Don’t be content to know the Law

Posted on October 3, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 18

1 Corinthians 1:4-9  +  Matthew 22:34-46

What do you tell someone who asks you, “What is your religion all about? What is Christianity?” Some would say, “It’s about following Christ.” But what does that mean? Many, would explain, it’s about being like Jesus, being good, doing good, not harming anyone. It’s about keeping God’s commandments. It’s about charity. It’s about self-sacrifice. It’s about love (however “love” is defined). To many people, that’s what Christianity is.

But that’s like taking a picture and tearing it in half, and then pretending that you have the whole picture when, in reality, you only have half of it, and not even the most important half of it. Imagine taking your service folder today, with that picture on the front, tearing it in half and believing that either half, by itself, represented Christianity. That would be madness. To understand a picture, you need the whole picture. To understand Christianity, you need both the Law and the Gospel.

The Pharisees described in the Gospels were content to know the Law. To them, that’s who God is. He’s the One who makes demands on us, who tells us what to do and what not to do, who loves the obedient and who despises the disobedient. They loved the Law. Loved talking about it. Loved studying it. Loved teaching it. Loved obeying it. And they loved the feeling of accomplishment they got when they did what the Law required. They also loved the feeling of superiority they got from comparing their obedience to that of other men. They loved believing that they were God’s favorites, favored far above those who didn’t love the Law as much as they did.

So it’s no surprise that their question to Jesus was a question about the Law. Now, Jesus had just finished clarifying a question about the Law for the Sadducees, who had been utterly unable to catch Jesus in their trap. Since the Sadducees were rivals of the Pharisees, to some degree, the Pharisees were eager to take advantage of the situation and prove that they could succeed where the Sadducees had failed. They could successfully trap Jesus with their question about the Law.

Now, why did they want to trap Jesus in the first place? Well, because Jesus had been teaching this “awful” message, this other message that He was calling “the Gospel,” that God loved lawbreakers just as must as He loved law keepers. That God was, in fact, eager to spend eternity with those who had broken His Law, while He was unwilling to allow good and decent people like the Pharisees to enter His kingdom. That made no sense, because, if God is understood according to the Law, then a just God must love the Law keepers and despise the Law breakers. Obviously this Jesus had to be stopped, had to be exposed as a heretic for teaching this other doctrine that wasn’t the Law.

So they put this question to Him: Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? What would He say? Would He dare say that the Law is evil, that the Law doesn’t matter anymore, that the Law is no longer valid, that His Gospel is intended to erase the Law? If He does, then we have Him! But, no, that’s not at all what He replied. He had an answer ready for them, from the Law. First, from the book of Deuteronomy: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And then He had added an answer from the book of Leviticus: And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The whole Law depends on these two commandments, as do the Prophets.

The Law is good. The Law is just. The Law is valid. And the Law is essential. Jesus agrees with the Law. In fact, you can’t know God rightly without the Law, without that part of the picture.

Now, this wasn’t the first time Jesus had given (or approved) this answer that summarizes the Law. Earlier in His ministry another expert in the Law asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus asked him what the Law requires, and the man replied with essentially the same answer Jesus gives in today’s Gospel, and Jesus told him then, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.” But then the man wanted to justify himself, so he asked, “And who is my neighbor?” That gave Jesus the chance to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan. And why did He tell that parable? He told it to illustrate that keeping the Law to love your neighbor as yourself requires the kind of love shown by the Samaritan to the beaten and dying man on the side of the road. And when He spoke those fateful words at the end, “Go and do likewise!”, it sounded like a thunderbolt in the man’s ears, because the kind of love that the Law requires is beyond what we, who are all born in sin, are able to supply. If you can’t love your neighbor as yourself, if you can’t always treat your neighbor with the love you would want your neighbor to show to you, then how can you possibly love God? You’re only commanded in the Law to love your neighbor as yourself. But you’re commanded to love God much more than that, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.

Jesus agreed that God is serious about His Law, which includes the Ten Commandments and all the other commandments, some of which were only for the Jews, some of which are for all people of all times, all summarized with this whole-self love for God, and with love for neighbor as a person loves himself.

Still, sadly, the Pharisees refused to accept that even they were Law breakers. They were content to know the Law, even as they lived under the delusion that they were actually keeping the Law. The fact is, no one keeps God’s Law, and so all are like that naked man on the left side of the picture on the service folder, who is being chased by death into the fires of hell.

For a moment, the Pharisees may have thought Jesus was on their side after all. But He wasn’t content to focus on the Law. He posed a question to the Pharisees that didn’t seem to be at all related to their discussion of the Law. What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is he?” They said to him, “The Son of David.” He said to them, “How then does David, by the Spirit, call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet?”’ Now, if David calls him Lord, how is he David’s son?

Nowhere in the commands and threats of the Law is there any discussion of this “Christ.” The Law is very straightforward. Those who keep it will be rewarded with eternal life. Those who break it—ever, at all, even just a little—will die. There’s no talk there about the Christ. And yet every good Jew, including these Pharisees, knew that the Old Testament Scriptures talked quite a bit about the coming Christ. How did He fit into the doctrine of the Law? They hadn’t really thought about it, apparently.

But after Jesus talks about the Law, He wants to talk about the Christ, starting with who He is. The Son of David, of course, a descendant of King David, promised by God to King David to come from David’s lineage. And yet in Psalm 110, a Psalm written by David, David calls the Christ “my Lord.” Such a short, simple phrase. Someone might just pass right over it in reading the Psalm. The Pharisees can’t explain to Jesus how it can be or why it should be. And, tragically, probably the most tragic thing about Holy Week, they were content not to know. They left Jesus alone after that, and from that day on, no one dared to question Him further.

Don’t be content not to know this vital truth about the Christ. Don’t be content to know the Law. It’s only half the picture of who God is and of what the true religion is all about. Ask Jesus, ask the Scriptures about this teaching called the Gospel.

It’s the Gospel that teaches about the Christ. That, yes, He is the Son of David, born from a virgin mother of David’s lineage, as the prophet Nathan and the prophet Isaiah had said He would be. Born of the tribe of Judah, of the stock of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Born a Jew. Born a human.

But He would also be David’s Lord, the eternal Son of God who was with God in the beginning and who was God, who died and rose again and now sits at the right hand of God the Father and will come again at the end of the age to judge the living and the dead, when He will place all His enemies under His feet.

True God and true Man, the Christ came to be the Substitute for everyone, to fulfill the Law where every man had failed, to die for mankind’s sins against the Law, true Man that He might die for sin, true God that His death might be “for us,” might be sufficient to atone for the sins of the world. That already is Gospel, “good news,” that God loves the world, sent His Son for the world, and desires the salvation of every sinner on earth. But the Gospel is also more than that. It’s chiefly a promise and an invitation: Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. Or, He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. The Gospel is the preacher standing next to the naked man on the right side of the picture on the service folder, pointing him to Christ crucified and risen from the dead, promising Him that the Holy Spirit will sprinkle him through faith with the atoning blood of Christ and will wash him clean through Holy Baptism of his sins against the Law.

And there it is: the whole picture of who God is and what Christianity teaches. Not the Law only or the Gospel only, but the Law and the Gospel. The Law commands us what to do or not do and condemns us for disobeying. But the Gospel teaches us what Christ has done for us and shows us poor sinners what we are to believe in order to be saved. Know the Law, but don’t be content to know the Law. Know the Gospel, and believe the Gospel. For it, not the Law, is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Amen.

 

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Angelic agents of God’s preservation

Posted on September 29, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for St. Michael & All Angels

Revelation 12:7-12  +  Matthew 18:1-11

Our review of the Small Catechism coincides perfectly with today’s Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. We’re moving from the Ten Commandments to the Creed, beginning with the First Article of the Creed, which is entitled “Creation.” It’s printed on the back of your service folder. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. What does this mean? I believe that God has made me, along with all created things; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still preserves them; He also richly and daily provides me with clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and yard, wife and children, land, animals, and all that I have—with all that I need to sustain this body and life; He shields me from all danger and guards and protects me from all evil; and all this He does out of pure, fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me; for all this it is my duty to thank and praise, to serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true

The doctrine of Creation includes not only God’s creation of all things but also God’s wondrous act of preserving all the things He created. Creation and Preservation, and the holy angels are involved in both.

God has made me, along with all created things. We believe what the Bible says, that God made all things, visible and invisible, in six natural days. The “invisible things” include the holy angels. Spirit-creatures with a rational mind, with personality, with great power, but without flesh and bones. They appeared to people throughout the Scriptures in bodily form, sometimes with wings, sometimes as ordinary men. There are vast numbers of them, vast armies of them, all created sometime within the six days of creation to serve God within God’s creation in ways that we can’t even imagine.

But as rational beings, as creatures with a mind and with personality, they were given a choice whether to serve their Creator or not. And as you know, while most of them chose to serve Him gladly, a portion of them chose not to, a number of rebellious spirits led by one now known as the Devil or Satan, that “ancient serpent,” as Revelation refers to him, since he was the one speaking to Eve in the Garden of Eden in the form of a serpent. He lied to her then and so became, as Jesus calls him, the “father of lies” and “a murderer from the beginning,” since it was his set of lies that deceived the woman and brought death upon our race.

We think of demons as scary, ugly, menacing creatures that possess people and afflict them and harm them, and that is what they have sometimes done. But more than anything, they are liars. They attack the truth, sometimes with bold, outright lies, but more often with half-truths and twisted truth. They’re behind every false god, every false doctrine, and every falsehood that brings chaos and dysfunction to human society. They work invisibly, behind the scenes. How exactly they go about influencing people with their lies we aren’t told in Scripture. But we’re told that they do, and that the churches of the world and the governments and kingdoms of the world are two of their primary targets to promote and foster their lies—anything that distorts the truth about God and about God’s creation.

So you hear the lie about evolution, denying the Creator and His own account of the creation in Holy Scripture. You hear the lie about gender. The lie about homosexuality. The lie about abortion and sex outside of marriage being acceptable in God’s sight. You hear lies from politicians every day, you hear lies from the experts, lies from the media, and you hear lies from false prophets, too, to the point that it is almost impossible to believe anyone anymore. Behind those lies are the fallen angels, and you see just how severely the devil and his angels are ravaging our world and tearing it to pieces faster and faster.

But even as the world crumbles, God is there, faithfully preserving His creation for the sake of His children, until it’s time to usher in the new creation. Not only has God given me my eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, but He still preserves them. God is there, richly and daily providing me with clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and yard, wife and children, land, animals, and all that I have—with all that I need to sustain this body and life; He shields me from all danger and guards and protects me from all evil.

The holy angels are part of that preservation, agents of God’s preservation.

The angels are God’s perfect messengers, His perfectly devoted, sinless servants. Michael is called an archangel, one of the “chief princes,” of whom the apocryphal book of Tobit suggests there are seven. Gabriel is another angel we know well from Scripture, and Raphael is mentioned in that same book of Tobit, if that story is to be believed. The angels brought special messages to certain individuals in the Old and New Testaments, but their duty as messengers has largely passed away, being given now to the ministers of the Church who are the “angels” of the seven churches in Revelation.

But today, the spirit-beings called angels still defend God’s children from harm, as they did with Lot and his family, or the prophet Elisha, or the apostle Peter. And they still fight battles against the demons, battles that we will never see, battles fought in the spiritual realm on behalf of God’s human children, on behalf of God’s people, believers in Christ, as they did at the time of the prophet Daniel. As the Psalmist says, The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them…Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; for He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Jesus gives us a brief glimpse into the spiritual realm in the Gospel from Matthew 18, where He assures us that the angels in heaven, the angels of the little ones who believe in Jesus, always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. He says that as a frightening warning to any who would cause any of His little ones to stumble, and that’s not only talking about little believing children, but about all of God’s believing children, young and old. He calls them “our angels,” because they have been given to us, the people of God, as a powerful guardian host.

So while the influence of the demons may be more obvious to us, remember that the good angels are there, too, these spirit beings who are much more powerful than we are, who are fully equipped to battle against the forces of darkness in the spiritual realm, and who will continue to work quietly, behind the scenes, to shield us from harm and to protect us from all evil.

But don’t thank them. Don’t praise them. And certainly do not worship them, as Christians have foolishly been deceived into doing in the past! Instead, thank God and praise God that they are there as God’s tools for preserving His people. Worship God alone. Give thanks to Him for the faithful service of His beloved angels, who are our spiritual cousins in God’s family. And pray that He would continue to preserve us through the presence and protection of the holy angels. We are unworthy of the help of these sinless, perfect creatures, who must blush when they see us fall into sin. But as we confess in the First Article, God preserves us out of pure, fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. If God provided His only-begotten Son for us, to suffer for our sins on the cross and to give us the gift of eternal life, then He will surely also continue to send His angels to guard and protect us in this life, until they fulfill their final duty for us and carry our souls to Paradise, as they did for poor Lazarus, or harvest us from the four winds on the Last Day, to bring us into the new heavens and the new earth. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, to serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true. Amen.

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Be neither self-seeking nor self-deprecating, but humble

Posted on September 26, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 17

Ephesians 4:1-6  +  Luke 14:1-11

You’ve heard the voice. “Every man for himself. Do what you have to do to get ahead. Go ahead and trample on the rights of others if you think it will help your cause. Look out for yourself. Focus on yourself. It’s your opinion that matters most. What do you need? How do you feel? What will benefit you? You don’t owe anyone anything. Is that little baby growing in your womb getting in the way of the future you want? Kill it! Remember, you’re the most important person in the room. Surely everyone, including God, must agree!”

You recognize that voice, don’t you?, those little gems, those little pieces of advice. It’s the voice of the devil, urging you to focus on yourself and think highly of yourself and look out for Number One. It’s the voice of the world, too, and also the voice that rises up from your sinful flesh. Look out for yourself! Be self-seeking!

Now, there is another voice out there, just as evil, equally diabolical. It’s the voice of the Communist, the voice of the collectivist, the voice of the socialist, and, ultimately, also the voice of the devil, the world, and the flesh. “Don’t be selfish! You don’t matter at all! You’re just a cog in the wheel, a tiny, tiny part of a much greater society. Society is what matters, not you. Your duty is to not get in the way of society’s progress, of society’s health, of society’s purpose. Your place in life is to make sure the collective thrives. It would be better for you to go away, crumple up, and die rather than jeopardize the well-being of society. So mask up and get vaccinated for the good of society, or else we’ll find a way to get rid of you.”

Isn’t it amazing that the devil, the world, and the flesh can speak two opposite, seemingly contradictory messages at the same time? “Be self-seeking! You’re the only one who matters!” on the one hand. “Don’t be selfish! You don’t matter at all!” on the other. But both are wrong. Both are lies.

Today’s Scripture lessons, the Epistle and the Gospel, dispel the devil’s lies and reveal the truth about how God would have us view ourselves in relation to our neighbor, and most importantly, how we should view ourselves in relation to God. Be neither self-seeking nor self-deprecating, but humble, like Jesus.

Jesus was attending a Sabbath-day supper at the home of a Pharisee. The Pharisees are perfect examples of that self-seeking mindset. Even the invitation to this dinner wasn’t for Jesus’ benefit, but for the purpose of “watching Him closely, to trap Him.

A man was there who had dropsy, a painful swelling of the legs. No one could help with that except for Jesus. But the Pharisees had been condemning Him for doing the “work” of healing on the Sabbath instead of “resting” as He was “supposed to.” Well, there were some lawyers sitting right there, experts in the Law. So they should be able to give an answer to Jesus’ simple question: Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Is healing a sick person one of those “works” that God forbids? Or not? And yet no one would answer Him.

Why? Because they didn’t actually care either about God’s Law or about the man who needed healing. They weren’t interested in either. All they sought was their own glory, their own popularity, their own honor, their own self-interest. And it wasn’t in their interest to answer Jesus’ question. Clearly the Sabbath law was not intended to prevent doing good; but if they said that, it would legitimize Jesus’ whole teaching, and that wasn’t in their self-interest. If they said that the Sabbath law did prevent healing and helping a man, they would reveal themselves as hypocrites, because they would most certainly pull their own ox or donkey out of pit on the Sabbath, without thinking twice, so to deny such help to a fellow Israelite in need would be both hypocritical and cruel, and it wasn’t in their self-interest to appear that way.

Well, Jesus didn’t need their permission or their approval. He healed the man. He did it, not in violation of the Third Commandment, but in accord with it. Because the prohibition against work was a prohibition, not against every form of work, but against self-seeking work, against work that was for the goal of providing for yourself, against work that would hinder your attention to God’s Word and the ministry of it. Helping a brother in need—or for that matter, helping an animal in need! —was not against God’s Law.

What about the man with dropsy? Should he have realized that he didn’t matter? That he wasn’t important? Should he have slinked away so that he didn’t bother the Pharisees at their dinner, or bother Jesus with a Sabbath healing that might get Jesus in trouble? No, God’s law didn’t require him to be self-deprecating, either. The Lord wanted him to understand that he did matter, that he was important to God, and that the Pharisees should have cared about him, too, instead of being so self-absorbed and self-seeking. So Jesus kindly healed him and sent him on his way.

Then we come to the second part of the Gospel, where Jesus observed more of this self-seeking behavior on the part of the Pharisees and their friends. As people arrived at the dinner, everyone made a beeline to the highest place, to the seat of greatest honor at the feast. Why? Because they were steeped in this self-seeking mindset. Each one exalted himself or lifted himself up in his own eyes. In other words, each one thought he was the most important person in the room, the most deserving person in the room, so each one grabbed the most important seat in the room, with no thought to the other guests—and with no thought to the host.

So Jesus tells this parable about choosing places at a wedding banquet, and it’s obvious that He isn’t really concerned about where they sit at a wedding banquet, but with how they view themselves in relation to God and to their neighbor. When you are invited by someone to a wedding, do not sit down in the place of honor. Otherwise, if someone more honorable than you has been invited by him, the one who invited you both may come and say to you, ‘Give this man your place.’ Then, with shame, you will proceed to take the last place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the last place, so that, when the one who invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher!’ Then you will have honor in front of all those who are sitting at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled; and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

What is the problem Jesus is addressing? As you focus on yourself, and evaluate yourself, you tend to see the good and ignore the bad. Oh, you may identify the bad in other people well enough, but when you look at yourself, you say, “I’m a good person. I’m a decent person. I try hard. I do my best. Surely I’m worthy of respect, honor, good treatment by others, and recognition by God!” You rank yourself pretty high in God’s kingdom, in God’s Church. You. You. You. You. It’s all about you. And while you are focused on you, you forget that God is the One who created you, God is the One who commands you, and God is the One who judges you, and that’s dangerous, because, I guarantee you, God isn’t nearly as impressed with you as you are, and that goes for everyone who is at all impressed with him or herself.

It’s much, much safer to let God be the Judge, to rank yourself in last place in your heart, as the “chief of sinners,” where the Apostle Paul ranked himself. It’s much wiser to seek God’s approval than to assume you already have it because of how decent and honorable you are. Seek God’s approval, not in yourself, but in Christ. Look outside of yourself, away from yourself, to Christ, who ranks #1 in the Father’s estimation. Don’t seek to honor yourself; seek instead to be honored by God for the sake of Christ alone, and you will be exalted. You will be lifted up. You will be forgiven and accepted and even honored when you seek all those things in Christ, and not in yourself.

But notice, there is nothing self-deprecating about choosing the last place. Jesus isn’t commanding people to think of themselves as nothing, as worthless, as people who don’t matter, as people who only exist for society’s sake, so that other people can be honored more. No, what does Jesus promise to the one who takes the lowest place? That the One who invited you, that God Himself will honor you and raise you up. That’s a far cry from the socialist claim that you exist to serve the collective. No, you exist to be honored by God. You exist to be glorified in God’s kingdom. You exist to be loved by God and chosen by God and accepted by God.

It’s just that the way to that honor and glory and acceptance isn’t by seeking your own honor or by looking out for yourself first, or by ignoring the needs of your neighbor, or by buying into the lie that you matter less to God than others, or that your life is expendable. It’s by humbling yourself before God and men, which means intentionally looking away from yourself, toward the needs of your neighbor, and toward the judgment of God. You don’t have to look out for yourself first or seek your own good first, because God is already looking out for it for you and will raise you up in due time, without any effort on your part. So be neither self-seeking nor self-deprecating, but humble. As Paul said in the Epistle, Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all humility and meekness, with patience, bearing with one another in love. Acknowledge your sins and unworthiness before God, but also acknowledge His great love for you, which frees you to care about your neighbor while you wait for God to lift you up to glory. Amen.

 

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Steadfast faith and earnest prayer against the demons

Posted on September 22, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Ember Wednesday in September

Amos 9:13-15  +  Mark 9:17-29

Today is the first time we’ve ever observed the Ember Days, as our diocese has just recently encouraged their observance. They occur four times a year, in each of the four seasons, and they place a special emphasis on repentance, prayer, fasting, charitable works, and the fundamental teachings of the Small Catechism—basically the same emphases of the seasons of Advent and Lent, which is why there’s purple on the altar. But just as with the saints’ days, we view these days mainly as an opportunity to gather around God’s Word, to hear and ponder another portion of Scripture or a particular doctrine of Scripture. So we’ll focus on the second Lesson you heard this evening from the Gospel of Mark, which will also help prepare us for next week, when we’ll celebrate the feast of St. Michael and the Scripture’s teaching about angels…and demons.

It was right after the transfiguration, the next day. A father had approached Jesus’ disciples, possibly the nine who remained behind while Jesus, Peter, James and John traveled up the mount of transfiguration. He had a son, apparently an adult son, who had been tormented by a demon since he was a child. In this case, the demon took hold of him, threw him down, and caused him to foam at the mouth, gnash his teeth, and become stiff. It sounds a lot like the neurological disease we know as epilepsy, doesn’t it? Except it wasn’t. It was something malicious, something that intended to harm the man, casting him into fire if there was fire nearby, or casting him into water to drown him. It was a demon, an unclean spirit whose goal was to make people’s life miserable here on earth.

It wasn’t only the afflicted man who was miserable. His father was, too. He came to Jesus’ disciples begging for help. They had helped people with demons in the past. Jesus had previously sent them out to preach and to perform miracles in His name, and when they came back, they were excited that even the demons submitted to them. But this one didn’t.

That prompted an argument with the scribes, who were likely accusing Jesus’ disciples (and Jesus Himself) of being imposters. That’s when Jesus showed up and asked for an explanation. So the father explained to Jesus that it was because the disciples couldn’t cast out the demon from his son. Then Jesus spoke those words of frustration, O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?

Who was showing unbelief? Practically everyone around Jesus. The scribes, to be sure, who saw the failed miracle attempt and immediately used it to prove Jesus a fake. The father, who shows how weak his faith is with his words, “If you can do anything.” Also the demon-afflicted man, whom, as far as we know from Scripture, the demon wouldn’t have been able to afflict if he had been steadfast in faith. And Jesus’ own disciples. Matthew makes that very clear. When they asked why they couldn’t cast out this demon, Jesus’ first words to them in Matthew’s Gospel were, “Because of your unbelief.”

Now, the Lord showed much patience toward sinners in their weakness. But here He shows that even the patience of God wears thin when people try to force Him over and over and over again to prove His faithfulness, to prove His own trustworthiness, to prove His ability to help. Jesus’ words should sting: How long shall I put up with you? We tempt God, we put Him to the test when we doubt His goodness and love and frantically try to make Him prove it yet again, instead of giving up, instead of unbelieving, instead of “being still” and “knowing that He is God,” as Psalm 46 says.

But Jesus didn’t refuse help just because He was surrounded by so much unbelief. Bring him to Me, He said. And then we see more evidence that this was no ordinary illness, because when the unclean spirit saw Jesus, it caused the man to fall down and go into convulsions. Jesus asked the man’s father about his condition, not because He couldn’t have accessed that information through His divinity, but because He wanted to show the care and compassion of a doctor, and also because He wanted to expose the weakness of the father’s faith, to confront and to admit his own problem, so that Jesus could heal him, too. “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us!”

Jesus identifies the issue and puts His finger on the problem: If you can…believe! All things are possible for the one who believes. Any prayer that begins, “God, if You exist…” or “God, if You can,” is a worthless prayer, because it starts from a position of doubt and unbelief. It’s just like saying, “God, I don’t know if You exist. I may be talking to the air right now. I don’t know if You can help. You may be just as powerless as I am.” As James says, Let a person ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. By nature, that father couldn’t believe in Jesus for help or salvation, but that doesn’t excuse his unbelief, just as it doesn’t excuse ours. The fact that a severely drunk person can’t drive straight doesn’t excuse his erratic driving. But Jesus’ own Spirit-filled words are powerful to coax faith out of the man, to persuade him, to change his doubt into a weak faith. All things are possible for the one who believes!

All things are possible. That doesn’t mean God will do whatever a person believes He will do. It means that God will do whatever He says He will do, and it means that God is always trustworthy and able to help in any and every situation. He can literally do anything. If there is an “if” that we should ever use, it’s the “if” that the leper once spoke, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Not, if You can, but if You are willing. That’s a good prayer.

But the father then utters a very good confession and a prayer of his own that every Christian can imitate: “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!” He said it “with tears.” He was desperate. He had given up on every other remedy. He had faith in Jesus, but he knew his faith was weak, and he knew he couldn’t make it stronger. Only Jesus could. And that’s always the way it is. So he asked, he prayed earnestly for that gift, and Jesus granted it. He commanded the demon to come out of his son, and the demon had to obey.

Why couldn’t we cast it out? the disciples wondered. Because of your unbelief, Jesus says, according to Matthew’s Gospel. And then Matthew and Mark both record the other reason: This kind can only come out by prayer and fasting. In other words, when they tried to cast it out, as they had done at other times successfully, but this time it didn’t work immediately, they gave up! They stopped believing in the authority Jesus had given them, and instead they relied on themselves and their own power. But this is a special kind of demon, Jesus says, one that He can cast out immediately, with a word, but one that can otherwise only be cast out by prayer and fasting. In other words, not immediately, but after setting aside time and earthly distractions to ask God for special help.

We might like to know more about the kinds of demons there are, but we shouldn’t get distracted by that. The point is that, if God’s power and help don’t appear immediately, don’t give up. Be steadfast in faith. And be earnest in prayer. And, yes, even use fasting, if necessary. The flesh grows lazy when it’s full, sluggish when it’s satisfied. And there are times when it’s necessary to set aside earthly needs and pleasures and distractions in order to give proper attention to seeking the help of the unseen God against unseen enemies, especially when that help doesn’t come right away. Prayer and fasting are required to confront certain kinds of demons.

That brings us to these Ember Days, which call us to reflect on those demons that aren’t quickly cast out or those troubles that aren’t quickly resolved, for which we are in desperate need of God’s help. That begins with our flesh, which takes a lifetime to subdue, and so denying it once in a while is a very healthy practice. The devil himself is not quickly turned away, but remains like a roaring lion, who goes around looking for someone to devour. The demons that are exerting their malicious influence on the nations and governments of the world are also not quickly cast out. In fact, it will only be the coming of the Lord Jesus that gets rid of them once and for all. But God will come to the aid of His people in all the ways we need it, either with outward deliverance, or with the inner peace and strength we need to bear up under it until His final deliverance comes. Don’t lose faith in His help! Instead, pray for it all the more. Let these Ember Days encourage you to do just that. Amen.

 

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Don’t worry. You’re going to die.

Posted on September 19, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 16

Ephesians 3:13-21  +  Luke 7:11-17

In last week’s Gospel, the Lord Christ taught us very patiently not to worry. In today’s Gospel, He teaches the same thing, except in a much more striking way. Last week, He taught us to look at the birds and how our heavenly Father provides for them. This week, He teaches us to look at the dead man being carried out of the city of Nain in a casket and how He, the Lord Jesus, took care of the problem. Don’t worry, He says. You’re going to die. But it’ll be all right in the end.

You’re going to die. Everyone is. For as much as people want to avoid it, deny it, or prevent it, no one can. Not for long, at least. Oh, they frantically take their precautions and treat anyone they view as a threat to their health as a villain who needs to be removed from society. But Moses says it plainly and truly: The days of our life are seventy years; or eighty, if we have the strength. Yet their boast is only toil and sorrow. For it passes swiftly, and we fly away. Now, some make it a little past eighty, but many don’t even make it to seventy.

Take the young man in today’s Gospel, the young man of Nain. Death came for him sooner than it does for most people. We may call it tragic. We may also call it tragic that he was his mother’s only son. And we may also call it tragic that she had already dealt with death; we’re told she was a widow. Her husband had already died, so that she was now left husbandless, childless, and destitute. So much tragedy and sadness!

Of course, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be a happy world, a world filled with laughter and life, a world without sickness or death, where family members were never separated from one another by death or by anything else. That’s the world God intended. That’s the world God created. That’s the world God blessed.

But you know where death came from. You know whom to blame, and it isn’t God. It’s, first, the devil, who wanted to see his Creator’s creation suffer, who tempted Eve to do the one thing that God had already told them would surely bring death on the human race. But she did it anyway. And so it’s also her fault. And Adam’s fault. And the fault of every child of theirs who has sinned, and that’s everyone—except for One. Our culture hates to admit that death is what we all deserve and the wages we’re all going to get, and so it will go to any lengths to pass the blame on to someone else. But no one can change the fact: Death comes for all of us. You’re going to die.

And so it was that death came to the young man from the city of Nain. He wasn’t the first young man to be taken too early, and he won’t be the last. Death continues its nearly perfect record of victory over the human race. But on this one occasion, for the very first time (at least, the first time recorded in the Gospels), death encountered its Destroyer in the Person of Jesus.

Jesus saw the grieving mother and went up to her and comforted her. Do not weep. Why not weep? Because Jesus had come. And death was about to be undone.

He touched the casket, and the procession halted. He spoke to the dead man, Young man, I say to you, arise! And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

It wasn’t the permanent ending of death’s march against our race. That young man would eventually die again. His mother would die. All the people of Nain would die. All the people of the world have died or are dying, quickly or slowly. It wasn’t the end of death that day. But it was a foretaste of death’s ultimate defeat.

Death is defeated in two ways. Jesus describes them both in John 5. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.

We all begin life dead already, spiritually dead in our trespasses. But the time is coming and now is when the Gospel of Christ goes out, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved! And where the Spirit works faith, that person passes from death to life, to life so real and so strong that even death can’t interrupt it, as Jesus says in John 11: I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.

That’s our first consolation when we face death. For the believer, death has already been defeated. There is no death, only the temporary sleep of the body in the grave. The soul is safe with God, and very much alive, no longer fighting, no longer wrestling with the devil, the world, or the flesh, but resting in the true peace of Paradise. That is no small comfort.

But there is more. Jesus goes on in John 5, Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. That’s what we get a taste of in today’s Gospel, the actual raising of dead bodies when the voice of Jesus speaks over their graves. For those who died in unbelief, who rejected Jesus the Life-Giver, it won’t be a resurrection to life, but to condemnation. But for those who died in faith, it will be a much better life.

This is what gives believers strength to face a hostile world and a future in the world that may often appear bleak. You’re going to die, and you know it. You’ll die of COVID. You’ll die of cancer. You’ll die of stroke or heart failure or old age. You’ll die from cold. You’ll die from heat. You’ll die from an accident. You’ll die from foul play. And yet, nothing the world throws at us can interfere with the life that Jesus now gives, or with the life that He will give at the resurrection. No disease, no accident, no tyrannical oppression, no amount of hatred, no amount of danger can change the fact that Jesus has conquered death by His own resurrection from the dead, after making payment for sins of the world with His own death. Nothing can change or overturn Jesus’ promise to deliver His baptized believer from every evil of body and soul. As St. Paul writes, Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For now, it’s OK to weep when death wins yet another battle. But don’t weep as the world does, without faith and without hope, without knowing that you, united with Christ in Holy Baptism, have already won the war. The same Lord who approached the grieving widow mother approaches each grieving child of God in Word and Sacrament, to comfort and to heal and to assure you that death is about to be entirely undone. Yes, you’re going to die. But don’t worry. You’re also not going to die. You’re going to live, because God has taken this horrible thing called death and has made it work together for good to those who love Him. If you remember that now and cling to Christ continually, then you truly have nothing to worry about. Amen.

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