The kingdom of God meets the kingdom of Satan

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Oculi

2 Samuel 22:1-7  +  Ephesians 5:1-9  +  Luke 11:14-28

Today, for the third week in a row, we encounter Jesus doing battle with the devil and his demons.  You do realize, don’t you?, that whether the Bible text we’re considering on any given Sunday mentions the demons or not, we are always encountering Jesus doing battle with the devil here on Sunday mornings, and wherever and whenever the Word of Jesus is proclaimed.

That’s because this entire planet has fallen into the hands of the devil.  Sin and guilt make people his subjects and subject to his accusations: “This one deserves to die.”  The whole earth is the enemy’s territory and every human being is born under his rule.  He is, as Jesus calls him, “the prince of this world.”  Where is the kingdom of Satan?  Just look around.  Are you still in the world?  Then you’re still in his territory, still being targeted by this ancient enemy.

So, when Jesus steps into this world, he steps into Satan’s kingdom.  But Jesus is a King, too, a greater King who has a kingdom of His own—a kingdom of grace and peace and forgiveness for sinners, the kingdom of God.  And where the Word of Jesus is proclaimed, there the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil meet.  And where the Word of Jesus is believed, there Jesus is ripping souls out of the devil’s kingdom and bringing them safely into His own.

In our Gospel we witness the collision of spiritual forces today.  We see what happens when the kingdom of God meets the kingdom of Satan.

We begin with the miracle itself.  A demon had attached itself to man, making him both unable to speak, and, according to Matthew, blind.  What a terrible affliction!  He was being held prisoner by this demon in darkness and in silence. He couldn’t free himself from this condition.  No man is more powerful than a demon.  No one could help—no one, except for Jesus.

This man’s friends had heard of Jesus and trusted in Him to help, even against a powerful demon.  They brought the man to Jesus, and Jesus cast the demon out.  The kingdom of God met the kingdom of Satan, and the Son of God defeated the demon with a word.  God teaches us here to trust in Jesus as our merciful and powerful Savior from sin, from death and also from the power of the devil.  The devil is strong, but Jesus is stronger.  No demon can stand up to Jesus.

Next, we see the reaction of the crowd.  The multitude marveled and were amazed.  These were the ones who believed in Jesus and were glad to witness Jesus’ power over the devil and His kindness toward the demon-possessed man.  But others weren’t glad. They sneered and mocked and blasphemed, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.” These are the ones Jesus will answer in the rest of the text.  Still others—the perpetual skeptics who had just witnessed this divine miracle—kept on demanding another sign from heaven and another and another and another before they would believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

And right away you see it, don’t know?, the kingdom of God meeting the kingdom of Satan, not just when Jesus casts out the demon, but as some in the crowd believe in Jesus, while the sons of the devil raise their voices against the Son of God.  Wherever Jesus is on this earth, wherever His voice goes out, wherever His saving Word is spoken, there will be believers in Him, and there will be opposition to Him; the demons will not go quietly.  Wherever the pure and true doctrine of God’s Word comes in and shines the light on false doctrine and error, there the devils will rage against Christ and His servants and will stir up the devil’s children to oppose Him. 

It’s the way it must be.  We’re in the middle of a great battle between these two kingdoms, and we—sinners—are the ones being fought over.  The devil fights to keep us in his kingdom, or to get us back there, if we’ve already been rescued by faith in Jesus.  He fights to own us and to give us eternal death.  Jesus fights to rescue us and to give us eternal life.

Jesus answers His accusers—not that they will listen or believe His answer.  His answer hardens the unbelieving while at the same time His answer sustains the faith of believers.  He has three arguments, as it were, against their charge that He was taking His orders from Beelzebub, the prince of demons.

First, Jesus points out that a kingdom can’t be divided against itself and still stand.  Satan doesn’t cast out Satan.  If Satan’s demons were to start turning on one another, then, Jesus says, Satan’s kingdom would fall into ruin all by itself.  Just look at our own country for moment.  Talk about a house divided against itself!  America doesn’t need foreign enemies to attack her.  She may well devour herself before any foreign enemy becomes strong enough to do it.

But Jesus says, it doesn’t work that way in the devil’s kingdom.  It is not about to fall on its own; it is not about to self-destruct.  His kingdom stands, so mankind’s hope is not that the devil’s servants will turn on one another.  Mankind’s only hope is for God’s kingdom to come in and destroy the devil’s kingdom.

Now, secondly, Jesus points the Jews to their own “sons,” their own people as witnesses.  If I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?  But we have no evidence that the Jews were able to cast out any demons.  In fact, it was a wonderful and miraculous thing that Jesus was now on the scene casting out demons without any trouble at all.  If the Jews claimed to be on God’s side against the demons and they weren’t able to cast out any demons, how could they accuse Jesus of casting out the devil by the power of the devil?  On the contrary, Jesus says, But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 

The “finger of God” is simply called in Matthew’s Gospel “the Holy Spirit.”  Father, Son and Spirit were working mightily in Jesus’ ministry to drive out the devil and to rescue sinners out of Satan’s kingdom and into God’s kingdom.  The finger of God is still working, still breaking into our darkness wherever the Word of God is preached.  There is the Holy Spirit convicting sinners, calling sinners to faith in Jesus and forgiving sinners.  There is the finger of God in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, bringing Jesus to sinners and lifting sinners out of death and into life.  Here again, God’s kingdom meets the devil’s kingdom.

Thirdly, Jesus gives the analogy of the strong man guarding his house and his possessions.  He is at peace and comfortable, not worried about anyone breaking in.  So the devil is when it comes to sinful men.  He isn’t worried about us.  We can do nothing to him. We can’t rescue ourselves or anyone else out of his house.  He has every right to accuse us before God.  He is too strong. It takes a stronger man to break into the devil’s house, to tie him up and to start helping himself to the devil’s possessions.  That stronger man is Jesus.  With His own blood He took away the devil’s power to accuse us and with His Spirit He has brought repentance and forgiveness of sins to us.  Jesus has no trouble seizing the property of the devil, taking his demons and casting them aside.  Where Jesus is, there the stronger Man meets the strong man, and the stronger Man wins.

He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.  You can’t be in both kingdoms at the same time.  Either you’re in the kingdom of God by faith in Jesus or you’re in the kingdom of Satan.  There’s no neutral territory, and there’s no getting past it.  Either you’re fighting with Jesus, fighting with the truth of His Word, or you’re fighting against Jesus.  To choose not to fight, to pretend there is no fight, is to choose Satan’s kingdom.

At the end of our Gospel we have this scary warning from Jesus about what happens when a demon is cast out by the Word of God.  It wanders around for awhile, and then it checks back to see if its former house is available again.  And if it finds its former occupant’s heart swept clean and uninhabited by the Spirit of Jesus, then it brings in seven more demons, more wicked than itself and makes that man’s life worse than it was before.

And that’s exactly what happens when the Word of God comes and saves a person and brings him into the Christian faith and the Christian Church and then that person turns away from the faith by turning away from God’s Word, as if, once Jesus casts out the demon, it can never come back.  It can and does come back if faith in Jesus is abandoned, where the Word of Jesus doesn’t dwell.

But where Jesus’ Word does dwell, it is as powerful against one demon as it is against seven, and His Word is going out right here, right now, to defeat the devil once again.

That’s why Jesus replied as He did to that woman in the crowd who called out, Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You! But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”  Jesus’ mother Mary was given a special blessing in bearing Jesus, but giving birth to Jesus isn’t what saves a person out of the devil’s kingdom.  God’s Word of forgiveness, God’s Word of the Son of God crucified for the world’s sins, God’s Word as the seed that gives birth to faith, as the food that sustains our faith in Christ, God’s Word heard, not just once, but kept in a our hearts as our one true treasure—that’s what saves us out of the devil’s kingdom and keeps us safe from all the repeated attacks of the devil.

Be on your guard.  The devil is sneaky, and he is strong.  But Jesus is stronger.  And He has promised to fight for you, so that you don’t have to lift a finger in order to defeat the devil.  Your salvation is not by your might or strength or works.  Your salvation is by faith alone in Christ Jesus.  We know we are surrounded here on this earth by the devil’s kingdom. But here again today we pray, “Thy kingdom come!” which is the same thing as to pray, “May the devil’s kingdom fall!”  And in Word and Sacrament, God’s kingdom does come and the devil’s kingdom does fall. The kingdom of God meets the kingdom of Satan.  And God wins again.  Amen.

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Is Jesus really merciful? Yes. He. Is.

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Reminiscere

Isaiah 45:20-25  +  1 Thessalonians 4:1-7  +  Matthew 15:21-28

Last week in the Gospel, we heard the devil’s temptations against Jesus, and against Adam and Eve, “Did God really say?”  Calling God’s Word into question; calling God’s goodness and love into doubt.  That’s what the devil does.  Did God really say?  Is God really good?  And since the fall of Adam and Eve, the default mode of our sinful nature is to doubt God’s Word, to misinterpret it for our own sinful benefit, or not to care about it at all.  Our default answer to the question, “Is God really good?”, is no.  His commandments are too strict and His Word is too demanding.  And there’s too much suffering and evil in the world for God to be good. So says the devil.  So agrees our miserable fallen flesh.  And yet we Christians have been convinced by God’s Word that God’s Word is true and that God is good—He gave His Son for us all.

The devil’s attacks are all around us in this sin-filled world. The devil and his demons are still working to destroy our world and our race, and especially our faith as Christians.  We see the demons at work in our Gospel today, and we’ll encounter them again in next week’s Gospel, too.  “Did God really say?  Is God really good?”

Practically every week as we hear the Gospel, we hear about how kind and merciful Jesus is to all who come to Him for help. That truth is put to the test in our Gospel today as Jesus dealt with that Canaanite woman whose daughter was tormented by a demon. Jesus wasn’t as quick to help her as He usually was with other.  And the devil tries to take advantage.  He comes and whispers, “Is Jesus really kind and good and merciful?  Look how He treated that poor woman!”  But you ask that same Canaanite woman.  Go ahead and ask her.  Is Jesus really merciful?  And from the beginning of her encounter with Jesus until the end, her faith never stops crying out, “Yes. He. Is!”

Let’s look at the text.  Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

This verse becomes important later, because even though Jesus will say that He was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, it was Jesus Himself who chose to leave the borders of Israel and go north to where the Canaanites lived.  That Canaanite woman didn’t go barging into Israelite territory to steal Jesus’ help from the Jews.  Jesus came to her, and by doing so, demonstrated His mercy for Jews and Gentiles alike and His plan for incorporating the Gentiles into the house of Israel that is not called Israel because of common bloodlines, but because of a common faith in the merciful Jesus.

And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”

We learn a lot about this mysterious woman from this one verse.  First, we learn about the affliction she was dealing with.  Her daughter was “demon-possessed,” which can also be translated, “afflicted by a demon.”  She and her daughter were suffering, but she wasn’t blaming God for her daughter’s affliction.  She knew that God wasn’t her enemy.  The devil was.

Second, we learn that this woman had already heard the word about Jesus and both knew and believed the truth about who Jesus was.  She calls Him “Lord” or “Master.”  She calls Him “Son of David,” which was a very Jewish title for Jesus, not a Canaanite phrase at all.  The Son of David was a reference to the Christ who would be born of David’s line, just as Jesus was, who would be the Savior and the righteous King of both Jews and Gentiles who would believe in Him.  Most of the people of Israel didn’t even believe that about Jesus, but this unique woman did.

Finally, we learn that she not only believed in who Jesus was, but she believed in Jesus.  She trusted in His mercy and love and His willingness to help all people, including her, not because she deserved it, but just because He was kind and good.  In other words, she had faith in Jesus—faith that was created in her by the simple message of how good Jesus was.  That’s where faith always comes from.

But right away her faith was put to the test.  Jesus answered her not a word. She knows who Jesus is.  She trusts that He is merciful.  And yet the first encounter she has with Jesus—He seems to ignore her and her cries for help.  That doesn’t seem to be consistent with the good report she had heard about Jesus.  Then again, He didn’t respond harshly to her; He didn’t tell her to go away and not to bother Him.  The only sure Word she had about Jesus was that He was merciful, so she kept trusting that, yes, Jesus was merciful, and she was determined to keep crying out to Him until He helped.

And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”

There are two ways to interpret the disciples’ reaction.  The very best construction is that they meant, “Lord, send her away after fulfilling her request, because she cries out after us and we want to see you help her.”  That’s possible.  The other possibility is that they felt uncomfortable with this Canaanite woman following them around and embarrassing them with her cries; they figured that, since Jesus didn’t help her right away, He didn’t mean to help her at all.  Is Jesus really merciful?  Maybe not today, they thought, so He might as well sent her away now and spare her the indignity and them the discomfort of her unanswered cries.

But Jesus didn’t send her away.  He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

That sounds like a deal-breaker for the poor Canaanite woman.  Physically she had no part in the house of Israel.  Still, Jesus often said things like “I have other sheep that are not of this fold.  I must bring them also, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.”  Or that “God gave His only-begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”  Or “For everyone who asks receives.”  Other sheep.  Whoever believes.  Everyone who asks.  The Word of Jesus told her that He would help her, too. 

She went with that.  Then she came and worshiped (or knelt down before) Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”

Still not giving up.  There’s not a hint of entitlement in her plea, no demanding, no feeling sorry for herself, no pride.  So far nothing had moved her from her conviction that Jesus was really merciful

One last test of her faith: But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

What was that supposed to mean?  Were the Jews “children”—did they deserve God’s help just because they were born Jewish?  Were the Gentiles “little dogs”—did they not deserve God’s help because they were born Gentiles?

Ah, that’s what it comes down to.  Who deserves God’s help?  Jews? Gentiles?  No.  No one.  For all have sinned, and all are born under God’s sentence of condemnation.  No one is God’s child by nature—not anymore, not since Adam and Eve fell into temptation.  But God, in mercy, sent His Son and caused His mercy to walk around on the earth for 33 years and eventually hung His mercy up on a cross and then raised Him from the dead.  The mercy of God lives wherever Jesus is, and whoever lays hold of Him by faith lays hold of God’s mercy and is adopted as God’s child, no matter how much it may look like God is not merciful.

The Canaanite woman was counting on this truth.  She found her opening—the one Jesus had left for her. And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

She doesn’t care if she’s considered a child or a dog.  The important thing, the only thing that matters is that Jesus is her Lord, her “Master.”  Three times in our Gospel she calls Him “Lord,” the very same word she used for the master’s table.  Is this Lord—is this “Master” merciful, even to the dogs who beg at His table?  Yes. He. Is.

But does Jesus really consider her a dog?  Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

This Canaanite woman is raised up by Jesus and placed on a level with Abraham himself who believed God, beyond all hope, and it was credited to him as righteousness.  Meanwhile, the physical descendants of Abraham are humiliated.  All those who walk away from Jesus in unbelief and despair are put to shame.  But she is lifted up and her faith is still being praised today, 2,000 years later.

Is Jesus really good and merciful?  His Word says He is.  But the Christian life can be so hard at times that Jesus’ mercy disappears from view for awhile.  Why does he allow suffering to linger?  Why are baptized believers in Jesus so beaten and battered by the devil and by the world, if they are really God’s children and if they really stand in His favor? And how can a merciful God condemn even the impenitent and unbelieving to eternal suffering in hell?

Those questions are normal, but they’re distractions.  How can God do this?  Why does God do that?  Some things just won’t be answered for us until we meet God face to face.  For now, He’s given us His Word and His image to look at, the image of God dying on a cross for His enemies, for sinners, for the world.  For now, He’s given us His promises to listen to, and His own sacrificed and risen body and blood to eat and to drink in the Sacrament.

So when the devil comes and whispers, “Will Jesus really help you? Is Jesus really merciful?”  You answer like Jesus answered the devil when He was tempted.  Away with you, Satan!  For it is written, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”

Anthony, Lorenzo, Erika, you have come to Him today for help, haven’t you?  That’s why you’re joining this church today, isn’t it?  Why you’re confessing your faith in Jesus in front of everybody?  There’s no other reason to join this church.  We’re a small bunch of nobody’s and re-jects.  But here you will find Jesus, and with Jesus, all the mercy and goodness and forgiveness that He has earned as gifts to be given to you.  Here you know that His body and blood are given out for the forgiveness of sins and for strength against the devil, the world and your sinful flesh.

It will not be easy for you, for any of you, for any of us.  Jesus has told us that, too.  But whether it’s your sins and guilt that burden you, or whether it’s the many consequences of sin in this world, never stop crying out to Jesus for help.  Reminiscere!  Remember, O Lord!

Is Jesus really merciful?  The Canaanite woman’s voice still cries out, Yes. He. Is.  The Holy Spirit cries out, Yes. He. Is. And faith agrees, Yes. He. Is.  Amen.

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Two Adams, Temptation and Trees

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Lent 1 – Invocavit

Genesis 3:1-24  +  2 Corinthians 6:1-10  +  Matthew 4:1-11

Two trees grew in the Garden of Eden.  One, a source of death for those who ate of it, and for their descendants.  The other, a source of life for those who would eat of it.  You know how the story went; you heard it again today.  This is the day we remember who is responsible for all the evil in the world—the devil, Adam and Eve, and we, their children.  The devil came and tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam (whose name means “man”), and they fell.  They fell so hard that they brought God’s judgment of death and every hardship and every pain into this world—just as God had warned that they would—and the sentence of eternal death to their descendants, because all who are born of Adam (in the natural way) inherit his corrupted and fallen nature.  We are sons and daughters of Adam.  We know what it is, not just to be tempted, but to fall into temptation.  We have eaten (figuratively) from Adam’s tree.

But God sent another Adam, the Son of Adam, the Son of Man, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, not born in the natural way, but born of a virgin, born without Adam’s sin.  John says in his first Epistle, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”  He began to do that in earnest during the forty days He spent fasting in the wilderness and being tempted by the devil.  And by defeating the devil’s temptations and by paying for the sins of mankind on the cross, Jesus has become for us a second “tree,” a tree of Life.  Just as Adam was the source of death for us, so that the moment we are conceived we are conceived in sin and are dying and destined for the grave, so Christ has become a source of life for all who trust in Him.  No longer do we live under Adam’s curse when we eat from this Tree of Life by faith. Because He bore the curse for us. He defeated temptation for us and earned for us the very righteousness that enables us to stand before God holy in His sight.

Our Gospel from Matthew 4 shows us just a glimpse of what Jesus suffered at the hands of Satan during those 40-days.  Luke tells us that it wasn’t just three times that the devil came and tortured Jesus this way; he says that Jesus was “being tempted by the devil for forty days.”  But these three are the three that both Matthew and Luke recorded for us, so God wants to teach us something here, both for our instruction and for our comfort.

The first temptation recorded by Matthew comes at the end of the forty days.  It’s the temptation that comes with real poverty and need.  God had miraculously kept Jesus from starving to death after not eating for over a month, and now Jesus is very hungry, and His Father still hasn’t provided a bite of anything.  And so the devil comes to tempt this second Adam. If he can get Him to fall, then there will be no “second tree,” no tree of life, no source of righteousness from which people should eat and be saved out of the devil’s kingdom.

He presses Jesus’ need, His hunger.  And he tries to get Jesus to feel angry and bitter and abandoned by His Father in heaven.  “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”  In other words, your “Father” is a terrible Father who has left you with nothing.  Where will you get your next bite of bread from?  It’s time to panic, time for unbelief.

He tried that same temptation on Eve in the Garden.  Did God really say you can’t eat from any tree?  Adam and Eve weren’t poor.  There was food everywhere around them and God had provided abundantly for them. Still, the devil tried to make them not see it, not receive it with thanksgiving.

Those who have food in their pantries are like Adam and Eve in the Garden.  Those who have none are like Jesus in the wilderness.  And, if it’s not food that we lack, then it’s clothing, or companionship, or safety or health.  In every time of need the temptation arises to grow angry and bitter toward God, to despise His Fatherly goodness.

But Jesus threw God’s Word back at the devil. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Bread is good.  But we make a mistake if we believe that God needs bread to sustain us.  He sustained Jesus—and Moses and Elijah—for forty days with no food at all, just by the power of His Word.  And He has promised to provide what we need.  His Word can never fail.  So if, for a time, there is no bread, then God must make His Word alone sustain us until He provides bread again. To believe God’s Word and to rely on Him—bread or no bread—that’s righteousness.  Where the first Adam fell, the second Adam prevailed.

The second temptation recorded in Matthew’s Gospel is the temptation that comes with abundance.  The devil took Jesus up onto the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem.  The devil does have power to do supernatural things like that, and he must have appeared in bodily form to Jesus, even as the Apostle tells us that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down.

Now, as Luther points out, there must have been some good steps leading down from there that Jesus could have used to get down from the top of the temple.  There was no need to jump, no need to risk His life that way.  He had everything He needed to get down, but the devil tempted Him to despise God’s gifts and test God’s Word.   For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone. 

But what did the devil leave out of that quote?  He shall give His angels charge over you, to guard you in all your ways. “Your ways” are not jumping down from a temple when you have no God-given reason to do so.   “Your ways” doesn’t mean anything and everything you might choose to do, like rock climbing or Russian roulette or jumping out of a plane for fun.  “Your ways” are the paths that God has called you to, the things God has given you to do, the things His Word prescribes for you.  Step outside of those ways and put your life at risk, and you have no Word of God that His angels will protect you.

This is a horrible temptation, to grow bored with the good things God has given you, to despise what God has given and to go looking for fun, for adventure, for trouble, and then to misinterpret God’s Word on top of it.  False belief is one of the worst possible evils to fall into, because if man shall live by every word that comes from the mouth of God, then to corrupt that word is to corrupt the very source of our life.

Eve was faced with this temptation in her abundance.  She had everything, except that one piece of fruit from that one tree, the one thing God had not given to her and to Adam.  And, of course, that’s the one thing the devil made her think she needed most.  The devil twisted God’s Word, “You will not surely die.”  So she tempted God, “Surely God would not punish us so severely for this.  We are His creatures!  And it’s just a piece of fruit.”  So she ate, and gave some to her husband, and he ate, and we die.

But the second Adam was not so easily enticed.  He knew the Word of God and that Satan was corrupting it. He used Scripture to interpret Scripture.  It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’ And where the first Adam fell and became a tree of death, the second Adam prevailed and became a tree of life.

The third temptation recorded by Matthew is the temptation that comes with honor and glory, fame and riches, pleasure and the easy way.  The devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Trusting in God means the path of the cross, not the path of glory (at least, not on this earth).  It would be so much easier, so much more pleasant just to compromise on God’s Word, just this once, for the sake of honor, for the sake of unity, for the sake of peace.  Serving God might mean you lose your wealth, you lose your job, you lose your reputation, you lose your life.

“And take they our life, goods, fame, child and wife—let these all be gone.  They yet have nothing won.  The kingdom ours remaineth.”  Who can sing those words and mean them?  Only the one who seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness in the person of Jesus.  Our first parents fell into this temptation to get to be like God—all you have to do is deviate from His Word, just this once.  Our flesh, too, craves honor, fame, riches and pleasure and clings to them for dear life.

But only the one who renounces these things for the sake of gaining Christ will see the life that is truly life.  Christ, our champion against the devil, refused to serve the devil for His own personal gain.  Instead, He gave up every moment of His life to serve His Father, which meant serving us sinners, denying Himself, taking up His cross and dying on it.

And so, victorious over the devil’s temptations, Christ the second Adam offered up one righteous life to His Father, and so became for us this second tree, so that all who have been born of Adam’s tree might be born again from the tree that is Christ, to inherit His righteousness, to be credited with His victory, and to share in His life.

We were all born from Adam’s tree.  Recognize your sin, and recognize temptation when it comes along.  Repent and trust in our great hero, Jesus Christ.  Because by the grace of God you have been reborn through Holy Baptism of the tree of Christ, reborn out of condemnation and into salvation, no longer charged with sin, but instead, covered with the perfect record of Jesus.  Adam’s defeat is your defeat, because, like him, you know what it is to doubt God and give into temptation.  But for you who believe in Jesus Christ, the Tempter has lost his power to accuse.  He has lost his right and his power to claim you, because Christ Jesus has claimed you for Himself, and made you a partaker in His victory over sin, Satan and death, not because you always do such a good job at fighting off temptation, but because Jesus, your Tree of Life, did.  Come and eat His body and drink His blood, and live forever!  Amen.

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The faith that saves the blind

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Quinquagesima

Isaiah 35:3-7  +  1 Corinthians 13:1-13  +  Luke 18:31-43

Today’s Gospel is about faith—what it is, what its object is, where it comes from, how it behaves.  It also teaches us a good measure about love—the love of Jesus and the love that results when a person believes in Jesus. 

What is faith—specifically, what is saving faith?  Faith can be described with various analogies.  It’s a grasping, a laying hold of something; it’s a clinging to something; it’s embracing something; it’s leaning with all your weight on something, relying on something.  Or in the case of saving faith, it’s someone.  To have faith is to grasp Jesus, to lay hold of Him, to cling to Him, to embrace Him, to lean on Him.  To have faith is to know and rely on the mercy and love of Jesus.  So really love comes before faith—not our love, but the love of Jesus for us.  The mercy and love of Jesus are the object of our faith.  It’s what we rely on; it’s what we trust in—that Jesus is a merciful Savior…

…of sinners.  To rely on Jesus as a merciful Savior, you have to first recognize and admit and confess that you need a Savior—that you’re a sinner and you can’t save yourself, but deserve to be rejected by God here on earth and condemned in hell afterwards. After His resurrection, Jesus sent His disciples to go and preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His name.  But you have so many churches out there proclaiming a false gospel, a gospel that doesn’t recognize sin, a gospel without repentance, a gospel not about the forgiveness of sins but a Gospel about the toleration of sins.  God does not tolerate sins or wink at them or call them OK.  God does one of two things with sins: He either punishes them or He forgives them.

And it’s the punishing part that Jesus refers to in the first part of today’s Gospel.  Only pay attention to who it is who is punished, who suffers—not the ones who deserve it, but the only One who doesn’t.  He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”

And there you have the very words that create faith.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. It’s this Word of Jesus that draws us to Him as He tells His disciples ahead of time just how much He would suffer, not for His own sins, but for the sins of the world.  The disciples, it says, didn’t even understand what Jesus was talking about, although He spelled it out for them in graphic detail.  But later, after it was all over, they would remember, and they would gasp—He knew!  He knew everything that He would suffer, and He chose it.  He suffered it all gladly and willingly, for us.

That’s love—the very love, the perfect love Paul described in 1 Corinthians 13. And so it is the love of Jesus, His suffering and death and resurrection that count before God.  Jesus’ love conquers our lovelessness.  Sin is swallowed up in Jesus’ suffering and death.  His love for His Father, His love for us, His obedience unto death, even death on a cross, is the only righteousness that has value before God. And so faith in Jesus is counted as righteousness before God, not because it is so beautiful or does such noble things, but only because it wraps its arms around Christ and only Christ.  Wherever Christ is, there sin has no power to condemn, because Jesus has already been condemned by our sin.  Wherever Christ is not found, wherever He is not embraced by faith, there sinners have to account for their own sins and answer for their own lovelessness.

The world and our sinful flesh rage against this faith.  The idea that the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus is all that counts before God, and that the faith that embraces Him is the only way for sinners to be justified before God—that’s repulsive to the world.  My works should count for something!  My suffering, especially if I suffer greatly, should count for something!  God should be merciful to me because He sees how much I have loved, how much I have suffered, because He sees something worthy in me, some quality, some goodness, some merit.  But God slams the door on all of that and says, No!  Only Jesus’ suffering earns My approval.  Only Jesus’ obedience has merit in My sight.  And that’s why faith justifies, because to have faith is to rely on nothing and no one but Jesus only.

Where that faith is, there Jesus is, and where Jesus is, there love also will be—love for God that shows itself in love for our neighbor, and most especially love for our brothers and sisters in Christ.  The undying selfless love of Jesus that made Him walk willingly into the horror of Holy Week is the very thing that kindles our faith in Him and that enables us to walk in love like Him.

Now, in the second part of our Gospel today, we see an example of a man who had faith in Jesus and so the Holy Spirit teaches us how faith behaves and what it receives.

It was that blind beggar sitting near the gates of Jericho who saw Jesus for who He really was.  Remember, Jesus had spelled out for His disciples how He would suffer and die and rise again, and they, and even though their eyesight was just fine, they couldn’t see what He was talking about.  But the blind beggar by the gate heard the commotion as Jesus and His company were coming his way on the way up to Jerusalem.  He asked, what’s all the commotion about?  And they told Him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.

And even though that blind man couldn’t see, his ears were working just fine.  He must have heard about this Jesus before, and faith came by hearing, because he doesn’t hesitate.  He believes that the word he has heard about Jesus is true, that Jesus is the “Son of David,” the promised Messiah, the Christ.

Of course, even the devils believed that.  Faith is more than believing that Jesus is the Messiah.  Faith is more than knowing the facts about Jesus.  Faith is a reliance on Jesus for mercy, and that’s what the blind man displayed.  He cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

People who don’t understand faith are often worried that talking about faith will make people doubt their faith, or will make people focus on themselves.  That’s foolishness.  You want to know if you have faith or not?  Answer this question: Is the cry of the blind man your cry?  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Friends, that is faith.  That is the faith that the devils don’t have, the faith that the Pharisees didn’t have, the faith that Muslims and atheists and false Christians don’t have.  But if the Word of Christ has awakened that cry to Jesus for mercy in your heart, then you have faith, like the blind man did.

And when you have faith like the blind man did, then the people around you can try to silence you, as they did with the blind man.  The people around you can tell you to be quiet, don’t bother Jesus.  But you know He is not bothered by your cry.  You cry out all the louder, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  And He will.

Jesus called the blind over to Him and asked Him, “What do you want Me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.”  And Jesus granted his request.  Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.

Again, what was it that faith did?  Did the blind man have healing power in his faith to take away his blindness?  Did he tap into some hidden healing gene in his brain? No.  Did faith offer Jesus payment or merit or anything at all?  No.  Did his faith in Jesus create the grace of God or inspire Jesus to have mercy on him?  No.  How, then, did his faith make him well?  How did his faith “save” him?  His faith was like an instrument in the hands of a skilled surgeon.  It was the means by which Jesus, the Healer, brought about His healing.  Faith looked to Jesus, who had the power and the will to heal. 

So, what made the blind man well?  Was it the grace of God that moved Him to send His Son into this dark world?  Yes.  Was it Jesus Himself with His power and mercy?  Yes.  Was it the Word of God that brought this blind man to trust in Jesus?  Yes.  And was it the faith in which the blind man called out for mercy?  Yes.  Each of these things, in its own way, together with the others, brought about the healing of the blind man.  Without the grace of God, without Jesus, without the Word and without faith, there would have been no healing.

So it is with faith.  Faith saves.  Faith justifies.  But not without the grace of God, the merit of Christ and the Word of Christ.  Each of these things, in its own way, together with the others, brings about the healing of sinners.  Without the grace of God, without the merit of Jesus, without the Word and without faith, sinners remain in darkness.

God, in His grace, determined to give His Son into death for your sins.  He has also determined to send out this Gospel, this Word of Christ to you so that you may hear about the love and mercy of Jesus, His obedience, suffering, death and resurrection. He sends you His Gospel in word and Sacrament to teach you, in your blindness, to rely on Jesus alone, to call out to Him for mercy.  And through that faith alone in Christ alone, the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation are yours.  Amen.

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Take heed how you hear the Word

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

(No audio this week)

Sermon for Sexagesima

Isaiah 55:10-13  +  2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9  +  Luke 8:4-15

The Word of God is preached to you today.  It has been sown into your hearts through your ears from the beginning of this Divine Service until now, just as seed is sown into the ground.  And the Lord God says about that Word, For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

God sends you His Word here and now, like a sower sowing his seed.  And the Word of God is always good, potent seed as it falls through the ears into the heart.  The soil where it falls, however, is another story.  Take heed how you hear the Word.

Jesus tells this memorable parable of the Sower and the Seed, where, with each handful of seed that the sower scatters, it falls on four different kinds of soil.  Some falls along the wayside—along the path, and is trampled by men and eaten by birds.  Some falls down into the rocky soil where it sprouts up right away, but then withers quickly because it has no root.  Some falls among the thorns where it springs up but is choked by the thorns and fails to mature.  And finally, some falls on good soil where it grows well, where it survives the heat of the day and the cold of night, where it sends down roots, and sends up a stalk that yields a crop a hundredfold.

When Jesus finished telling this parable, it says that He cried out to the crowds, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”  But then—I always find this strange—He didn’t go on to explain the parable to the crowds, what it meant, what the seed was, what the four different soils represented.  And we—wickedly—find ourselves disagreeing with Jesus’ decision, don’t we?  We wish He had done a better job at teaching! 

That’s because, at the core of our sinful flesh, we don’t trust His Word.  We think it needs to be helped along, embellished, or explained better.   Actually, we would like to take His Word and turn it into our word.  Then it would really take off!  Then (we’re just sure) people would receive it better than they do.

No.  We are the clay; Christ is the potter.  We are the soil; He is the master Sower and His Word is good seed.  We have no life in us; His Word is life itself.  Don’t second-guess the Word of God or make yourself its judge and jury.  Instead, take heed how you hear it!  In the Gospel, Jesus explained to His disciples the mysteries of the kingdom, and, if you’re listening, if you’re interested, then it is given to you to know them as well.

The seed is the word of God.  So right away, understand that Jesus is talking about His Word and people to whom it is preached.  He isn’t talking about Muslims or atheists or non-church-goers.  He’s talking about disciples of His Word.  And that has to make you perk up your ears a bit.  It’s too easy to imagine that Jesus is here talking about “other people,” or “those people out there.”  He’s talking about the people in here and in every place where His Word is proclaimed.  He’s talking about “church people.”  The people “out there” who don’t hear the Word—they are already lost as long as they don’t hear the Word of Christ.  They are already separated from Christ, who gives His Spirit only in His Word and nourishes faith with His Sacraments.  Those who don’t hear the Word do not have it sown in their hearts in the first place and can never hope to produce fruit.  No, Jesus is referring to those who hear—like you.

Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

These are the ones who hear the Word of Christ, and it’s as they say, it goes in one ear and out the other.  They don’t understand it.  They don’t get it.  And they don’t care.  They certainly don’t care enough to study God’s Word or to search it or to ask questions about it.  They hear what they hear, and that’s good enough. They put in their time on Sunday morning because it’s the thing to do, and then they move on to something else.

Luther includes in this group all the false teachers and their followers in the world, whom Satan has deceived.  This is a dangerous group, because they look like the best of Christians on the outside, and they say the right things a lot of the time, but on the inside there is no faith in Christ.  It’s not the Word of God that they really care about.  It’s other things, external things, the trappings of Christianity or the perks of it.  These are the ones who hear the Word of God throughout the Divine Service, but instead of taking it to heart, they criticize everything and everyone around them. And so the devil snatches the Word itself out of their ears, and out of their hearts.

But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.

Here are the people, the disciples of the Word, who know the truth of God’s Word.  Here are those who listen and care and come to church eager to learn, eager to grow and produce fruit, rejoicing in God’s Word, until…it gets too hard to follow Christ. Until the time of temptation comes, especially the heat of persecution.  Then the plants wither and dry up, one by one.

Included among these are Christians who know the truth, but when push comes to shove, they remain silent when they know they should speak. They know the truth but are not deeply rooted in it enough to withstand the attacks of the devil and the attacks of the world.  They prefer to remain on the fence, if choosing a side would mean having to suffer.  And if they are forced to choose a side, if it gets too hard to stand up for the truth, they fade into the background and disappear, preferring to follow after error rather than suffer the heat that comes with faithfulness to God’s Word.

Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.

The rocks of persecution are lethal to some.  The thorns of earthly cares, riches and pleasures are lethal to others.  They hear God’s Word, and may even enjoy hearing it, until…other more important things come up.  There’s work to do, money to earn, families to spend time with.  There are friends to hang out with, parties to go to, drinking to be done.  Oh, Sunday morning!  So hard to get up… And the thorns choke the faith that had sprung up from the Word.

And these disciples of the Word become useless Christians.  They’re no good to anybody.  They don’t grow; they don’t produce fruit. They know as much of God’s Word at the end of the year as they did at the beginning.  And who has time to worry about their neighbor—helping him, serving him, praying for her—when there are so many other cares, riches and pleasures to pursue?

But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.

The Word of God is never wasted.  Even if 3/4ths of the hearers hear without hearing, there are always those who hear and humble themselves before God’s Word and submit themselves to what it says.  There are always those who hear the Word of Christ, that He is the Savior sent from heaven to save sinners by His death and by His resurrection from the dead, and they believe.  And the Word of Christ sustains them in life and prepares them for death and convinces them that death is no longer anything for a Christian to fear, because Christ has defeated death for us and brought us into His victory through Holy Baptism.  These disciples of the Word have their faith nourished by the body and blood of Christ.  They live on it. They live for it.  And they bear fruit in works of love toward their neighbor, a crop a hundred times more than what was sown.

And, Jesus says, they bear that fruit with patience.  That means it isn’t always easy or pleasant.  There is persecution that threatens.  There are cares, riches and pleasures that tempt.  But these hearers of the Word patiently bear up under the cross.  When life heats up, they turn back to the Word for strength and they turn to the Lord in prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Now, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, this Gospel isn’t intended for us to sit in judgment of the people “out there” as we sit here and assume that we in this church are perpetually good soil.   Jesus calls us who hear His Word today to hear—to hear for ourselves, to hear about ourselves.  Take heed how you hear the Word, not just today when confronted with this parable of the sower, but daily, weekly, yearly, every time it is sown through your ears into your heart.

Jesus didn’t tell this parable just to inform His hearers of how things go, just so you know.  On the one hand, He is comforting His disciples so that when you see the vast majority of hearers being deceived by Satan or withered from persecution or choked by carnal pleasures, you don’t lose heart.  When you see a group of hearers of the Word, “church people” divided into two or three or four different categories, you shouldn’t be surprised or wonder what’s going wrong. This is the way it is with the Word.

On the other hand, it shouldn’t surprise us, either, when, sometimes, people hear the Word and it does take root and it turns a person around and makes him or her willing to die, willing to lose everything rather than compromise even a hair’s breadth on the Word of God. 

God says to you in His Word, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…”  As the Word of God is planted through your ears and into your hearts today, this very Word points out the dangers along the path, the dangers among the rocks, the dangers among the thorns.  The point isn’t for you to despair, as if you were at the mercy of the devil, of the world or of your sinful flesh.  You are not abandoned to fate.  The point is for you to return again today to the mercy of God, who promises to work powerfully through His Word to increase your faith and to make you a fruitful servant in His kingdom.

Trust God.  Trust His Word and cling to it for dear life.  And take heed how you hear it, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.  Amen.

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