Eighth and Ninth Sundays after Pentecost

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (B—Proper 10)

July 15, 2018

Text: Mark 6:14-29

            St. John the Baptist was beheaded by the government for preaching traditional marriage.  Let’s not mince words on this.  Herodias was offended by John’s preaching, because he declared it unlawful, ungodly, for Herod to have his brother Philip’s wife while Philip was still alive.  As we all know, hell hath no fury… and Herodias was furious at the scorn and shame brought upon her by John’s preaching.  How dare he make her feel bad about her domestic situation!  How dare he question the sanctity of her love.  How dare he suggest, nay, proclaim, that her marriage to Herod is sinful before God.  And so John finds himself in the dungeon.  Herodias wants him executed, but Herod protects him, if you can call the dungeon protection, because he fears John and knows that he is a righteous and holy man.  Herod even appreciates a good John the Baptist sermon now and then, although he finds John’s message perplexing.  You know how it is when a sermon hits a little too close to home.  The Law of God tears you apart at the seams.  And it hurts.  It’s the crucifixion of the old man, the old sinful nature.  That always hurts.  But it must be done, so that your God can raise you up to new life, a new creation in Christ Jesus.  That preaching hurts, but you love it, because you know it’s true, and you hear in it the voice of the living God.

            But the enemies of the Gospel are always watching for an opportune time to rob you of such preaching, and Herodias and the demons identified the opportunity to silence John on the occasion of Herod’s birthday.  There was a big bash, a serious feast, a wining and dining of the elite of the elite.  These included Herod’s nobles and his generals and the leading citizens of Galilee.  Such feasts always serve a political purpose.  They offer an occasion for the ruler to show off his wealth and his power.  He shows the leading men a good time and shores up their loyalty.  The free-flow of alcohol looses up the tongues.  Stories are told.  Boasts are made.  And hearts are merry.  And they’re all the merrier if Herod’s pretty step-daughter gives us a dance.  It’s not in the text, but we assume the dance was lewd.  Whether that’s true or not, it was certainly a crowd pleaser, and it exceedingly pleased Herod.  Caught up in the spirit of the moment and the spirits in his cup, Herod makes a rash vow.  “Ask me whatever you wish, and I will give it to you… up to half of my kingdom” (Mark 6:22-23; ESV).  It has been suggested Herod was offering to trade in the mother for a newer model, make Herodias’ daughter his wife.  It’s hard to say.  But this had been a set-up by Herodias the whole time.  Daughter asks mother, “For what should I ask,” and mother advises daughter, “The head of John the Baptist” (v. 24).  She wouldn’t be the last mother to demand a preacher’s head on a platter.  But she meant this quite literally.  She had trapped the king in his words.  Herod didn’t want to execute John.  But he also didn’t want to be embarrassed in the presence of his prestigious guests.  So rather than do what he knew to be right, he sold his soul for a dance.  Isn’t that the way of the world?  Herod promises to give up to half his kingdom, as if he were a powerful god, but in the end, we see he is nothing but a weak and insecure slave of his subjects.

            Well, John is beheaded.  So it goes.  But there would have been an easier way, you know.  If he had just tolerated the illegitimate marriage, this never would have happened.  He could have done so much more good if he’d just kept his trap shut this one time.  But that wasn’t his office, was it?  He was sent to be “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’” (Mark 1:3).  He was sent to proclaim “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (v. 4).  To everyone.  Even to sinful kings.  He doesn’t stay out of politics when the Word of the Lord is at stake.  He is not ashamed to proclaim the Lord’s testimony before kings (Psalm 119:46), even if it costs him his life.  Divine truth is worth dying for.  We forget that, living in a culture where the very existence of objective truth is denied.  But John knew it.  So did the prophets and the apostles and the martyrs of all ages who loved not their lives even unto death (Rev. 12:11).  What about you?  Are you afraid to bear witness to Christ?  Do you fear to speak His truth because your friends and family might rebuke you, or think mean thoughts about you, or defriend you on Facebook?  Repent.  It’s getting harder, isn’t it?  The Lord knows your weakness, and has taken your failure into Himself and put it to death in His flesh.  And He gives you His Spirit, to make you bold, that you confess His Name and His Word, even if it means your death.  For you know that whoever lives and believes in Jesus, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Jesus shall never die (John 11:25-26).  And you know that whoever confesses Jesus before men, He will also confess before His Father in heaven; but whoever denies Jesus before men, He will also deny before His Father in heaven (Matt. 10:32-33). 

            But with John there is even more at play.  John is sent to prepare the way of the Lord quite literally.  John’s life, and his death, parallels that of Jesus on every level, except that what happens to Jesus is greater, what happens to John is lesser, just as he said it would be: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).  So John’s birth is foretold by the angel Gabriel, who promises he will be great before the Lord (Luke 1:15), and Jesus’ birth is foretold by the angel Gabriel, who promises the Child to be born is the Son of God (v. 35).  John’s birth is miraculous, born to elderly parents.  Jesus’ birth is even more miraculous, born of a virgin.  John baptizes for repentance, but Jesus offers a greater Baptism that not only washes away sin, but makes you God’s own child.  John has disciples, but he sends them to follow Jesus as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).  And John prepares the way in suffering and death.  He is arrested and beheaded.  His disciples put his headless body into a tomb (Mark 6:29).  Jesus is arrested, tried, and crucified.  Joseph and Nicodemus put His pierced Body into a tomb.  And now it is Jesus’ turn to blaze the trail.  Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!  Herod worries that Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead, and his fear is not completely unfounded.  Because the risen Jesus will raise up John on the Last Day.  And He will raise you.  You’ll see John and Jesus with your very own eyes.  And you’ll praise God for the blood John shed, preparing the way for the Blood of the Savior, shed for you for the forgiveness of all of your sins.

            So you need not fear the enemies of the Gospel: Not Satan, nor the demons, nor sin, nor death; not Al Qaeda, nor ISIS, nor the abortionists, nor the homosexual marriage crowd.  You need not fear the unfaithful who claim the Name of Christ, nor your own sinful flesh.  Jesus Christ is the end of fear.  The enemies of the Gospel are always watching for an opportune time to get you.  But they can never get to you when you are in Christ Jesus, in His Word, in Your Baptism, in His Supper.  The Lord also gives a Feast, and He outdoes Herod.  He, too, gives Food and Drink.  But He invites the weak of the weak, dying and dead sinners.  His Feast is the medicine that brings the dead to life.  His wine also looses tongues, not for boasting, but for confessing and singing songs of praise.  His wine makes our hearts merry, so that we rejoice, and we’re caught up in the Spirit, His Holy Spirit, who opens our lips to speak His Word with joy.  He makes no rash vow, but He does make a vow: “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:14).  It is the promise that He hears our prayers and answers them.  And unlike Herod, He delivers.  He is not trapped in His Words.  He holds Himself to them.  He is a powerful God, the only true God, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Though it is true that His Words result in a death: His own on the cross, for the life of the world.  For sinners.  For you. 

            Jesus Christ is crucified by the government that He might form for Himself a Bride, the holy Christian Church.  He sleeps the deep sleep of death, that from His side the Church be formed.  Water and Blood, Font and Chalice, filled with Jesus Christ crucified for you.  You are His beloved.  You are His spotless Bride.  As with any marriage, what is yours is His, and what is His is yours.  What is yours He has taken away: sin and death and condemnation.  What is His He has freely bestowed upon you: righteousness and life and resurrection.  In the Church, we preach traditional marriage, not because we’re ignorant, or prudes, or haters.  We preach it because it is God’s gift for our good: for companionship, and procreation, and holy sexuality.  And we preach it because it is an icon of Christ and the Church, a living picture of the Gospel.  The husband gives himself for his bride.  The bride receives the sacrifice of the husband for her good.  And in this pattern of giving and receiving, husband and wife live together in love and fidelity and so provide a safe haven for the nurture of children.  We all fall short of this in our marriages.  But this is what marriage is designed by God to be.  Until the Day the Lord Jesus comes again and bids us join Him at the wedding Feast of the Lamb that has no end.  Then St. John will have His head again.  And all will be made whole and right and good.  Indeed, come, Lord Jesus.  Come quickly.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.       

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (B—Proper 11)

July 22, 2018

Text: Mark 6:30-44; Ps. 23

            “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34; ESV).  The feeding of the 5,000 is our Lord’s fulfillment of the 23^rd Psalm.  Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd who satisfies the wants and needs of His precious lambs.  The shepherding, the pastoring, had been busy for Jesus and the Apostles, and He had called them away for a time, to a desolate place across the Sea, to rest and to eat and to be refreshed by their Lord.  Even pastors need a vacation now and then, and we’re very thankful when our congregations allow us that luxury.  In His compassion, the Lord Jesus reminds His ministers in this text that quiet time away from the demands of ministry is important. 

            But then again, it doesn’t always work that way.  Vacations are made to be interrupted.  If it’s true that there is no rest for the weary, there is certainly no rest for the Savior.  The people see where Jesus and the disciples are going in the boat.  And they beat them there!  They run around the shore!  If only every congregation were so eager to hear a sermon!  And as Jesus disembarks, there is probably that moment of disappointment as He realizes there will be no solitude.  But at that same moment His pastoral heart is moved.  He has compassion on them.  The Greek word for “compassion” literally means He feels it in His gut.  Even the English word “compassion” literally means “with suffering.”  What causes Jesus to be moved with compassion, to suffer in His guts for these people?  They are like sheep without a shepherd.  They are like a congregation without a pastor.  The word “pastor” means “shepherd.”  The chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, they had failed to shepherd these people.  They were starved for the Gospel.  They were hungry for the preaching.  They had been torn to pieces by wolves in sheep’s clothing.  They were very much in want.  Jesus, the Good Shepherd, the Good Pastor, cannot let that stand.  So from that moment, until late into the night, He gathers them together into His fold and He opens His mouth and teaches them many things.

            Remember, this is a desolate place, and the disciples have a very practical concern.  The people haven’t eaten.  It’s way past supper time.  The shops in the villages are closing.  Time to send them away while they can still catch a morsel.  But Jesus has other plans.  “You give them something to eat” (v. 37).  You see, the Divine Service isn’t over yet.  We’ve had the Service of the Word: Jesus teaching His people His Word of life.  But now it’s time to gather round the Lord so Jesus can feed us by the hand of His called and ordained servants.  Jesus is teaching us how it works when He gathers His flock together, when He congregates them. 

            Now, the disciples are confused, as pastors often are.  They doubt the Lord’s ability to provide for the needs of these people.  Granted, we have here five loaves of bread and two fish.  But what are these among so many?  Jesus commands them to sit down in groups on the green grass.  “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures” (Ps. 23:2; all quotes of Ps. 23 from KJV).  The word for “groups” in Greek is “symposia,” that is, drinking parties.  It indicates this will be a feast!  Five loaves, two fish, and you know what happens next.  Everyone eats.  Everyone is satisfied.  The disciples take up twelve baskets full of leftovers, a basket for each man.  And then we find out that the number 5,000 only includes the men.  Counting women and children, there may have been ten, twenty thousand people there.  The disciples are amazed.  Pastors always are when the Lord’s gifts actually work.  Remember, one of the Lord’s favorite pet names for the Twelve (and I imagine for the pastors who follow after them) is “O ye of little faith.” 

            The Lord Jesus teaches His people, His sheep, and He feeds them.  “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake… Thou preparest a table before me” (vv. 3, 5).  That’s how He does it: Words and Food, Preaching and Supper (and the still waters [v. 2] of Holy Baptism, of course).  And it works!  The people are fed, spiritually and physically.  And as it turns out, there is no better rest or renewal for the Lord’s undershepherds than to feed His sheep the Means of Grace the Lord commands, and watch Him do miraculous things with what doesn’t look like much: words and water, bread and wine… five loaves and two fish.

            Jesus has gathered us together here this morning because of His compassion for us.  He hurts in His guts for us.  We are like sheep without a shepherd.  There is, of course, no lack of would-be shepherds calling us to follow them here, there, and everywhere.  Politicians, professors, entertainers, preachers of false gospels.  What happens in the chaos of competing voices is the division of the flock.  You’ve heard a lot about how stupid sheep are.  That’s not a veiled insult… It’s simply what the Lord calls us.  We just don’t know how to keep ourselves out of danger, and we’re always wandering off on our own, away from the flock, away from the Shepherd and the safety of the sheepfold.  The Good Shepherd constantly has to come find us, save us, wash us, heal our wounds from the dirty, dangerous, deadly places where we’re trapped.  It is no wonder when He sees us He is moved with compassion, He suffers in His guts for us.  That same compassion will lead Him to His Passion and death for us on the cross.  His whole body will suffer.  His entire soul will be in agony.  For us.  For our salvation.  His hands and feet pierced.  His sacred head crowned with thorns.  The insults and mockery and spit.  The scattered sheep.  The Blood outpoured.  The Spirit given up.  The water and blood of His riven side.  “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).  This Shepherd is also the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).  Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opens not His mouth (Is. 53:7).  He dies.  For you.  For me.  For the world. 

            The greatest peril for sheep who go their own way is the valley of the shadow of death (Ps. 23:4).  If a sheep gets lost alone in that valley, there is no hope.  Notice what the Good Shepherd does.  He goes after the sheep.  He goes into the valley.  That is what He is doing on the cross.  He is dying our death.  He is paying for our sins.  He goes right down into it to bring us out again.  He knows the way.  He is the way.  He leads us out of the tomb and into life eternal.  Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.  And with His rod and His staff, He comforts us (v. 4) and leads us out.  You need not fear this valley full of death’s dark shadow.  You need fear no evil.  Because on the Last Day you’ll emerge from it into the light of day.  Jesus Christ will raise you from the dead.  And you will dwell in the house of the LORD forever (v. 6).

            In the meantime, Jesus gathers you here into the sheepfold of His Church to pour out His compassion upon you.  He teaches you many things: His Word, Law and Gospel, convicting you of your sins, bringing you to repentance, forgiving you, enlivening you by His Spirit spoken into you, speaking Himself into your ears, and showing you what it means that you are a child of His heavenly Father.  And then it’s time to eat.  He commands His minister to give you something to eat.  It doesn’t look like much.  Bread and wine, a wafer and a sip.  But do not doubt.  This bread, and this wine, are in the hands of the Lord who fed 5,000 men plus women and children from five loaves and two fish.  These are the hands of the God who spoke the universe into existence, who made something, everything, out of nothing.  So you come, group by group, symposia by symposia, drinking party by drinking party, for the joyous Feast.  And your Good Shepherd gives you to eat, not just bread, but bread that is His Body, given for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  Wine to drink, yet not just wine, but wine that is His Blood, shed for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  That’s what He does.  The Lord Jesus teaches His people, His sheep, and He feeds them.  And your soul is restored.  The Lord gives Sabbath rest to pastor and people in the green grass of His pasture.  He does it out of His compassion.

            We all too often take the feeding of the 5,000 as a neat little story about how we don’t have to worry, because God will provide us with daily bread for our bodies.  That is true, of course, but we miss the greater gift for all our fascination of the lesser.  If, in His compassion, He feeds us His Body and Blood and gives us eternal life, He will also feed our bodies with bread.  If He gives the greater gift, He will not fail to give the lesser.  This feeding is about so much more than bread.  This is about the Divine Service.  This is about Jesus Christ present for you here and now, in the flesh, and in great compassion.  This is about Jesus teaching you with His own Word.  This is about Jesus feeding you with His own Body and His own Blood.  This is about Jesus, your Good Shepherd.  With the Lord as your Shepherd, you have no want.  He has prepared the Table before you.  Time to Feast.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.            

Sixth and Seventh Sundays after Pentecost

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (B—Proper 8)

July 1, 2018

Text: Mark 5:21-43

            Desperate.  Jairus is a desperate man, as any man would be in his shoes.  His little daughter, Daddy’s little girl, is sick.  She is at the point of death.  All the efforts of man, all the medical knowledge at their disposal, all of it had come to nothing.  Parents and family and members of the synagogue had prayed.  That precious twelve-year-old light of her Daddy’s life continued to fade.  So now here he is, seeking the Teacher from Nazareth, falling at His feet, imploring Him earnestly, “Come, Lord Jesus”… “My little daughter is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live” (Mark 5:23; ESV).

            Desperate.  The poor woman had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, as long as Jairus’ daughter had breathed the breath of life.  Not once a month, but every day for twelve long years this woman suffered, with none of the modern coping mechanisms.  She was miserable.  She suffered much under many physicians… I won’t paint you a picture, but you can imagine what these doctors from the early First Century subjected her to.  It wasn’t pleasant, I’m sure.  And she spent all she had, every penny, but their efforts just made it worse.  To top it all off, remember this is a daughter of Israel, a woman under the Law of Moses.  She is unclean.  Always, every day, for twelve years, she can have no contact with anyone.  She’s an outcast.  She’s not supposed to get near Jesus.  She’s not even supposed to be in the crowd.  She’s making everyone she touches ceremonially unclean.  But she’ll take the risk.  She’s desperate.  “If I just sneak up”… “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well” (v. 28). 

            Desperate.  The world is desperate for peace with a God she won’t acknowledge.  But not on His terms!  She will dictate her own conditions for peace, thank you very much.  I hear it all the time: “I just can’t believe in a God who”… And you fill in the blank.  “I just can’t believe in a God who wouldn’t allow someone to love a person just because they happen to be the same gender.”  “I just can’t believe in a God who sends people to hell just because they don’t believe in Him.”  On the other hand, “I just can’t believe in a God who would let that guy into heaven just because he does believe in Jesus.”  There we go dictating the terms.  There hangs the forbidden fruit, promising that when you eat of it you can be like God, determining what is good and what is evil.  And it will kill you.  Repent.  The world is desperate, but she doesn’t know why, or won’t acknowledge it.  Desperate in sin.  Desperate in unbelief.  Desperate in death.  So her children seek to justify themselves.  We’re all about love and tolerance… and let’s get those Christian haters!  Them we cannot tolerate!  The ultimate virtue for the world is self-fulfillment.  Do what makes you happy.  Be true to yourself.  Follow your heart.  Which is exactly what Eve did in the Garden.  Did God really say?  Well, who really cares what He said?  We all know He’d want me to be happy.  And anyway, who can be sure He even exists.  You see, in a strange twist of irony, the denial of God, this insistence that everything is ultimately accidental and meaningless (i.e. evolution), this is all finally a striving for peace with God.  Because if there is no God, there is no conflict.  It’s the ultimate state of denial.  It is desperation.  Unwilling to reconcile with God, and unable to imagine an eternity of conflict with Him (Hell), we just deny the whole thing.  We pretend none of it is real.  That’s the world you live in.

            And you—you have your own desperations.  You also know the anguish.  You know the sting of death, loved ones who have died or are dying.  You know the pain of infirmity in your own body and the bodies of those you love.  From the common cold to cancer, you know this is not how it should be.  This is what it means to know good and evil.  Thank you Eve.  Thank you Adam.  Apart from that fruit, we would only have known the good.  But now the world is fallen, and so is our flesh.  We’re condemned to a life of dying, and that makes us desperate.

            But you—you know a way out, the only way out.  And that is Jesus.  Jairus knew it, too, and fell at the Savior’s feet, imploring Him for mercy.  The woman knew it, too, and snuck up to touch the hem of His garment.  You know that if you could just catch a Word of life from His lips, just a crumb and a drop from His Table, you will be healed.  And Jesus says to you, “Daughter… Son”… “your faith has made you well” (v. 34).  Actually, not just “made you well.”  The Greek literally says, “your faith has saved you”!  Jesus preaches a good Lutheran sermon: Salvation by faith alone.  Beloved, your faith has saved you.  Because the content of your faith is Christ.  Luther said that faith is a synonym for Christ.  It is not that if you believe hard enough, you will be saved.  Faith is not your work.  It is Christ.  And it is a gift.  Christ is your salvation.  Christ has made you well.  Christ has saved you.  “Your faith has saved you,” He says to the woman who received His healing touch.  “Your faith has saved you,” He says to you who have touched and tasted His healing Body and Blood.  “Depart in peace.”  Be healed of your afflictions.  Your sins are forgiven.  You are clean.  You are restored.  Jesus takes your disease and uncleanness into Himself and nails it to the cross.  And in exchange, He leaves you clean with His own cleanness, His righteousness, His holiness.  No need to justify yourself.  Jesus has done it already.  He has done it completely.  It is finished.

            But there is more, as, indeed, there must be if this is to be truly Good News.  For the woman was healed, but she eventually died.  And Jairus suffered the greatest heartache a man can know in this life.  His precious little girl died.  And you will die.  “Why trouble the Teacher any further?” (v. 35).  There is nothing He can do about this, says the world.  Why does Jesus do this to us?  Here we are, desperate once again.  The world weeps and wails in hopelessness, and in our own grief, we’re tempted to join in.  When Jesus comes to the house, there is a great commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.  That is the only response the world knows to death.  And it’s not even all that sincere, not for most of those present.  It was the custom at the death of a loved one to hire mourners to help set the mood.  They’re doing it for pay!  And they scoff when Jesus announces hope in the face of hopelessness: “The child is not dead but sleeping” (v. 39).  Much as they scoff at you when you confess: “I believe in… the resurrection of the body” (Apostles’ Creed).  They can’t believe you mean that.  Because they’re desperate, but not so desperate as to believe something that contradicts their every experience of death.  Dead men don’t rise.  It is easier to live in denial than to stake your eternal fate on a confession of hope in the face of hopelessness.  It is impossible for man to believe this hope.  It’s a miracle that anybody believes.  It is a miracle, and it happens every time a baby is baptized into Christ, every time the Lord Jesus speaks faith into the heart of a child of God: “Do not fear, only believe” (Mark 5:36).

            In a little foreshadowing of the Judgment, Jesus throws the unbelieving world out of the house.  Only the believers are present: the disciples, Jairus, his wife, and the corpse.  Jesus takes the hand of the little girl in His own, and He speaks into her ear: “‘Talitha cumi,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise’” (v. 41).  And she does.  Immediately, St. Mark tells us (v. 42).  She’s walking around, probably talking and laughing and overjoyed to be alive.  Jesus commands them to give her something to eat.  Nothing works up an appetite like being dead.  And nothing calls for a Feast like resurrection from the dead.  When our blessed Lord appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, He was constantly eating with them (Cf. Luke 24 and John 21!).  And He has given us the Meal of His death and resurrection to eat and drink until He comes again.  He died.  He is risen.  We eat with Him every time we gather around His Altar.  It is His healing touch.  Your faith has saved you.  Depart in peace.  And what about death?  What about it?  You already died with Christ at the font.  You are already risen with Him from the baptismal flood.  And anyway, you already know what He will do for you on the Last Day.  He will take your hand in His hand, the pierced one, and speak into your ear: “Child, I say to you, arise!”  And you will.  You’ll step out of the grave with your own two feet and join in the unending Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom, which has no end.  Despair no more.  Jesus lives.  And so do you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (B—Proper 9)

July 8, 2018

Text: Mark 6:1-13

            Preachers are called to preach the Word of the Lord.  Jesus sends them with all His authority to speak His Word… all of it, the whole counsel of God, no more, no less.  The preacher doesn’t get to pick and choose what he likes and what he doesn’t like, what is safe to proclaim and what could land him in hot water with the people or with the government.  The Holy Christian Church is called to hear the Word of God… all of it, the whole counsel of God, whether it appeals to her members or not.  She is to receive it gladly, confess it boldly, and support the ministers of Christ who publicly proclaim it.  But understand, there is no promise of glorious success in this undertaking, at least not in human terms.  There will be those who hear the Word of God, repent of their sins, and come to faith in Christ.  But there will also be those who will not hear, not for lack of preaching, but because they refuse to hear.  They do not want the Lord or His Word.  And this should not surprise us.  We are a rebellious nation in the midst of rebellious nations, after all.  Fallen sinners, every one.  We are born unbelievers.  Our ears are not, by nature, attuned to the things of the Spirit.  That is why we require a new birth by water and the Word, the washing of regeneration that is Holy Baptism, that born of the Spirit we have ears to hear.  It is God’s gift, this new life, this faith that hangs on every Word of the Lord Jesus.  It is His doing, and not our own.  And so it is that we are called to preach and hear and confess the living Word of God.  But the results are up to the Spirit.  We are not called to success.  We are called to faithfulness. 

            Jesus came to His hometown, Nazareth, to His home synagogue, to be the Guest Preacher on this particular Sabbath.  The text doesn’t say it, but I can imagine how it went.  Everyone was excited that the hometown Boy was returning to preach.  “That’s our Boy!  He’s done well.  Look at the following He has.  Why, I can remember when He was just a little guy on Momma’s knee.  I just can’t wait to hear His sermon.  I bet He’s a good Preacher.” 

            But then He opens His mouth.  And He preaches the Word of God unvarnished, with all its rough edges and hard surfaces, the crushing weight of the Law, the scandal of the Holy Gospel.  And the people say, “Wait a minute!  This is not what we were expecting.  Who does this kid think He is, anyway?!  Saying things only God has the authority to say!  Telling us to repent!  Forgiving our sins!  After all, He’s just a carpenter.  Nobody special!  We know His mom and His brothers and sisters.” 

            I’ve preached at my home Church, and while everyone was very gracious, I’m not sure how effective a preacher I can be to people who changed my diapers.  When a preacher returns home, at best, there is a condescending pride in the boy who made good.  Jesus gets the worst.  The people are offended at Him.  They will not hear the Word from Him.  “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and his own household” (Mark 6:4; ESV).  “And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.  And he marveled because of their unbelief” (vv. 5-6).  Disappointing.  Sad.  But so it goes.  Jesus came to preach, and that is what He does.  Whether they hear or refuse to hear (Ez. 2:5).

            Our Lord’s mistreatment serves as an object lesson for the Church.  This is not just about a preacher returning to his home congregation.  This is the treatment any faithful Christian can expect when you speak the Word of the Lord.  Jesus calls the Twelve and begins to send them out two by two.  He invests them with His own authority over unclean spirits.  He sends them out to preach that people should repent, to cast out demons and heal the sick, to be His spokesmen, His representatives to the people.  An “Apostle” is one who is sent.  The Apostles were sent by the Lord Jesus, and they possessed all His authority in the matter for which they were sent, so that when they spoke, when they acted, it was the same as though Jesus Himself spoke or acted.  And so also the reaction they were to encounter.  Jesus tells them they will not always be received well.  “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there.  And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them” (Mark 6:10-11).  The negative reaction is not to the Apostles in and of themselves.  It is a rejection of Christ.  It is a refusal to hear His Word.  As Jesus says elsewhere, “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16).  “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master… If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household” (Matt. 10:24-25).  No matter.  “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11-12). 

            That is what the world does to prophets and preachers of the Word.  That is certainly how they treated Ezekiel.  God sends His man, the prophet Ezekiel, to a rebellious nation of Israel.  And He virtually promises the prophet he will be rejected.  “I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD GOD.’  And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them” (Ez. 2:4-5).  The preacher is sent to preach the Word of the Lord.  He is not called to success.  He is called to faithfulness.  Whether they hear or refuse to hear, they will know that Christ has sent His man, that the Lord has spoken. 

            This is a comfort to pastors and to the Church in a world that doesn’t really want to hear us right now.  We’re free to believe what we want to believe, as long as we do it quietly.  But when we come speaking the Word of the Lord, preaching that the people should repent, that they are sinners, and so are we by the way, and we all need the salvation that only comes in Jesus Christ, well… No, thank you!  Keep preaching that and we’ll have to silence you by force.  Refuse to endorse same-sex “marriage” and we’ll strip you of your tax-exempt status.  Speak against homosexuality and we’ll fine you for hate speech.  Keep it up and we’ll arrest you.  I’m not exaggerating.  It’s already happening in Canada and Europe, and we know that right here in the good old United States of America, Christians have lost their businesses and their livelihoods for speaking God’s truth about gay marriage.  Don’t think you are safe just because you don’t own a flower shop or a bakery.  God still may call you to suffer at the hands of the world for His sake.  But that’s the Spirit’s problem, not yours.  Jesus is Lord, and Caesar is not.  We must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).  You just confess the truth in love.  I’ll just keep preaching.  And whether they hear or refuse to hear, they’ll know that the people of God have been among them. 

            And the miracle is that some will hear.  The Spirit does His work in the preaching of the Gospel.  He breaks hearts of stone and bestows beating hearts of flesh.  He brings to new birth by water and the Word.  He leads the Old Adam to water and drowns him good and dead, that He raise up the new man in Christ to live in Him by faith.  He bestows seeing eyes on the blind and hearing ears on the deaf.  He opens dumb mouths and looses bound tongues to speak His Word faithfully.  He sends preachers to preach and the Word of the Lord grows as sinners come to faith in Christ.  “(W)e preach Christ crucified,” says St. Paul, “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23-24).  We preach Christ crucified for sinners, for the forgiveness of sins.  We preach Christ raised from the dead, who will raise us also.  It is a scandal, and it is really to say that Christ Jesus saved us precisely in being rejected.  It’s true.  He saved us by dying.  Not very successful in human terms.  But with God, things are not as they appear.  His death is His triumph and our salvation.  So with St. Paul, we are content to be weak and defeated in the eyes of the world.  For the sake of Christ, we are “content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities” (2 Cor. 12:10).  For Jesus says to us as He said to Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9). 

            So it is that the Lord sends His weak preachers to mount pulpits week after week, day after day, proclaiming “Thus says the LORD GOD” to poor miserable sinners.  It is a pitiful sight to the movers and shakers of this world.  But with God, things are not as they appear.  The weak man is clothed in an Office that speaks for the risen Lord Jesus Christ.  The Word he speaks grants life to the dead.  And the sinners in the pew are forgiven, righteous, glorious saints, who reign with Christ and will judge the world.  We preach and we suffer, willingly, with rejoicing, because we know how this ends.  We know it is good.  For Christ is risen.  He lives, and He reigns.  The old is passing away.  Jesus makes all things new.  “Thus says the LORD GOD.”  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.