Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text (Luke 18:31-43):
And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
Kä kɛ kɔr duäcädɛ, ba jɛ näk, kä kɛ diɔ̱ɔ̱k ni̱ni bɛ rɔ nyɔk kɛ jiëc li̱th." Kä /ken ŋɔaani ti̱ti̱ cop rɛy lo̱cnikiɛn. Kɛ thuɔ̱k ca ruac ɛmɛ teey kä kɛ, kä /ken kɛn luɔtdɛ ŋa̱c.
Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
It’s strange sometimes how the Word of God works.
I remember that once I went to a funeral of a good friend of mine, and the preacher on that day was one of my old seminary lecturers. And on that particular day, he preached a sermon on Psalm 23, and particularly on the verse: “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
The thing that I remembered from this sermon on this day was that he said that many people often think that bad stuff is following them around all the time, as if the dogs are out to get them. Sometimes people think that God himself might have set his dogs on them. But the text says the opposite: it doesn’t say, Surely God’s dogs will follow me all the days of my life, surely bad stuff and bad things will follow me all the days of my life. The text says, Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
I remember that this sermon had a profound effect on me at the time, and I suppose there might have been some sense in which I did feel as if I were being “followed by God’s dogs”.
So anyway, some time after this sermon, I went and said to this lecturer of mine, “I really enjoyed that funeral sermon you preached, and especially what you said about the dogs following people, and how the psalm turns that idea on its head.”
And it just so happened that I had also taken a class at the seminary on the book of psalms with that same lecturer. He said, “Isn’t it funny… It’s not the first time you’ve heard that from me, because I would have said exactly the same thing in my psalms class.”
When I was in the class at the seminary, I could have been a bit off with the fairies. But when I heard it at this particular time at this particular funeral, it had a different effect on me. I heard it with different ears. I heard it with a different frame of mind. I might have heard the same thing from him a number of times, and maybe similar things from other people at different times, but I hadn’t heard it from God yet. God hadn’t yet planted this word in me, and hadn’t yet buried it in me and given me a strong conviction about it. The first few times I heard this particular truth, my eyes were blinded to it, but then later my eyes were opened to it.
+++
Now I don’t know if the same thing has ever happened to you. Sometimes you might be sitting in church, or you might be reading the bible, or even having a conversation with someone, and some part of the faith all of a sudden just goes “click.” The light turns on. And all of a sudden, you understand, even though you may have heard the same thing many times before.
Maybe there are things even like the purpose of Christ’s death or his resurrection that you once didn’t quite understand, and you once had the light turn on. Or, maybe, there are things that you haven’t quite understood yet, or you are still waiting for the light to come on.
It’s important for us to put aside time to read the bible, to come to church, and to spend time in the presence of God, because not everything for us has gone “click” yet. Not everything is clear to us, even though the Word of God is clear. Not everything makes sense, even though the problem’s with us because of our lack of understanding not because the bible doesn’t make sense. We have to be patient and give ourselves time in the presence of God to be changed and shaped and formed by the Word of God.
It’s the Word of God that will enlighten you. You have to trust the Word of God to do its work on you. It is a powerful and living Word, and you have to give yourself time, sitting under it, submitting to it, rejoicing in it. And I don’t mean just in your room at home, but in the presence of our living Lord Jesus Christ in the church, in this holy fellowship of baptised people. St Paul says of his own ministry and of pastors in the church: “In the presence of God we speak in Christ.”
But once again, it is the Word of God that enlightens you, and that will enlighten you. You have to trust the Word of God to do that. Martin Luther’s small Catechism says, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or understanding believe in Jesus Christ or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”
+++
In our reading today, we have something very unusual. Jesus prophecies about his death and resurrection. He tells his disciples in advance about it.
He says:
“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But [the disciples] understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
Now during Lent, which begins on Wednesday this week with Ash Wednesday, we will learn more about all this, and in particular on Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday we will hear again the accounts of these individual events.
But there’s something special that is going on here. Our reading is not talking about Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. It’s talking about Jesus talking about his suffering, death and resurrection! And there’s a big difference.
And actually, in the gospel of Luke this is actually the third time that Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to suffer, die and rise from the dead. It isn’t the first time. And still, after hearing Jesus say this three times, the disciples still don’t understand what he’s talking about. [There’s hope for us here! Because sometimes we hear the same things 10 or 100 times, and we still don’t get it!!]
We read: “They understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.”
The other thing we need to remember here, is that St Luke, the writer of this gospel, wasn’t writing this all down as it happened. He wasn’t keeping a daily diary! He wrote it down after Jesus had risen from the dead. At the very beginning of St Luke’s gospel we read: “It seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”
St Luke wanted to make sure that all the people who would hear his gospel read knew all the details of Jesus life and death and resurrection. He wanted them to know everything there was to know, so he made sure that as much detail as he could find was carefully ordered and carefully prepared.
And the Holy Spirit guided St Luke in his writing in such a way that he would write down the fact that Jesus prophesied to his disciples about his suffering, death and resurrection not once, not twice, but three times.
Can’t you imagine St Luke discussing all this business with St Peter and John and James, and everyone else, and St Peter says to Luke, “You know Luke, Jesus told us three times that he was going to die. And at the time, we just didn’t get it. It didn’t make sense to us at the time, it just didn’t click. But now it makes sense, now we get it, now the light has turned on.” So St Peter says to Luke, “Make sure when you write all this down, that you mention this fact that Jesus told us in advance that he was going to die, but that we didn’t understand it before he died.” And then St Peter says in chapter 1 of his letter, “Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” You see? “You were ransomed with the precious blood of Christ”, Peter says. In our gospel reading today, the disciples, including Peter, didn’t get it. In fact, when Jesus was going on his way to the cross, the disciples fled, and Peter even denied that he knew Jesus three times. But later on, after the resurrection, he got it. The light went on for him. The words of Jesus did their work on Peter, and they created faith in Peter and living witness to Christ.
And so the same goes for us, that we often don’t understand the Word of God at a particular time of our life. We don’t understand what the point of this part is, or what the point of the this bit is, but we need to give ourselves some time, and keep hearing the Word of God, and trust Christ. We need to trust Christ that his Words are powerful and will work on us. We need to trust Christ that when he baptised us in these humble little churches in humble little fonts, that that “baptism saves us” (as St Peter says). We need to trust Christ that when he says through the pastor week after week, “I forgive you all your sins”, that that will be the same words we will hear on the Day of Judgment. We might look at ourselves as we sit in church, or as we’re going home, and we think, well nothing’s different: I don’t feel any better, I didn’t feel like I got anything out of church today, or whatever. But give the Word of God some time on you, because those words are Spirit and Life, and they will raise you up on the last day. You might not even notice all the different aspects to the Lord’s Supper today. But whether or not you’ve been completely conscious of all of this, Jesus is still coming to you to give you his body and blood to eat and drink. But these things you might not understand fully now, but give yourself time to let them go “click” for you. Maybe all the things that you say you believe in the creed each week haven’t quite clicked for you yet – trust the Word of God, that it is true,
Even at the time of our reading today, the disciples didn’t understand a thing about what Jesus was saying. But later on, when they needed these words, all of a sudden these words created in them a living faith, and they said, “Truly, Jesus is the Son of God. He knew even before hand that this would happen. He knew that he was coming to save us from our sins. We didn’t know, but he knew.”
Isn’t it strange then, that in the second part of our reading, we read about a blind man coming to Jesus and asking for his sight?
Trust the Word of God. Trust Jesus to open your eyes, and reveal to you the mysteries of his will that have been hidden for ages, and which now have been made known to you. Set your trust on Jesus, even if you don’t understand what he is saying to you, even with a blind faith, that your blindness may give birth to sight. Every time our eyes are enlightened just that little bit more to the Word of God, we are given a glimpse of heaven itself. St Paul says in our epistle reading today, “Now we see but in a mirror dimly, but then we shall see face to face.”
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, who has suffered for us, died for us, and has risen from the dead for us. Amen.
Lord God, heavenly Father, send us the Holy Spirit, that our eyes may be opened, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Open our eyes that we may see wonderful things in your word. Give light to us through the unfolding of your words. Give us the gift of patience and endurance, and teach us to be glad at the thought of going to the house of the Lord. Now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment