Fifth Sunday after
the Epiphany (B)
Installation of
the Rev. Douglas J. Taylor as Associate Pastor of Augustana
February 7, 2021
Text: Mark 1:29-39
Jesus
gives pastors to His Church because He loves you. It is in this way that Jesus Himself cares
for you, preaches to you, baptizes you, and feeds you. He continues to do for you the very things He
does in for the people in our Holy Gospel.
And so we rejoice this day for Jesus’ love in giving us Pastor
Taylor. It is by pure coincidence,
humanly speaking, that Pastor Taylor’s installation is taking place on this
particular Sunday. But what a happy
coincidence it is, for this Sunday is all about preaching and the ministry of
the Gospel. In our Old Testament reading,
the Prophet Isaiah rhetorically asks us if we do not know, and if we do not
hear the preaching, if it has not been told us that YHWH is the everlasting God
who created heaven and earth and all that is, and that it is He who saves us
and renews us and makes us His own people (Is. 40:21-31). St. Paul, in our Epistle, speaks of the necessity
that is laid upon him, and upon every preacher of Christ, the necessity to
preach His Word and to take up the yoke of slavery to Christ, symbolized by the
pastor’s stole and the chasuble: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”
(1 Cor. 9:16; ESV), Paul says. Whether
willingly or not, he has been entrusted with a stewardship, and he must
be faithful in it. He is compelled
to do the Master’s bidding, to speak His Word, and to bear His cross. He must exercise self-control, disciplining
his body. That is, he must live a
Christian life according to God’s Word, continually crucifying Old Adam and
living in the grace of God. He must run
so as to win the prize. His ministry
should be focused, steady, and he should stay on the path Jesus has laid out
for him. He must not box as one beating
the air. He must not try this and that
gimmick or fad, hoping that the latest and greatest thing will work, that
somehow he will land a punch. He has a
very clear and specific task from the Lord.
He must preach what is given him, the whole counsel of God, nothing
more, and nothing less.
And
then there is our Holy Gospel this morning.
We encounter our Lord at the beginning of His earthly ministry. In His preaching, and by His miracles, Jesus
is ushering in the very Kingdom of God.
He is fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah.
That is, in the Person of Christ, the Creator of heaven and earth is
breaking into His creation to heal it of its brokenness and reclaim it from
Satan’s tyranny. Jesus comes to rescue
and renew, to redeem and to cleanse. He
enlightens our darkness and forgives our sins.
He casts out demons and raises the dead.
That is the form and content of His ministry. And it is the reality He brings about by His
suffering and death, and by His resurrection from the dead. So He heals Peter’s mother-in-law and raises
her up to serve. It is a resurrection to
new life in Christ. He receives those
who come to Him at sundown, that is, in the besetting darkness, all who are
sick or oppressed by demons. He heals
them and He casts the demons out. He
frees sinners from all that binds them.
And He prays… for them, and for His saving mission. And then He goes on to preach. For His Word must reach into every
place. He runs so as to win the
prize. With lazar-like focus, His eyes
are trained on the cross for the world’s salvation. He strives so as to win, not a wreath that
perishes, but an eternal crown and a Kingdom that is imperishable.
What
Jesus does for the people in Capernaum, beloved, He does here and now for
you. Because He loves you. This is why He gives you a Church, and why He
gives you pastors. Now, this is not
Benny Hinn kind of stuff where you come forward with all your afflictions, and
we slay you in the Spirit, and you get up off the floor miraculously healed. (I guess I should have asked earlier, but you
don’t have any plans for that, do you Pastor Taylor?) But this is to say that you come here for the
preaching of the Gospel, and when you come, you don’t want to hear Pastor
Taylor or me speak our own words. You
want to hear Jesus Himself! And you know
that in the preaching of the Gospel, which is the very voice of Jesus, all your
sins are forgiven. And then what happens
but a miracle?! Jesus Himself, the very
One with nail wounds in His hands and feet and a big spear hole in His side
(the wounds of your salvation), your Lord and your God, He touches you. He imparts Himself to you. He feeds you with Himself, His true Body, His
true Blood, the medicine of immortality under bread and wine. And while He may or may not take away your
fever… Although Lutherans need to get over this idea that He never does such
things. Stop being a rationalist. Luther very clearly says in the Large
Catechism that the Sacrament is “a pure, wholesome, comforting remedy that
grants salvation and comfort. It will
cure you and give you life both in soul and body.”[1] And of course he is saying that because he
really believes, as we do, that the very same Jesus who does all these healings
in the Gospels by the touch of His Body, gives us that very Body to eat in the
Supper, His crucified and risen, life-giving and life-restoring Body!... But in any case, He doesn’t promise He will
always take away your fever, or your aches and pains, or your cancer, or
whatever affliction, in that moment.
But He does promise, and He does always, by this Body and Blood given
and shed for you, cure you from death.
Bodily! Because He will raise you
from the grave, bodily, on the Day of His coming again. He raises you up with new life now, to serve
Him with a Christ-filled life, as He did Peter’s mother-in-law, and He will
raise you bodily and eternally on that Day.
So
He gives you a pastor to feed you with Himself, in your ears and in your mouth,
and wash you all over with Him at the Font.
The pastor is to care for you with the tools given him, and that is
preaching and Sacraments. And in this
way, Jesus cares for you Himself. And,
of course, in the presence of Jesus and at the sound of His voice, the demons
must flee. He casts them out. As we said last week, you have no idea the
spiritual battle that is raging all around you at this very moment, and the
“knives, darts, and arrows,” as Luther says, that are this very moment aimed at
you. But the cure is right here. It is Jesus.
It is His Word, which commands the demons to be silent and come
out. And it is His Baptism and His Supper,
in which Jesus is bodily present, with you and for you, to deliver you, and to
grind the serpent’s head into the dust.
This
is the thing about our doctrine of the ministry. We really don’t believe that the guy in the
Pastoral Office is all that important.
What is important is Jesus, who is present, and who
speaks, and who works in and through that Office, by the ministration
of His Means of Grace, to give you Himself and all His gifts. That is why you cover the man in robes. You are hiding him under the Office Christ
has given (and you’ll hear all about His giving of it in the verses that we’ll
read in the Installation Rite). The
pastor is to do Christ’s business and speak Christ’s Word. And He is to pray… for you and for the saving
mission. Pastor Taylor will promise
that, as I did, in the Installation Rite.
And his whole life and ministry is to be about the Gospel of Jesus
Christ that rescues you and renews you, redeems and cleanses you, enlightens
your darkness and forgives your sins. He
is to be all about freeing you from all that binds you. In the ministry of the Gospel, you are
unchained. And you are raised from the
dead to live in Christ.
Now,
this is also what our text teaches you, this living in Christ. Jesus raises you up by His Gospel gifts, and
like Peter’s mother-in-law, you immediately get busy serving Him, and serving
others for His sake. This is not command
backed up by threat. This is simply the new
reality of your Christian life, the daily putting to death of Old Adam in
you by repentance, and the daily emerging and arising of the New Creation in
you to live before God in righteousness and purity. You serve Jesus by living in Him and
according to His Word. You serve His
people by loving with the love He continually pours out upon you. That is your vocation. To receive, and so to give. Faith toward God (the faith that receives
from Him), and fervent love toward one another.
And then it is always to be seeking Jesus (as the disciples were and as
the people did in our text), to go where He is and where He has promised to be
for you, where He is praying and where He is speaking, where He is healing and
casting out demons. It is to go where
there is forgiveness, life, and salvation.
Which is to say, to Church: To the Font, to the Pulpit, to the Altar and
the Feast.
Jesus
loves you, and so today He gives you yet another pastor, to love you and care
for you and serve you, as we know Pastor Taylor will. And he will be Jesus’ hands and voice to you
as He does it. You know, I’ve thought
about this a lot, because, while I’ve been blessed with many pastors who are dear
friends and brothers and mentors, I haven’t had a pastor of my own, all
official-like on paper, for 15 years.
Today I do. Jesus loves me. Jesus loves us, and so He has given us Pastor
Taylor, and He has given us, one to another.
But most importantly, Jesus loves us, and so, here He is, right now, in
the flesh, speaking, healing, driving away demons, giving us Himself. God be praised. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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