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.
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