Sermon - Advent 1 - Luke 19:28-40

 

Luke 19:28–40

“The Messiah Comes to Save”

A blessed Advent season to you.  Advent means “coming”, and of course Christmas is coming – and for many it’s been here since November 1^st, especially in our ants-in-the-pants American culture.

But the Church is more patient and orderly.  We take our time approach the celebration of Christ’s birth.  And so, the season of Advent.  A mournful longing that takes us back to join the Old Testament people of God who prayed and waited and watched for the fulfilling of God’s messianic promise.  And much like Lent strikes a sober and even somber note of repentance which prepares us for the seriousness of Holy Week and the joy of Easter – Advent makes us liturgically ready for Christmas joy and celebration.

Advent also carries forward the reminder that yes, Christ has come, and yes, Christ is coming again!  Once he came in humility as the Babe of Bethlehem.  But his Second Advent is at hand – he will come again, but in glory, to judge the living and the dead.  We heard quite a bit about the last day, the end times, and the judgment day in the last few weeks.  Now that same theme reverberates in Advent – Christ is coming, and coming soon.  Here we even use blue paraments, in part, to remind us when he comes again it will be in the sky – and all will see him.

But there are other Advents.  There are the Old Testament advents – when he came and appeared in the burning bush, the pillar of cloud and fire, and as the Angel of the Lord.  There was the wrestling match with Jacob by the Jabbock River.  There was the visit to Abraham with the two angels.  Even when he stood in the road and blocked Balaam’s donkey.

And then in the New Testament, perhaps you wouldn’t call it an advent but simply an appearance – but the Ascended Christ appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, and to John on the Island of Patmos. 

But today, the lectionary invites us to consider his triumphal advent, his kingly arrival on Palm Sunday.  Accompanied by the fanfare of the crowds, the cries of Hosanna, the palm branches strewn and the garments spread out before him.  He’s welcomed as king – as Son of David – and really, as Messiah.  The one who comes in the name of the Lord!

It’s a beautiful and celebratory event in Christ’s ministry that infects us with joy even today, as we see it as a foreshadowing of his great and final Advent in glory at the close of the age.  Christ is coming, and coming to save.  “Hosanna, save us now!” the church still prays, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus”

And yet not everyone took kindly to such adulation and praise.  The Pharisees said to him, “teacher, rebuke your disciples”.  And this is something maybe we need to examine a little further.

Well, for one thing, Jesus never responds well when other people tell him who to rebuke.  Do you want us to call down fire and brimstone on those cities, Lord?  No.  Send these annoying children away.  Oh, then Jesus gets indignant.  Send this woman away, she keeps crying out after us!  But Jesus engages her in conversation, and eventually grants her petition.  He’s a Lord of mercy, after all, and loves to welcome needy sinners into his good favor.

To be sure, Jesus does rebuke people.  He rebukes Peter, who would point him away from the cross, “no, Lord, this shall never happen to you”, “Oh Yeah?  Get behind me, Satan”.  He rebukes the disciples, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them”.  He rebukes the crowd who wanted to stone the adulterous woman, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone”.  But he will rebuke on his timetable, and in his own way, those who need a rebuking.  Usually it’s those who oppose his word, and would stand in the way of the gospel, or keep people from receiving his grace.  It’s those who, like Satan himself, would turn Jesus away from his mission to the cross – if only they could.

The Pharisees here on Palm Sunday understand well the implications of the crowd’s celebration.  They would have been right in seeing all this messianic hubbub as pure blasphemy – if Jesus wasn’t, in fact, the Messiah.  If he was just some teacher, even a great teacher.  If he was only a man.  If he was anything but the One promised deliverer, David’s Son and David’s Lord.  But he is all that, and much more.  And he deserves the praises of the crowd, and much more.

Palm Sunday, as we’ve said, is a foretaste of the great Second Coming of Christ.  When he comes in glory, and all his angels with him, then the fanfare will be even more – it will be heavenly.  Then he will come to his own, not just his holy city – but to his holy bride. 

Jesus replies to the Pharisees, “If these were silent, even the stones would cry out”  Let’s unpack that a little bit, too.

On one level, he is accepting and validating their worship of him, as he always does.  Jesus rarely claims his divinity directly, but certainly never refuses the worship and praises of the faithful.  He is God, after all, and will never lie about himself. 

But when God is praised and worshipped in the Scriptures, it is less often for who he is, and more often for what he does for his people.  Their shouts of Hosanna, a form of worship, are at the same time a confession that he does, in fact, “save us!”  They may not fully understand how this will happen, they may be confused about what or whom they are being saved from – but the truth still stands.  The Son of David is on the scene.  And he comes to save. 

That we need saving is also part of that confession, and we can say it just as much as the Palm Sunday crowds.  We need saving from sin.  We need saving from death.  We need saving from the devil.  We need him to be the savior because we can’t save ourselves.  And so we rejoice that the Messiah has come to save.

Praises are due.  Worship must be given.  Honors are afforded.  Rejoicing is only natural.  It simply must be said.  And if the people didn’t say it, even nature itself would be forced to bear witness.  The stones would cry out.  The Messiah has come to save.

There’s one more advent we haven’t mentioned, and that is his coming among us today.  Jesus has arrived, and is here.  He is among us, for 2 or 3 and more have gathered in his name.  He is present, by his word of absolution and Holy Gospel.  He is preached and proclaimed to you from this pulpit.  And soon he will be in our midst in a most wonderful way, in, with, and under the bread and wine of his Holy Sacrament.  Here, too, the Messiah has come to save.

And here, today as well, those who are saved break out in songs of praise.  Think about what we do liturgically.  Before we receive Sacrament, we sing the Sanctus, which connects the song of the angels, that God is “holy, holy, holy” with the “Hosanna in the highest” of Palm Sunday.  We’re rehearsing and echoing the song of the crowd that day, in the song of the church through the ages when the Messiah comes to save.  And we sing after – “Lord, let your servant depart in peace…. For my eyes have seen your salvation”.  We depart from his sacramental presence with the peace of his salvation – because here he has come to act – to forgive – to save.

And if we didn’t recognize – even the stones might cry out.  In fact, that’s sort of what happens anyway.  Think about it.  What’s more dead and inert than a stone.  What’s more lacking life, than something like a stone that has never even been alive?  One answer might be:  the human heart, born into the corruption of sin.  And yet our Lord Jesus Christ, by his Spirit working through the Gospel and the water of Baptism, creates in me and you a new heart, and a right spirit.  He brings life from the dead, even, as we are buried and raised with Christ.

John the Baptist once tangled with the Pharisees, too.  He anticipated one of their arguments, “We have Abraham as our father”.  John was not impressed, he said, “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”  And surely, that is what God does, through the miracle of the Gospel.  He raises up hard-hearted, stone-dead people of sin into fully new creations, alive and well, who shout and cry out their hosannas of praise to the Messiah who has come to save.

His Advent is, or should we say his advents are – at hand.  He came in the flesh, he came to his holy city, he came to the cross, he came to life again.  He comes in the word, he comes in the meal, and he will come again in glory, to judge the living and the dead.  But for his people, the Messiah always comes to save.  Thanks be to God.

Sermon - The Last Sunday in the Church Year - John 18:33-37

“Christ the King”

John 18:33-37

This Sunday, the Last Sunday in the Church Year, is observed by some, especially in the last 50-60 years, as “Christ the King Sunday”.  And while you see we haven’t called it that on our bulletin, the idea of Christ as King is clear in the cover art – There he is, seated on his throne, with angels attending him, and the caption is from our Gospel reading, “The Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.”

Even if we don’t formally call it “Christ the King Sunday”, there is good reason on this day at the end of the church year, to not only focus on the end of this world and Christ’s second coming – but to remember that Christ is our king.  For he reigns in glory in heaven now – and when he returns it will be as triumphant and glorious as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  So a bit of a topical sermon this morning – as we consider Christ the King.

The alternate Gospel reading for Christ the King Sunday will serve as my text this morning.  Here we have Jesus discussing the nature of his kingship and his kingdom with Pontius Pilate.  We read from John 18:

33 So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” 35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

There are many places you could go in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, to learn about kings.  At the end of the time of the Judges, the people no longer wanted God as their king, but rebelliously demanded a king “like the other nations”.  So God relented and gave them what they asked for, though warning them having a king isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  A king will tax you heavily, force your labor, and take your sons off to war. 

Saul was the first of Israel’s kings.  A tall and handsome man who turned out to be a coward, and rotten on the inside.  But he did serve well as a foil for the next king, David, who is called “a man after God’s own heart”. 

David was mostly faithful, though his great sin with Bathsheba had consequences that reverberated throughout his family and his kingdom for generations. 

Solomon, David’s son and heir, also reigned in a time of peace and prosperity, built the temple, but it seems fell away from faith late in life. 

And his heirs divided the kingdom into two, and their successors were mere shadows of David and Solomon.  Mostly pagan kings (with a few faithful ones thrown in), the time of Israel’s kingdom came to an end at the hands of marauding world empires.

Later, came Jesus.  The Son of David who would sit on David’s throne forever.  The one called both in mockery and in truth, the “King of the Jews”. 

What a strange king he is.  His kingdom is not of or from this world.  It is other-worldly.  His servants don’t fight to save him from death, like the soldiers of an earthly king are pledged to do.  In fact when Peter draws his sword and begins slicing ears to defend Jesus – Jesus quickly rebukes him.

While this king did make a grand and royal entrance to his city not a week before, he still showed great humility – coming in peace and riding a lowly donkey. 

And now, this king from another world stands before the closest thing to a king the Jews would know – an earthly ruler with the singular power over life and death.  Pilate represented Caesar, and in terms of earthly power, kingly power, there was no rival. 

What an irony that the King of Kings stands before this earthly ruler.  Who is putting whom on trial here?  Who has the authority over whom?  But Jesus stands humbly before Pilate, and will even submit silently to the sentence Pilate delivers. 

Pilate wants to know if Jesus is the King of the Jews.  And of course he is.  He is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David that his throne would endure forever.  He is the long-awaited Messiah of the Jews, the anointed one.  But he is, of course, much more than the king of one tribe or nation.  He is also the heavenly King.  He is God.

And we must admit -  Pilate isn’t the only human ever to get too big for his britches before God.  From the first sin of the first sinner, we humans have always sought to take God’s place on the throne.  To make ourselves the king, the one to set the rules.  “You’re not the boss of me” our rebellious nature would say, as a petulant child on the playground might.  We want the throne and the crown for ourselves. We want the power, the glory, the worship.  Sinful man gets it upside down as usual, just as Pilate did.

Pilate should have been on trial before the true King here.  Pilate should have had to answer to him.  And the righteous Judge, Jesus Christ, could have passed a just verdict of death upon Pilate and any other sinner.

But this strange king from another world doesn’t.  One day he will judge the living and the dead.  But for now, he had another task.  A kingly task.  He came to die.

Not in glorious battle as the kings of the earth might do – charging the field with sword brandished and war cry fierce.  Rather, this king fights by not fighting, he wins the day by losing everything.  He conquers death by dying.

His crown is not a golden, jewel-encrusted decoration of great riches and honor, but a crown of thorns, twisted together by the mockery of soldiers and meant to add to his suffering.

His throne is not some high and grand and regal perch from which he hands down pronouncements and decrees.  But rather, his throne is the cross, from which issues forth his blood – shed to atone for sin.  From there he prays for our forgiveness.  There he offers the once-and-for-all sacrifice to win that forgiveness.

And his kingly title is not sounded by a herald and trumpet, with a long list of earthly honors – but a wooden sign that says, “king of the Jews”.  And even that, meant in sarcasm and insult.  But that title written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek so that all nations could read it – confesses that his kingship is over all nations, and his kingly activity is meant for all.

Finally, Jesus teaches Pilate that his kingdom and kingship have to do with the truth.  That the reason Jesus was born was to proclaim the truth.  And that everyone who is of the truth listens to his voice. 

So much of earthly kingship, and human exercise of power, has to do with lies, half-truths, and political spin.  Pilate himself was guilty of it – though he admitted Jesus was without fault, condemned him as a criminal.  Though he alone gave the word of order, he symbolically washed his hands as if to deny the responsibility for it.

But Christ our King is all about the truth.  And his truth is like no other. The truth is we are guilty, but he comes to satisfy justice for us.  The truth is we want to be our own king, but he shows us the truth of our sin.  The truth is he is not just a king, but our king, our loving and merciful king.

And he, like all kings, rules.  But that’s not the most notable thing about this king who is no from this world.  A good king not only rules, but also protects his subjects, even fights for them in the thick of the battle.  And our good and great king does so like no other.  He defeats our old evil foe and holds the field forever.  He gives us the victory, even his victory over death.  And he gives us our own crown of righteousness.  When he comes again in glory, our heavenly king, we receive a share in his eternal reign – thrones and crowns and glorified, resurrected bodies – and an eternal place in his heavenly courts.

All hail Christ the King!  The King of the Jews.  The King of the Universe.  The King who rules with power and might and yet shows great mercy. The king who always speaks truth, and whose truth sets us free.  The king who will come again in glory, and whose kingdom will never end.

Sermon - Pentecost 25 - Mark 13:1-13

Mark 13:1-13

Don’t be led astray.  Endure to the end.

For the ancient Jews, like Jesus’ disciples, they had few experiences of awe as stunning as coming to the temple.  This temple in Jerusalem was built 500 years ago in the time of Ezra, had been renovated and expanded by the famous builder-king Herod the Great, yes the same one who tried to have Jesus killed as in infant. 

Most of the work Herod did was completed in just 3 years, but ongoing construction continued for about 80 years.  It wasn’t completed until 67AD, just three years before the Romans destroyed the temple in 70AD.

But for simple Galilean fishermen and their friends, it was an impressive sight.  Huge white stones were featured, which would have dwarfed temple goers.  Some of these stones were 45 feet high and weighed 500-600 tons.

Herod’s construction was magnificent and it far exceeded even the specifications God gave for first temple that was built during the glory days of King Solomon.

But the temple had, in many ways, become an idol to those people.  It became more a triumphant symbol of Jewish nationalism – a point of pride – and less the house of prayer, the house of God, where the merciful Yahweh came to meet his people. 

And the same Jesus who cleansed the temple by turning over its money-changing tables – now speaks of the toppling of even the great stones that so impressed everyone.  The same God who frustrated the construction project of the Tower of Babel, would eventually bring this great edifice also to ruin.  In 70 AD the Romans besieged Jerusalem, destroyed it, and demolished the temple.  Never to be built again, to this day.  All that remains is the western wall, called the “wailing wall”, where modern Jews still pray and mourn the loss of their great temple.

What does this history lesson have to do with you and me?  For one thing, Jesus is warning us not to be attached to this world.  He’s warning us not to be impressed by the great and mighty things of this world.  For the wonders of the world, the achievements of man, even the very foundations of the world itself, are passing away.  This world has an expiration date.  It will not go on this way forever.

Sure the temple was destroyed just 40 years after Jesus spoke these words.  And yes, he surely knew that would happen.  But that event was itself a foreshadowing of the end of the world, the judgment day, and of the second coming of Christ.

Jesus is teaching his disciples, and us, to see the signs.  The signs of the times.  The signs of the end.  For we are living in a world that is passing away, and Christ is coming soon. And he wants us to be ready.

So Peter and Andrew, James and John take Jesus aside and ask for more details.  They especially are concerned with the “when” of it all.  Jesus doesn’t tell them the when, but he sure does tell them more of the “what” to expect:

False prophets.  Many coming and claiming to be the Messiah, in one fashion or another.  We’ve seen this fulfilled all throughout history, and we see it even today.  It’s not just the cult leaders or even the office of the papacy, but any would-be-Christ-figure who promises salvation outside of the true Christ alone. 

Wars and rumors of war.  The 20^th century has seen more bloodshed than perhaps any other previous.  So much for human progress.  And while we live in a time of relative peace, there’s still the rumors of wars – Russia, China, whatever… nation rising against nation.  But there’s also the culture wars and the clash of worldviews opposed to the teachings of Christ and his church.

Earthquakes and famines, all manner of natural disasters.  We’ve had a stark reminder of this with the Covid pandemic these past couple years.  It shouldn’t shock us.  These sorts of things are part of life.  Part of living in a fallen, broken, world.  Yes, even for the Christian church.

He compares all this to a woman in labor.  They are like birth pangs.  They come and go, but they do tend to get worse as the end draws near. 

And persecution.  He goes on quite a bit more about this.  Perhaps because, especially for these disciples, they would face fierce persecution.  They would be beaten and dragged before all manner of powerful men.  Yet in the midst of all this, they would have many opportunities to proclaim the gospel, and testify to Christ.

And yes, as if to put a final warning on top of it all – the trouble of the end times will see even families at odds with one another – brothers and even parents and children having each other put to death.  It’s hard to imagine, but we seen glimpses of it even in our own lives.

That’s a lot of warning, a lot of trouble, a lot of bad news.  And if that’s all that Jesus had to offer we might well be driven to despair.  We might dread the future and have no hope.  This sinful world is a tangled up, broken mess of disasters of human making and of the fallen nature.  And worse, we bring our own sins to the party and cannot escape any of it on our own.  But he does not leave us without hope.

For Christians, the second coming of Christ, the judgment day, the Great Epiphany, and whatever other names we call it – the Day of the Lord – is a good day.  It is the day of salvation.  For Jesus says, “the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

But just like we don’t come to faith on our own, we surely can’t endure to the end on our own.  Jesus tells us the many troubles the church must face, and that we individually might face – not so much to scare us straight – but as a way of comforting us.  Yes, he knows how bad it can get, how bad it will get, before his comes back.  But he sends his Spirit to keep us so that we would endure to the end and be saved. 

That any make it through all this trouble, this vale of tears, this great tribulation at all – is a miracle of God’s grace!  But our God is in that very business.  It is in fact by many of these sufferings that he produces in us patience and character and endurance and hope – a hope which does not fail.

Friends, Christ will return.  It’s more certain than the sun rising and setting.  For even the sun and stars and moon, as Daniel writes, even the mightiest features of this created order will fail and pass away.  But the word of the Lord endures forever.  And the promises of Christ are strong and sure.  And Jesus will not lead you astray.  You can always, always trust his word.

And like birth pangs, also, not only do all these troubles come and go and yet increase toward the end… but they also lead to a joyful conclusion.  For as the pains of labor lead ultimately to the arrival of a new life – a child – a joyous celebration, so also do the birth pangs of this world’s travails lead ultimately to eternal joy at the glorious appearing of Christ the victorious king!

And with one last glance at this passage, two commands of Jesus might well ring in our ears.  Do not be led astray.  Endure to the end.

Do not be lead astray, Christians.  Do not be led astray into false hopes apart from Christ, or to despair of all hope entirely.  But rather put your faith and trust in the one who can see you through all this to its glorious end. The only one who died for your sins and lives to bring life and immortality to light.  The only name under heaven by which we must be saved.

Endure to the end, Christians.  And how do we do that?  By remaining in Christ, abiding in his word, knowing the truth that sets us free.  By repenting of our sins, and living the baptismal life, and turning to Christ for forgiveness every day.  By receiving his body and blood regularly, that it would strengthen and preserve you – to life everlasting.  He does not leave us to all these end times troubles.  But he carries us through them by his gifts – word, sacrament, faith.

So don’t be in awe at the things of this world, the achievements of man like huge temple stones, or be distracted by the spectacles and wonders of even God’s own creation.  Trust in Christ, and in his word which will endure forever. 

And the peace of God which passes all understanding…

Sermon - Reformation Day - John 8:31-36

 

“Reformation Truth”

A blessed and joyous Reformation Day to you.  This special Sunday is observed, particularly in Lutheran churches, because of the historical significance of October 31^st, 1517.  An Augustinian monk named Martin Luther posted 95 theses, or statements for debate on the castle church door in Wittenburg Germany.

And while it seems that something 500 years ago is far off and might be well forgotten, we give thanks to God not so much for a man named Luther, but what the Lord of the Church accomplished through him and the other reformers.

Oh sure there are many ways to look at the Reformation.  You could see it as a great story of standing up for what you believe in against powerful institutions.  Or a tale about the courage of one’s convictions.  Or the triumph of the individual over the giant faceless bureaucracy.  But that’s not really why we still set aside a whole Sunday for this.

You see Reformation Day is all about truth.  The Truth of the Gospel.  The same truth that we hear about in our reading from Revelation 14 – where an angel is depicted with an “eternal gospel”.  The truth of God good news for us in Jesus Christ, you see, never changes.  It’s the same truth Paul writes about in Romans 3 – that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works of the law.  It was true for Paul back then.  It was true for Abraham before him, saved by grace through faith.  And it’s true for us even now, even today.

It’s also the truth that Jesus talks about in John 8, our Gospel reading today.  The truth that sets you free.  Here’s one of those sayings that many people repeat and probably don’t know it comes from the Bible – or even that it’s Jesus who said it, “The truth will set you free!”

But Jesus isn’t talking about the truth in general.  Although we are certainly in favor of that.  We even teach truth as one of the core values at our classical school – truth, goodness and beauty – the overarching principles of classical education.  I think Jesus would be in favor of all that.

But what he’s talking about here is the truth with a capital T.  The truth of God’s word.  And that word really has two parts, two sides as a coin.

Anyone who sins is a slave to sin.  That’s the bad news.  It’s what we Lutherans call the law.  And it stops every mouth so that no one has an excuse.  All have sinned and fall short of God’s perfect law.  No one is righteous, not one.  No one can be justified by works of the law, because we all break the law every day in many ways.  Or as Jesus puts it, “anyone who sins is a slave to sin.” And “a slave has no permanent place in the house”.

This is part of the Reformation truth that Luther rediscovered.  That all the works and rituals and traditions of the church, all the penance performed and all the money donated, even the formal and flowery documents of indulgence issued on the authority of the pope himself – that all of it was rubbish.  Worthless.  None of it can save you.  We can never do enough good works to make up for our sins.  We can never stop sinning anyway, and so our debt is far too great for us to pay.  Our situation, on our own, before God, is without hope.  We are in bondage – slaves to sin.

But Paul didn’t leave us without hope.  And Luther finally rediscovered that hope.  And Jesus of course always held out that hope – the hope of the Gospel which is the very power of God for salvation.  The good news that even though you can’t save yourself, Jesus has done it all for you! 

Even though you are a slave to sin, he is the Son – the Son of God and the Son of Man – the one, the only one who can free you from sin and death and hell.  The only one who’s good works are good enough for God.  The only one who’s blood can cover sin.

This Jesus is the truth that sets you free.  And if you abide in his word, you know him. 

Abide.  There’s a funny word.  It means to live in it, remain in it, to sort of soak yourself thoroughly in his word.  So that the word of God is never far from you – but always in your ear, on your lips, in your heart.  This is why we rehearse it with our children – and teach it in our catechism.  So that they, too, will abide in the word of Christ, know the truth, and that truth will set them free. 

No, it doesn’t mean that we never sin again.  Christians still do.  Though rather than making a practice of sin, a lifestyle of sin, rather than running headlong into sin full steam ahead – the Christian is different. 

If we abide in the truth of the Gospel, we will begin to see sin as something alien to us – not a part of who God has made us in Christ to be.  And so we struggle against our sins.  We wrestle with them.  And we live in repentance – confessing our sins to Christ the Son who always stands ready with his forgiveness.  And so the first of Luther’s 95 theses got it right, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ``Repent'' (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

Luther lived at a time when the church had largely forgotten all this.  They began to abide in other things than his word.  But God worked through this German monk with all his flaws and shortcomings, and the Gospel truth of Salvation by grace alone rang out clear once again.

Another important Reformation Day truth clarifies where we go for this truth.  The pope in Rome claimed to speak for Christ, and with him the Church claimed to speak for God – even over against Scripture.  Church tradition and customs usurped the clear and simple words of the Bible in many ways.  A course correction was long overdue.  And so the reformers rallied around the slogan, “Sola Scriptura”, that is “Scripture Alone”.  Scripture alone is our source of Christian teaching.  Scripture alone is infallible and finally trustworthy.  Popes and councils can and do go wrong.  But God’s word will never lead us astray. 

So when Jesus says “abide in my word and you will know the truth”, we hear an encouragement to read our bibles, trust God’s word, and know follow what he teaches us there – and not to hold blindly to the traditions and teachings of man. 

Of course this is also true for Martin Luther, too.  Much of what Luther taught and preached was good and right and true.  And for that we give thanks to God.  But some of what he said and did was frankly quite embarrassing.  We must remember, our faith is in Christ, not Luther.  Our trust is in Christ’s word, not Luther’s word.  When Luther agrees with Christ, we agree with Luther.  But when Luther departs and falls short, we stick with Jesus Christ.

Which brings us to another great truth of the reformation, “Solus Christus” or “Christ Alone”

A faith based on the Bible, a faith that is right and true, is a faith that trusts Christ alone, and knows salvation through Christ alone.

The truth is there is no salvation outside of Christ.  Certainly not in ourselves.  Not in any other god.  Not in any idea or philosophy or religion or ism.  Jesus says it himself, “I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father by through me”.

But it’s not Jesus “plus-something” either.  Jesus plus your good works.  Jesus plus your commitment. Jesus plus you agreeing to accept him into your heart.  Oh no.  Salvation by grace alone through faith alone is in Christ ALONE.  You can’t add anything to what Jesus has already done for you.  He has done it all.  His work is sufficient.  His sacrifice was perfect.  His blood atones for all your sin.

We thank God on this Reformation day for reforming and sustaining his church.  Luther faced his challenges.  We face our own.  In a day and age when truth itself is under fire, and some question if truth even exists – may we continue to abide in the word of Christ and rejoice in the truth.  Thanks be to God for salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone – the truth of the Gospel that sets us free!

Sermon - Pentecost 21 - Mark 10:23-31

On the heels of Jesus’ interaction with the rich young man, he sees the crowd looking on and continues the teaching moment.  In fact last week’s reading and this can really be thought of as a unit – on the dangers of riches and how difficult it is to enter the kingdom.

Some have said that the camel going through the eye of a needle here is really not a sewing needle, but the small door in the side of the walled city.  Not the main door for armies and caravans to come in easily, but a small door, big enough for one man to come through – and not much more.  Strategic for defense in time of siege warfare, it is suggested.  And if that’s what Jesus means here then it is quite a laughable picture.  Imagine some poor fellow pulling an irritated camel from the front (camels spit, you know) and another sad soul assigned to push the camel from behind.  It’s ridiculous, and laughable.  But you just might imagine with enough effort and cajoling they can squeeze that camel through and then be exhausted for the rest of the day or week. 

A modern analog to this might be, “It’s like trying to fit a sumo wrestler into a clown-car” or Andre the Giant into a coach seat on a commercial airliner.  It’s just not really designed for that sort of thing.

But in my study this week, I’ve seen some other convincing suggestions that this small-size-door explanation is really somewhat doubtful.  That it’s been around as long as maybe the 9^th century, but that it likely isn’t what Jesus was talking about here.  That he really meant the actual thing - the hole in a sewing needle.  Something so small you can barely see it.  Try getting your camel through THAT!  Heck, most of us have a hard time even getting the thread in there.

Maybe the sewing needle is a better approximation of what Jesus is getting at here anyway.  He doesn’t mean to say it’s merely a challenge, to get into the kingdom.  It’s not just something that takes a lot of effort, or great reason or strength.  A really tough task, but, “you can do it eventually!”  Rather, he’s driving home the impossibility.  He’s driving us to despair of our own merit or worthiness.

You see, in ancient Israel they viewed the wealthy somewhat differently than many of us do today.  Today, the rich are often demonized in popular culture.  Or, on the other hand they are thought to be recipients of their own hard work and labor – good for them.  Or maybe you don’t think much of them at all, they are just like everyone else but happen to have more money.  Hey – maybe you are one of the rich!

But in Jesus’ day and age it was different.  The rich were seen as special.  They were to be looked up to and admired.  They were the best of the best, after all they had been blessed by God with earthly riches.  How much of a leap to assume, then, that he would also bless his favorites with blessings in the hereafter?  So the disciples would have reasoned, if ANYONE has a chance to make it into the kingdom of God, it’s the rich.  Right?

Wrong, Jesus says.  By this teaching he pulls the rug out from under one of their great assumptions.  It’s not the wealthy who have a leg up with God.  In fact, wealth is so often a distraction, a road block, an obstacle to even getting in the door.  And Mark says they were astounded.

If the rich have a hard time, then who, if anyone can enter the kingdom?  If they can’t do it, then where does that leave me?  Now you’re thinking the way Jesus wants…

Who can enter?  Jesus says, “with man it is impossible”.  Did you catch that?  It’s not just the rich anymore.  With man it is impossible.  No man can enter the kingdom.  No one is good enough, holy enough, without sin enough to enter the kingdom.  Rich or poor, mean or nice, loving or hateful – these are all human comparisons to other humans.  With man it is impossible, because just like the rich young man from last week, we can’t keep the commandments.  We don’t love God, and we don’t love our neighbor as we should.  We serve other gods and we serve ourselves rather than others.  We are helpless and hopeless and salvation, in this little phrase, Jesus says, is impossible.  No chance.  Out of luck.

With man.

But with God, all things are possible.  And friends, if you are with Jesus, you are with God.

Think of all the impossible things Christ has done for our salvation:

The virgin will conceive and bear a son.  God himself taking human flesh in the womb of Mary.  “How can this be?” she asked.  And the angel answered, with God all things are possible.

This Jesus, this humble man from Nazareth in Galilee, does all things well – he completes the perfect 10 of the law, fulfills all righteousness and is perfectly obedient to his Father.  No one else could do it, but with Christ, all things are possible.

And then this Jesus takes and drinks the cup of God’s wrath down to the bitter last drop.  He absorbs all sin in his body, he who had no sin is made to become sin for us.  And then he takes all that sin to a Roman cross and sin itself is dead, in him.  How can this be?  With God all things are possible.  After all this Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.

And of course that impossible miracle of Easter would follow.  For death cannot hold the Lord of Life!  And he would impossibly ascend into heaven, and he impossibly sits at God’s right hand and he impossibly rules over all things and will impossibly, but just as certainly, come again – to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.

That kingdom that it was so hard, impossible, for you to enter – but in which you now stand by the grace – the impossible grace – of Jesus Christ our Lord.

He puts is grace in humble means for you – so that in a word, you are forgiven.  His name and some simple water wash away your sins.  And under bread and wine he himself comes to be present, truly, for you.  And yet with God all these gifts and blessings are not only possible – they are promises.  More certain and sure than the sun rising and setting each day.  More reliable than death and taxes.  God’s grace for you in Christ is the foundation of everything.

Sounds good.  Sounds like it’s worth leaving everything else behind and following Christ.  The disciples did.  And we do, too, by faith.  When you trust in Christ as your ultimate good, your only God, none of the riches of this world truly matter.  And then he sets another impossible surprise before us:

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”

The blessings of his kingdom are many, and they begin even now.  The blessings of his kingdom are far more, far greater, than even the best things of this life – family, lands, treasures, whatever.  You may not see the hundredfold and more with your eyes.  But the promise of paradise the blest is already, even now, your own.  The inheritance of the kingdom, you have already received.  After all, the one you inherit from has died – though yet he lives!

Jesus does slip in this little phrase, “with persecutions”, to remind us that this side of heaven, this will sometimes be rough.  Part of our inheritance is to get what Jesus gets – and so he received scorn from the world, so do we.  He was persecuted by his enemies, so is his church.  He had to carry his cross, and he calls us to take up our own and follow him.  The Christian way is the way of the cross, with all that it entails, even persecution.

But we also inherit life from him, eternal life.  Just as he is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity, so shall we.  He is the firstborn of the dead, we will certainly follow.  We already have in baptism.  We are buried and raised with Christ.  When we die we Christians rest in peace in the arms of Christ.  But one day even our graves will open, and he will call us forth to eternal life in all its fullness. 

Does it sound impossible?  It is.  But with God, in Jesus Christ, all things are possible.  And his impossible promises are instead a sure and certain hope.  Therefore put your trust in him, and you will never be disappointed. 

Sermon - Pentecost 19 - Mark 10:2-16

 

Holy Matrimony was instituted and blessed by God.  It’s his invention, his creation.  In marriage, therefore, it is God who joins together man and woman in a one-flesh union meant to last a lifetime.  And it’s a very good thing! 

Marriage is full of blessings.  It provides companionship so that we are not alone in this life.  It affords help – one to another – through the difficulties that are sure to come.  Marriage is also the cradle into which children are to be born and raised – and taught the fear and love of the Lord.  Even secular studies have shown us that it is in a home with a mom and a dad that children are best poised to thrive.  It’s God’s design, after all.

Marriage is also meant for the delight of man and woman in each other.  That love that is shared and grows year over year – that’s not an accident either.

As much as we joke about the drudgeries of marriage – the old ball and chain and such – perhaps we ought to think again and treat this institution of God’s as the holy thing he has made it to be. We honor God when we honor marriage.

But like all of his gifts, we find ways to ruin it.  And if we had to discuss the difficult teaching of hell last week, then we better not shy away from the difficult teaching of divorce today. 

What did Moses tell you?  Jesus answers their question on divorce with a question.  Which they, of course, get wrong.  They blather on about some certificate of divorce, an accommodation to human sin that Moses conceded in order to protect poor women who were victims of their husband’s abandonment. 

But what did Moses tell them?  “You shall not commit adultery!”  The sixth commandment!  Moses told you what Moses hear from God.  That’s the foundational answer.  That’s the answer to the question of divorce. Back to basics.

And Jesus goes back even before Moses, back to creation, back to the very beginning, when God made them male and female.  When he instituted marriage – when he made a suitable helper because it was not good that man should be alone.  (And by the way, another reason the doctrine of creation is important – it is the foundation on which marriage rests!)

In the beginning, before sin entered into the world, there was marriage.  But like everything else corrupted and tainted by sin, even marriage, the very heart of the family, the foundation and building block of human society, is now tarnished and stained and broken.  And sometimes, in this fallen world, marriages fail.

But they don’t fail because of some accident of nature, like a tree falls and randomly crushes a car during a storm.  Marriages fail because husbands and wives are sinners.  Sinners make messes of everything.  No married person can honestly say they have loved their spouse as they should.

And if you, personally, have not been divorced, consider your attitude toward marriage and divorce.  Do you take it lightly?  Have you become numb to the great evil divorce is?  Do you hear of divorces and simply shrug, “oh well, life goes on” with no more concern than if someone stubbed a toe?  People grow apart.  Life’s twists and turns.  Or how did one famous couple put it when they announced their split, “we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives.”

Our attitudes toward this holy thing of God are part of the problem, friends.  While you may not have hired the divorce attorney, you may just as well be contributing to the culture of divorce by your own sins of thought, word and deed.  Sins of commission and omission.  Whatever your posture, God’s mind is clear on the matter.  In Malachi 2, God puts it simply, “I hate divorce”.  There aren’t many things he speaks about in such strong terms as this.

And then for you who have been divorced, have experienced a divorce – I’m sure this hasn’t been a pleasant sermon to sit through so far.  I’m sure it would be more comfortable to hear about some other sin – any sin.  Maybe, humanly speaking, you were the victim of your ex’s infidelity, abuse, or abandonment.  Maybe you tried your hardest and it still failed, and yet you might still feel guilty about it.  Or maybe you were the guilty party in every way, and made a mess of marriage that you cannot go back and fix now even if you wanted to.  The truth is often somewhere in between.

Nonetheless, Christians have but one thing to do when faced with our sin – whether the sin of divorce or the sin of contributing to a culture that despises marriage.  Whether failing to love our spouse as well as we ought, or dishonoring marriage by our fornication, adultery or lust.  The answer is the same:  repent.  Turn from sin.  And turn to Christ in faith.

Christ, who comes to join together what man has put asunder.  Christ, who comes to heal and reconcile the great divorce between God and man.  Christ, who alone can restore, renew, and revive, who can clean your conscience and balm your guilt.

Jesus dealt with people who had made a mess of marriage, too.  Remember that Samaritan woman at the well?  He called her out on her adulterous living, and yet he still spoke kindly to her and revealed his identity to her as the Christ and called her to worship in spirit and truth.  Remember the other woman, the one caught in adultery?  They were trying to stone her to death, and Jesus pointed those accusations back on the crowd, “let him who is without sin cast the first stone”.  And then he said, “Who condemns you now?  Then neither do I condemn you.  Now go and sin no more”.

The same Christ deals with us.  He doesn’t wink at our sin, nor does he want us to pretend it’s not there.  He calls us, rather, to bring that sin to him in contrition, and confession, and faith.  And he forgives.  He doesn’t cast stones at us, his people, for our sin, or condemn us as we deserve.  He speaks kindly, and calls us to worship in spirit and truth.  And then he sends us to go and sin no more.

Christ knows of marriage not only because he founded it with the creation of Eve.  He also knows it as he himself is the true bridegroom.  And he has come to court and win his holy bride, the new Eve, the church.  With his own blood he bought her, and for her life, he died.  No look at Christian marriage is complete without this major biblical picture – of Christ and his bride, the church.  One might even say that all earthly marriages also point to this heavenly reality – this eternal love story.  Though even the happiest marriages on earth are tainted by sin, the heavenly marriage of Christ and his bride is pure and true and holy.  Though earthly marriages end in divorce, or when death do us part – there will be no end to the marriage feast of the Lamb in his kingdom which has no end.

And now let’s visit the second part of this text, which deals with children.  It’s likely no accident that Mark places Jesus’ comments about children after some talk of marriage – for marriage and family go together, and it is in the bound of marriage that God blesses new families with children. 

Jesus invites the children to himself.  He rebukes the disciples who would hinder them.  He lays his hands on the children and blesses them, and commends their faith, “of such is the kingdom of heaven”.

You know, we often point out that children have a faith that is so much simpler and straightforward than adults, they seem to trust as a matter of course.  And Jesus wants us to trust him with a similar child-like faith. 

But consider this, children also take correction more easily than adults.  Maybe because they are more used to it.  But children quite often hear both the correcting word of their parents, as well as the kind and loving word.  They trust that even when a parent is telling them to do this, do that, do the other thing – that parent loves them and wants what is best for them.  Not always, of course, for children are sinners too, but they do seem to have a higher tolerance for correction than so many adults.  Adults, in our pride, are often so much harder to correct.  We feel we’ve outgrown such things.  We know better. And we are outraged, offended, indignant(!) if some other person should dare to correct us!

Rather, receive the kingdom of God like a little child – in both correction and love.  With the discipline of God’s word, and with the promises of his gospel.  Trust him as a dear child trust his loving Father.  For he desires only your good, and he has procured it in Christ.

Sermon - Pentecost 17 - Mark 9:30-37

 Mark 9:30–37 

“The Greatest”

Muhammed Ali, a championship boxer, was famed for his trash-talk.  Besides claiming to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”, he was also known to claim, brazenly, “I am the greatest!”  And after seeing his prowess in the boxing ring, at least for a time, it would be hard to argue with him.

We admire greatness.  We love to see people do well at their craft, their profession, their vocations.  Ask me some time about my favorite chess grandmaster.  There’s a sort of vicarious living that happens when you get caught up in someone else’s greatness.  You feel a part of it.  We do this so much lately we even have a new term, ‘the GOAT’, G-O-A-T, standing for the Greatest Of All Time.  

Mark’s Gospel today calls us to consider a different kind of greatness - true greatness.  Not at boxing or football or computer engineering or investing.  Greatness in the kingdom of God.  And like so many other things, the Christian appraisal of greatness is opposite of what you’d expect, against the grain of the world, and totally backwards from how most people measure greatness.

The disciples who alternate between faith and fear, wisdom and foolishness, great confession and horrible heresy – well we can always relate to those fellas.  Today Jesus catches them, overhears them arguing like petulant children.  Along the road, the bickered about who among them was the greatest.

Imagine what it might have sounded like, “Of course I’m the greatest, I’m Peter – the rock – which one of YOU got to walk on water with Jesus?”  “Yeah, Peter, but then you sank like a stone,” John might have said, “I’m clearly the greatest because I’m the youngest and I’ll probably outlive you all.” But then Matthew says, “I think I’ve got the best story – I mean if Jesus can even call a tax collector like me – I think my turnaround is really the kind of thing people will relate to”  “Yeah, but I’m clearly the greatest since Jesus trusts me to carry the money-bag.” And on and on it might have gone.  

Imagine their sheepishness when Jesus calls them out.  “What were you arguing about on the road?”  The awkward silence.  He knows, of course.  He always knows the answer to questions like this.  He’s caught them red-handed and they had nothing to say for themselves.

The law stops your mouth, and mine, too.  There are no excuses.  We have nothing to say for ourselves.  When the accusations come, and the law always accuses, we are dead to rights caught.  Whether we’ve been exposed as a self-serving and prideful brat, a lying and scheming snake, a greedy glutton or a back-stabbing gossiper.  There’s plenty of ways we sin, and God’s perfect law shines the probing questions on all it.  Have you loved God like you should?  Have you loved your neighbor as yourself?

Ah but we’d rather compare ourselves to others, than to the law.  I love God more than the next guy.  I might not be perfect, but look at you.  Chief of sinners through I be, at least I’m not as bad as thee.  This is really the same thing the disciples were doing – only instead of arguing who’s the greatest, we play the game of who’s not the worst.  As if that gets us off the hook.  

But that’s not the standard God sets.  He doesn’t call us to be better than average, or better than most, or better than your neighbor.  He says love God with ALL your heart, soul, strength and mind.  And love your neighbor as yourself.  

So Jesus takes the occasion to teach them a thing or two about greatness in the kingdom.  He sits them down, gets their attention, and sets forth a principle.  If you to be great in the kingdom, if you want to be first, you must be servant of all.

This flies in the face of what we know and do!  The great people have servants – butlers, maids, nannies, groundskeepers, chauffeurs, even body-guards.  The rich and powerful have servants to tend to their every need, and the mundane tasks they are too busy and important to do.  They can’t be bothered.  They’re more important than all that.  Those menial tasks are for the little people.  Or so the usual worldly thinking goes.

But Jesus says greatness, first-ness, primacy of place in the kingdom is found in servanthood – and in being the servant of all!  Placing yourself lower than all.  He even uses a small child to drive home this point.  The lowest, the least, the humblest – that’s greatness in the kingdom of God.  Exactly opposite of greatness in the world.  

And then we hear from James, this morning, and he makes it even worse for us.  “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

James brings a double barrel of accusations and unloads them on us today.  He calls us to exhibit humility and the wisdom from above – that is “pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”  

Contrast that to the worldliness of earthly wisdom – which has to do with jealousy, coveting, quarrels, murder, the passions, and pride.  These are the things that friendship with the world brings us, but which make us enemies of God.  And that’s not all that great at all.

So who can keep such laws?  Who can exhibit such purity?  Who can be so great?  Who, after all, can succeed at making everyone else greater than self?  It’s just so extreme.  Who can attain to such greatness?  Who can truly be or become the servant of all?

Only Jesus can.  Jesus is the greatest among us.  Jesus is the greatest of all time.  For only Jesus is the servant of all.  Jesus, who by his perfect life, does all that James could ask and more.  Jesus, who keeps the commandments perfectly, earns righteousness by his own greatness in keeping the law.  And then gives that righteousness to us, freely.

Jesus, who by his humble, sacrificial death on the cross came to destroy sin and death – for all.  Jesus, who not only faces his mission head on – but even teaches his disciples about it beforehand, again and again, though they couldn’t grasp it.  Look at the first paragraph in our text, where he shows them plainly:

“The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”

That’s greatness.  That’s the Gospel.  The cross.  There Jesus took the lowest place, crushed under the burden of our infinite sins.  There Jesus became the servant of all, dying for ever scoundrel, reprobate and rebel that ever was or would be.  Suffering all for every lying, cheating, stealing, murdering, gossiping, greedy and jealous coveter of someone else’s greatness.  He who washed even their feet now washes them clean body and soul, inside and out, by his holy precious blood.  

And he does it for all.  No sin is too great for him to take on.  And no sinner is too great at sinning to be served by Jesus.  Whatever your deepest, darkest sin – and we all have them – whatever your most embarrassing and shameful deed.  Repent. Jesus forgives.  He is that much greater than your greatest failing, that he takes it himself, takes it away, and makes you whole and clean and new.

So, who is the greatest?  It’s Jesus, of course.  As St. Paul says in Philipians 2:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,  who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Even his exaltation is yours.  His resurrection guarantees your own.  His greatness is good for you, great for you.  For in him, God, in Christ, has received you as his own dear child, his little one.

Or to put it another way, Christ, the greatest of all, makes himself least of all, servant of all, to exalt the humble and lowly in his kingdom.  Therefore rejoice, and therefore follow him and trust in him.  Humble yourself, and he will lift you up.

In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.

Sermon - Mark 7:31-37 - Pentecost 15

 

Mark 7:31–37

“Ephatha!”

Only a few times in the New Testament do we get to hear the actual words of Jesus in the Aramaic language.  In these cases our English Bibles don’t translate, but give us the actual sounds of the words Jesus made – and we have one of these today.  Some others – well one was when he said to the little girl who had died, “Talitha Cumi”, that is, “Little Girl, arise”.  And of course his quotation of Psalm 22 from the cross, “Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani”, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Today we hear a third example from our Savior’s own lips, the simple command, “Ephatha!”, “be opened!”

Now, there’s plenty to say about this one little word.  In opening the ears of a deaf man, Jesus drops yet another calling card of the Messiah.  As Isaiah prophesied,

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then shall the lame man leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

 

But more than that, Jesus illustrates again for us, as he so often does, the power of his word.  The same word which created all things – let there be light, let there be birds and fish, let us make man in our image…. Now the creative and restorative word brings a new physical reality.  The same word which casts out demons and all manner of diseases.  The same living word, himself made flesh, which comes that we might hear and believe.

 

Now, of course, this Ephatha had to be spoken to the deaf man, because he was suffering under one of the many effects of sin.  And while he himself didn’t cause his deafness by his own sin – at least not directly – he was no doubt a sinner living in the broken sinful world.  So, too, for us – though we do cause many of our own problems by our own sin, sometimes we are simply the victims of the brokenness of the world, and either some other sinner affects us, or even nature itself inflicts on us some disease or accident.

On one level this story is so simple.  Jesus sees a man who has a need, and he helps him.  He’s the only one who can help him.  And he makes it right.  He heals the man’s ears and loosens his tongue.  He restores him completely, giving him the full functionality of his members that the rest of us take for granted.  Jesus does nothing half-way.

 

Now, you and I are also in a predicament, and it’s not too unlike the deaf-mute man.  Although it is in a way far worse.  According to our sin, the Bible tells us, we are helpless and lost.  We are blind, dead, and enemies of God.  But another biblical picture of our fallen condition is that of deafness.  Jesus often remarks, “he who has ears to hear, let him hear”.

 

The problem is that in our sin, we don’t have ears to hear.  Or to put it another way, we are deaf to God’s word.  We don’t want to hear the law.  We don’t want to hear how sinful we are.  We certainly don’t want to hear the punishments we deserve.  That’s why Scripture warns us about those with “itching ears”, and the preachers who only preach to scratch that itch, to say what unrepentant sinners want to hear, not what we all need to hear.  Without Jesus we are lost in so many ways – and pick your metaphor – we can’t help ourselves.

 

And so it stands as a reminder that Jesus helps us, too.  He sees us in our condition, and he has compassion.  He sees our suffering, our inability, our brokenness, and he comes to heal.  But it’s far more than just physical healing.  Jesus goes to the root of the problem.  He opens the spiritual ears that are cemented shut by sin.  He gives us ears to hear the very Gospel of his free forgiveness.  He frees the tongue from its blasphemies and loosens in us the prayers and praises of one who has now come to faith.  Faith comes by hearing, after all.  And what we believe in our heart we confess with our lips.

 

But think about it.  If the man is deaf, can he even hear the “Ephatha”?  Well not if I say it.  No mere man could.  But the divine word gives what it expects.  It provides what it commands.  It creates a new reality.  And this is a hint of something far greater to come.

 

The ear of a deaf man is not the only thing Jesus has come to make open.  The seal of deafness is not the only one he comes to break.  For on the third day, after he had done all his suffering and rested in his borrowed tomb, Jesus had a new and better Ephatha to complete.  He opened the grave.  His angels rolled back the stone, and he rolled back death in a glorious resurrection.  He opened the grave with the ease that your dad opens the pickle jar.  And life broke forth.

 

But not just for himself.  His ephatha is your ephatha.  His empty tomb foreshadows your own.  When he comes again in glory with all his angels, with the final trumpet call and the glorious shout of victory, then the dead in Christ will rise.  He will say the greater ephatha to all the graves of his people.  He will call us to the same life that he stole back from death and hell.  And we will be fully restored, not just spiritually, but also physically, and even eternally.  What a day that will be!

 

Heaven itself is opened to us in Jesus Christ.  And this, even now.  For every time the word of absolution is spoken to you, the gates of heaven are opened.  Every time we repent and return to our baptismal grace, we are restored.  Every time we humbly approach his table and receive the body and blood of our Lord, our invitation to the heavenly banquet is renewed – for where there is forgiveness, there is also life and salvation.

What will be ours one day in full – is ours already, even now, by promise.  And the Holy Spirit is the deposit, the guarantee of the greater blessings to come.  Now we see dimly, but then we shall see fully.  Now we suffer in a body of death, but we know who will save us, and restore not just our ears and tongues, but also eyes, heart, hands, yes our whole selves.  That’s the promise of the resurrection.  That’s our hope.

And take comfort in this, too, Christians.  While we wait for his salvation to appear, while we finish our course of days upon this earth, he has not left us alone.  Our God in with us, even to the end of the age.  Jesus also reigns on his throne, a benevolent king who hears our prayers, brings our prayers to the Father, and even sends his Spirit to teach us to pray and to pray on our behalf.

In Jesus, the very ears of God are “Ephatha” for us.  God’s ear is inclined to our prayers, he desires them and wants to answer them.  He regards our prayers favorably.  Not because of us, but because of Christ.  He hears our prayers only through Christ.  This is why we pray in Jesus’ name.

Now let’s take this last statement from the crowd, “He has done all things well”.  This is far more than just a cheer for another good work of Jesus, a sort of “for he’s a jolly good fellow” type thing. It confesses that by healing the deaf man, Jesus sort of ticks the last box on the list of Messianic signs of healing. 

But like many who comment in the pages of Scripture, their words mean more than they intend.  Jesus has done all things well.  He completes everything he set out to do, everything the Father asked of him – a perfect life fulfilling the law.  A perfect fulfillment of all messianic prophecies.  A perfect suffering and death to atone for all sin.  A perfect resurrection.  A perfect ascension and reign and he will return at the perfect time to bring history to its close.  He has done all things well, and done them for you, dear Christian.

So keep your ears open to his word, which will continue to instruct and forgive you, direct and strengthen you this whole life through.  Pray without ceasing to the one whose ear is inclined to you, to answer for your good.  And look forward to the day when he says his final ephatha to your grave, calling you forth to the eternal reward Christ has won for us all.  For he has done all things well, for you.