brings growth about in people through the Gospel.

When the Holy Spirit does this, guess what happens? The people of God serve and accomplish good works. While people do not become Christians through how nice we are to them, or by the amazing programs our congregation offers, or how friendly we are to them, or how much we help them in their needs, or any number of good and wonderful and godly things we do, these things certainly make an impact on people and are used by God in service of the proclamation of the Gospel. All of these things are wonderful and we should be doing them. When we think of how the Church grows, we think of things like this where we can make an impact on people. That’s why God has given us the ability to think and use reason and use common sense. People will more likely be open to us if we are considerate and kind to them.

As we do these things we shouldn’t do them to the exclusion of relying on the Gospel. Without the Gospel they are just a bunch of wonderful things we do that will serve to make people feel good without ever receiving what they ultimately need, which is forgiveness and life and salvation. We are truly loving others and truly helping them when we give them the Gospel. This is why Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the whole world, because He loves everyone. The way He truly loves us is by saving us from our sin. His salvation of the world has been accomplished, it is available to everyone. Before Jesus accomplished that salvation on the cross He spoke words of what being in that salvation is made of. When one has salvation he has life in which he grows.

When Jesus told all His parables of the Kingdom of God and the growth it has He then continued on with His ministry. On this particular occasion He got with His disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee. Perhaps in a way similar to the man He had told about in the parable of scattering the seed and then getting a good night of sleep each night while the seed did its work of growing in the earth, Jesus Himself had sown the seed of His Gospel by preaching and then Himself laid down in the boat and slept away. The Gospel was doing its work, growing in the hearts and minds of the people He had taught, even as He slept away, even as a storm was brewing out on the lake. The winds blew so heavily the water began crashing onto the boat, filling it up.

The response of the disciples may be a good picture of how we are when we wonder if we should do things differently in order to grow the Church. They woke Jesus up and said to Him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He must have been a heavy sleeper to sleep through the fierce storm. Or perhaps He was practicing what He had been preaching: getting the Gospel out and then relying on it to do its work. To them it just looked like He didn’t care whether they all drowned or not. In their question to Him there was a plea for help but it was couched in an accusation. Jesus, You have the power to save us from this, so why aren’t You? When it appears to us that the Church is not growing we have our own plea to God that He would help us grow, but with our question of how we grow the Church it’s couched in an accusation that it’s God’s fault that we’re not growing.

Jesus got up and spoke to the wind and the sea. He called out for peace. He commanded the wind and the sea to be still. On the one hand you have Jesus perfectly content sleeping through a storm that is about to take them all down. On the other hand you have Jesus standing before the forces of nature and speaking to them as if they are His children. In each case His word has done its work. Where He had proclaimed the Gospel through teaching parables He knew He could safely take a nap because that Gospel would do its work and cause growth in those who heard it. Now, where there were forces in nature that had no ears or minds or capacity for reason and ethics, He spoke His word again. There is immediate result, the wind and the waves stop. It is just as God spoke of it in the Old Testament reading for today: “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its  waddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?”

What does this tell us about God? It tells us He is the Creator. He brought into existence the wind and the sea. How He did it was by speaking these things into existence. His word is that powerful. It brings into being things that are not in existence. When God creates He also sustains. What He has created He has caused to grow. Even as He brought into existence things like the wind and the sea, He commands them at will, simply by speaking His word to them. They are His creation, they submit to Him and His word. So if they rise up in a furious storm that will overtake a boat carrying even Jesus Himself, they do so with the perfect knowledge of God Himself and by His allowing them to do so.

And maybe that was the point the disciples needed to get. They were in the boat, with Jesus. When the wind rose up and the waves rolled into the boat, instead of seeking deliverance from them, they simply should have realized they were in the boat with Jesus. If we think the Church isn’t growing, maybe instead we would realize that we’re in the boat with Jesus. Everything is going to be all right. Things are not nearly as bad as they seem. Whatever we think may be wrong with the Church, God is in perfect oversight over His creation and over His Kingdom., the Christian Church.

Perhaps the disciples even needed this Baptism of this furious storm. It served a similar purpose to a Baptism of fire. Just as fire purifies, water cleanses. If the disciples thought they were going to perish from the water overtaking them and that Jesus was going to be idly by sleeping, maybe they were right. That’s what happens in Baptism, after all. You perish. Your sinful flesh is drowned. If you don’t want that to happen, well, it’s pretty natural, isn’t it? It’s just as we confess our sins: we are by nature sinful and unclean. Kind of like the disciples in the boat about to drown, they were deathly afraid of that; in the same way your sinful flesh doesn’t want to be drowned in those waters of Baptism. They going to overtake you just as the waters flooding into that boat.

Jesus’ words struck home: Do you still have no faith? It’s true, we’re just like the disciples. Without Christ, without those cleansing waters of Baptism, of our own will and power, our sinful flesh, we have not faith. And we perish eternally because of it. That’s what we need to be saved from. And that’s why Jesus just adds water. He brings that torrent of water upon you so that your sinful flesh doesn’t stand a chance. Your sinful flesh will fight against it but Christ’s word is the last word. If He can tell the waters to be still, He can tell them to flood into your life through Baptism and cleanse you from your sin. It’s His Word that’s operative here. Just as He had been preaching in those parables of the Kingdom. If the disciples had been taking it to heart, they would have gone to Jesus in humility and trust rather than questioning and accusation.

Will we take the Gospel to heart? Will we trust that God is going to grow His Church according to His word and according to His ways? How much more of a blessing to rejoice in being in the boat. Let the waters come, when Christ’s word is behind it, there is only blessing, only growth. Amen.

SDG

Why You Don’t Need to Know

Third Sunday after Pentecost

June 17, 2012

Mark 4:26–34

There’s a difference between not knowing and uncertainty. You can have quite a bit of knowledge about something and still be uncertain. In a similar way, there are things you don’t understand and yet are very certain of them. God doesn’t reveal everything to you but what He gives you you can be certain of it. There are some things you know of God but you don’t know everything. Why is it that we long to look into those things we don’t know and don’t understand rather than simply being certain of those things He gives us?

There’s a reason He does it this way; we know it to be true on a fundamental level. We operate this way in so many areas of life. The way Paul states it in the Epistle reading is that we walk by faith and not sight. One area of life it works this way that we know well is in the home. Since today is Father’s Day, consider how it is a father raises his children in a godly way. One thing he does is teach them the Word of God. Does he dump all the theology there is to know on them off the bat? Of course not. Children aren’t ready for that off the bat but they’re most certainly ready for the Word. So he teaches them in the same way a baby is fed. It starts with milk, moves to baby food, and then slowly and methodically goes to substantive food.

The father knows that his children don’t know and understand all of it yet, but he teaches them the basics of God’s love for them in Jesus. He knows a lot more than they do but when he is teaching them a particular thing he doesn’t tell them everything he knows about it. He keeps it simple. He explains things in a simple way they can understand.

When he does this it’s plain that he’s withholding information, and he does this in many other areas of raising his children. He’s revealing some knowledge but not all. But the reason he’s doing it this way is because this is what is best for his children. Children don’t often see it that way. They want to know why. They don’t want simply to go on the word of their father. They want more information. They don’t realize it but this isn’t beneficial for them. What is beneficial is the way their father, who loves them, is teaching them and guiding them. He gives them what they need to know. As they grow he reveals more and more to them.

One of the most important things children need to hear from their father is the simple statement: “Because I said so.” That’s not going to work every time a child asks a question but one thing children need to learn is that they simply don’t know as much as their father knows. Even more importantly, they need to learn trust. They need to walk by faith and not by sight, so to speak. Where their father is guiding them is where they need to go, whether they understand it or not. And when he says something is a certain way they need to come to the point of trusting him and taking him at his word.

Ultimately, all analogies break down at some point, and with this one it breaks down with godly fathers themselves being sinners and people who themselves make mistakes and who themselves don’t know everything. Even so, haven’t we all experienced moments when we have looked back on something our dad said and the way he told us it was and we realized that it was exactly that way and it’s only now that we have gained in knowledge and wisdom that we see that there was a reason he didn’t tell us everything we wanted to know?

As much as we want to know, there’s a certain point where it’s good not to know. Not meaning not knowing anything. We obviously know some things; even a lot of things. The Bible is a pretty big book and there’s a lot in there for us to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. But the Bible itself tells us there are things God has not revealed to us. There are always questions we have, things we’d like to understand. To these things  we can always look forward to the day we’ll be in heaven where we’ll have a perfect understanding of them. Until then, we walk by faith, not by sight.

That’s why Jesus’ analogy is so great. It gets to the heart of why we don’t need to know certain things. It drives home the point that we rather should simply hold on to and trust in those things we are given to know. What the man does in Jesus’ analogy is scatter seed. He tosses it out there onto the ground. Then what does he do? He goes to bed. He takes a nice snooze, not worrying one bit about that seed. He did his work, he tossed the seed on out there on the ground and now he’s ready for a good night’s sleep.

A good night of sleep of course is followed by waking up to a new day. And what does the new day bring? It doesn’t bring anything new where that seed and ground are concerned. The seed is still there, right where the guy threw it on the ground. And yet, there’s something he knows that tells him differently. As he looks at the ground and the seed he sees nothing different from the day before. But he knows there’s something new. He knows there’s a natural process going on. He knows the seed is germinating. Notice what kind of knowing this is. It’s not an understanding of how the process works but simply that it works. A botanist would know how the process works but this guy’s a farmer. He’s not interested in how it works, just that it does.

And so he goes to bed again that night, not worrying that things don’t look any different but confident in knowing that they are. This pattern goes on for a time. He doesn’t keep adding more seed just because he doesn’t see any progress. He lets nature take its course. That’s why he can go to sleep each night knowing that he did what he needed to do. And over the course of time he is rewarded. The seed sprouts. It grows. He knew this would happen but never once worried about the fact that he didn’t know how it would happen.

Jesus isn’t giving a farming lesson and obviously there’s more to it than the few details He gives us. Jesus is teaching us to live by faith, not by sight. That’s what the guy in Jesus’ story did. He scattered the seed and then took things on faith. In time he saw results. As Jesus says, “The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.” When it’s finally ripe, the man gets to work again, this time with a sickle, and he harvests the crop.

This is the way it is in the Kingdom of God. It grows. But it doesn’t grow according to things we can understand. It grows according to the seed being scattered and God producing growth despite what we see. The seed is the Gospel. You may think of all kinds of ways to get the Church to grow, but there’s one thing Jesus gives you here to actually do: scatter that seed. Get the Gospel out there. Let Him take care of the natural process of His Kingdom growing. There is no question in Jesus’ analogy of whether or not growth is going to occur. It most definitely occurs. But it’s most definitely not by what the guy does and most certainly by what God does.

Even as the man doesn’t know how the growth process takes place the people of God, the Church, doesn’t know how the Church grows, only that it does and that it is because God is the one providing the growth. The Church scatters the seed; it gets the Gospel out there and lets God do the work. We don’t worry that we don’t understand. We come to the knowledge that it’s good not to know.

But doesn’t there have to be more to it? Don’t we have to do something? Don’t we have to understand about how to reach out to people? Doesn’t it seem that it’s not working if we don’t see the growth taking place? These are not questions of faith. They are questions of our Old Adam, questions of wanting to get a handle on things, of wanting to control this process. They are questions of those who walk by sight, not by faith. It’s clear that we do things. We share the Gospel with others, we do good works, we serve others, we give our offerings to God. Do we do these things in order for God’s Kingdom to grow? No, God is the one who grows His Kingdom. We who are in the Kingdom do these things because we are in the Kingdom. God doesn’t grow His Kingdom with our good works and our offerings. Our good works and offerings are the fruit that are produced from the natural process of God growing His Kingdom.

Everything we do is by grace, just as the salvation accomplished for us was by grace. Everything we do is in response to the grace given in Jesus Christ. Salvation has been accomplished by the humblest of actions in Jesus becoming a man and Jesus suffering on the cross for sin of the world. We are brought into the Kingdom of God because God brought His Kingdom to us in His Son. His Kingdom is not as we would expect, even as we wouldn’t expect Him to come to us in the way He did.

He shows us how we should view His Kingdom in another parable for us: the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Now I don’t know about you, but if I were God I would want to compare my kingdom to something spectacular. But that’s because I see things very differently than God does. I want the Christian Church to look spectacular. I want it to be something people can look at and readily see that this is of God. But God likes to operate in subtle ways. He didn’t make things so that when a farmer wants a crop that he tosses into the ground some seed and immediately pops up the most spectacular plants you’ve ever seen. It’s a long, very boring process.

And for His Kingdom He doesn’t take the biggest and the greatest. He takes the smallest. The mustard seed is something you wouldn’t expect much from. And yet its growth is greater than we could imagine, as it grows into the largest of the garden plants. Jesus’ description goes on from there with these words: the tree “puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” This is reminiscent of what God says in the Old Testament reading today: “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and will set it out. I will break off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel will I plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble cedar. And under it will dwell every kind of bird; in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest. And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.”

That’s really the upshot of it all. He is the Lord. He has spoken. He will do it. He does it by the very speaking of His word. He brings low the high tree and makes high the low tree; He dries up the green tree and makes the dry tree flourish. If you attempt to understand it or seek what He hasn’t revealed to you you won’t know what He has given you to know. When it comes to what He hasn’t given you to know it’s good not to know and you don’t need to know. You don’t know how it works that God grows His Kingdom, but you know it does. You can be certain of that, because He has said it and He has also said that His Word goes forth and accomplishes the purpose for which He sent it. Amen.

SDG

On Pentecost, Patience, and Plundering

Second Sunday after Pentecost

June 10, 2012

Mark 3:20–35 

We have entered into the Pentecost season. Christmas and Lent and Easter and even Epiphany are pretty familiar to us. But the Pentecost season can seem a long drawn out season, especially as it takes up half the year. The festival of Pentecost itself is familiar to us. We know what that’s all about, with the Holy Spirit coming in a sound as of rushing wind, appearing as of tongues of fire over the apostles’ heads; the apostles speaking in languages they did not know but that were clearly understood by the hearers of those languages.

But now we’re in the Pentecost season. What is it all about? During the Pentecost season we don’t keep talking about the Day of Pentecost. So do we just talk about stuff? Are the things of the Pentecost season on a lesser scale than those of Christmas and Easter? While certain times and festivals of the Church Year do stand out, the Church Year is an organic whole. There really is nothing in the Church Year that does not do what every other part of the Church Year does and that is bring Christ to us. Whether it is the incarnation at Bethlehem or the glory of the Transfiguration or the riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday or the suffering at Calvary or the leaving behind of the burial cloths and death itself in the tomb that is now empty, the Church Year brings to us Christ and what He has accomplished for us.

Even the event of Pentecost is an event in the life of Christ and of what He has done for us. He had promised to send His Holy Spirit and so on Pentecost He did. If the first half of the Church Year follows the life of Christ, in the second half of the Church Year we follow the life of the Church. But one who pays attention to the Church Year sees that every day of the Church Year receives its focus from the Gospel reading. Even though we’re now in the Pentecost season and following the life of the Church it’s really just more of who Christ is and what He accomplishes for us.

That brings us to the second point and that is patience. Today is the Second Sunday after Pentecost. Pentecost is still fresh in our minds. We’re still eager for this new season of the Church Year to unfold. We’re not quite ready to begin all over again with Advent and Christmas. And yet, by the calendar months we’ll still be in this season of Pentecost we’ve just begun six months from now. It’s June now and when we hit October and even go into November we will still be in the same season of the Church Year we’re in now. During the summer and into the fall when we come to church we will be celebrating festivals with such dynamic names as the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost and the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost. Celebrating who Christ is and what He has done for us or no, it can seem a little anti-climactic when you’re just adding Sunday upon Sunday to the days of the Pentecost season.

And it may not be a bad thing simply to admit this. It can seem old. It can feel that it’s not all that exciting. It can even feel that way about the entire Church Year itself, being as we repeat it each year. But this is one of the blessings of the Church Year. It teaches us patience. Children are often impatient. They can’t wait for what they want. They fail to see how waiting can be a good thing. But adults can be impatient also. When we’re at the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost and there are still several more to go we can become weary of the seemingly endless observance of the season of Pentecost.

One of the things Pentecost teaches us is patience. During this season of the Church Year we see that the Christian life is not one of spectacle but often of ordinary day to day living as servants of God. This takes patience. When the disciples waited for Jesus’ promise of sending the Holy Spirit they had to have patience. In the grand scheme of things they didn’t have to wait long. But once the Holy Spirit came in spectacular display, what happened then? There were no further tongues of fire and sounds of rushing wind. There was the almost ordinary day to day and week after week proclaiming of God’s Word and the Breaking of the Bread and prayer.

The Book of Acts makes it seem exciting how the apostles went around preaching and healing and the Church growing at a fast rate. And in a sense that is exciting. But the Book of Acts records only the beginning. The apostles continued on. The Church continued on after the apostles. We know from the Scriptures that the apostles and the first Christians were people like you and me. They had the same struggles, the same feelings, the same sins. We are no more prone to impatience than they were. In the Book of Acts we have recorded some instances where the Gospel was proclaimed by the apostles and thousands of people were converted. Do you think that happened every time they proclaimed the Gospel? Do you wonder what the apostles thought when they continued to proclaim the Gospel and not every time was followed by a mass conversion?

I believe the Book of Acts gives us this answer. They continued on in patience and faithfulness, as the Book of Acts deliberately doesn’t give us the details of the thoughts and feeling of the apostles as they continued on in making known the Gospel. This is to show that they continued to do what the Lord had called them to do even as it would continue to be done after the apostles were gone. In the rest of the New Testament we have the Holy Spirit-inspired writings of the apostles and those writings show us what kind of people they were writing to. They were people like you and me. They were sinners. They were people who had feelings and who were impatient and who had problems. All those mass conversions were wonderful, but the Church would continue on with sinners who need constantly to hear the Gospel and receive the Sacraments.

This takes patience. It teaches us humility. It shows us what faith really is about. It shows us that, just as in the Book of Acts, the blessings that come about in the Church are blessings from God. They come about through the Lord doing the work, and He does the work through the Gospel being proclaimed and the Sacraments administered. We may become impatient but our Lord is at work and He is accomplishing what He has promised to accomplish. He forgives sins and strengthens faith.

This brings us to the third point, which is plundering. For those who are faint of heart or those who want a Christianity that is all peace and love and a God who is only gentle and never harsh, the words of Jesus and the work He carries out will seem out of character and out of place. But for those who see what Pentecost is truly about and who are willing to be patient and let God do His work, Jesus’ work of plundering will be a refreshing surprise.

The first surprise comes when it seems that Jesus is doing some sort of aiding and abetting the enemy in His mini-parable on the kingdom of Satan. It almost seems as if He’s giving instructions on how the Prince of Darkness can further his kingdom: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.”

In the Gospel reading Jesus was confronted on several fronts. His family thought He was out of His mind, the religious leaders thought He was demon-possessed, and of course Satan assaulted Him by possessing many people. Jesus has come to do His work and while many people believed in Him there were many who did not. Those who rejected Him thought He wasn’t in His right mind or that He was demon-possessed so He showed that it’s impossible for Him to be of the devil if what He is doing is casting out demons. If He were doing what He was doing in the service of Satan then Satan would be working against himself and his kingdom would fall.

As it was, Satan’s kingdom was in full force and so Jesus was attacking him right back, head on. This is what Jesus means when He says that “no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” Jesus acknowledged that Satan was a strong man of sorts. Satan was on the prowl, like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. He was grabbing hold of people with demon possession. He was wreaking his havoc as he does. But as strong as Satan was, there was one who was stronger. That’s why Jesus came. He came to plunder Satan’s house. In order to do that, He said, He first must bind the strong man. Jesus came with the Gospel flowing freely from His lips, the touch of His hands bringing forth healing, and the power of His word casting out demons. Jesus was binding the strong man. Having bound him He would plunder his house.

That’s what Jesus still does, we being a Pentecost Church and all. That’s what He continues to do, though some still think He’s out of His mind for thinking that He is truly God. It’s what He does even as we need to be patient as He was with His family. His work of plundering doesn’t sound all that proper of work, but it’s very proper when You’re God and Satan is seeking to steal the people you created away from You. God created us to be in relationship with Him and Satan seeks to destroy that relationship. He does so by attacking us. God attacks right back and He does so in the proclamation of the Gospel and the Sacraments being delivered to us.

Though some thought He was out of His mind, though some thought He was demon possessed, though many thought many things of Him, none of this deterred Jesus from coming straight into Satan’s kingdom and binding him. It may have seemed a pathetic end to a ministry of such spectacle of teaching thousands, healing many, delivering people from demons, when Jesus ended up hanging on a cross only to end up hanging there lifelessly. But this was how Jesus bound the strong man. Though Satan bruised Jesus’ heal, Jesus crushed Satan’s head. Satan can attempt to overcome people with power. Jesus overcomes Satan with love. In humility He was bound to the cross and God the Father laid upon Him the iniquity of us all so that we are no longer bound by them or Satan’s lies or attacks. Jesus is the stronger one. He binds the strong man, Satan.

In patience we see this plundering work of Jesus. He continues to comes right in our midst, in this very world where Satan continues to attack people and try to overtake them. People may think we’re out of our minds believing that Jesus actually comes to us in water connected with His word and in bread and wine that are connected with His word, but we will take Him at His word. It takes patience, no doubt. It takes faith, most definitely. But Jesus took care of that at Pentecost, when He sent His Holy Spirit. He took care of that in your Baptism, when He sent His Holy Spirit again and imparted to you faith. He takes care of it when He gives you His body and blood in His Holy Supper and strengthens you in your faith. Satan doesn’t stand a chance. Standing in His grace, you do. Amen.

SDG