Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew
11:2-10)
Behold,
I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.
Prayer: Heavenly
Father, send us the Holy Spirit so that by your grace we may believe your holy
word and live godly lives here in time and there in eternity, through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our readings today, both our Gospel and our Epistle
reading, teach us about pastors in the church. The gospel speaks about the ministry
of John the Baptist, and in the epistle reading St Paul speaks about how people
should regard him as an apostle. Also, our Old Testament reading speaks about
what word is placed in the mouths of Christ’s ministers: Comfort, comfort my
people, says your God.
Today, it is quite rare to hear a pastor preach a sermon
about the ministry. There are plenty
of pastors who talk about themselves in sermons, but not many pastors talk
about the ministry itself. But people
might think, “That’s for pastors to talk about! Why do we need to know about
it?” But the church has many parts, and every one performs a different role. As
St Paul says: “Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the
members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”
Sometimes, in sermons, pastors have to preach about what it means to be a
husband or a wife, but we know that not everyone is married. That doesn’t mean
that the words are not relevant for everyone.
So why is it so necessary to preach about the ministry?
Because if there is one thing that is under the greatest attack in the church
today it is the ministry. Everyone in the church needs to know what a pastor is
and what he does.
In our times today, there are pastors resigning from the
ministry and burning out like never before. Why is this?
I have heard it said that the fact that people don’t
believe that the ministry exists is the great heresy of our time. And if the
devil really wants to get at the church, he gets at the church’s pastors. And
the strange thing is that he will use the church itself to crucify its own
pastors. If there’s one part of
the LCA, for example, which never gets the credit it deserves, it is our
seminary. Everybody wants to support every mission project under the sun,
except our seminary. And so seminary students go from year to year, not knowing
if the costs of their courses are going to increase the following year, being
the butt of all kinds of jokes, criticism and snide remarks. Then there is
pressure from people for pastors to stop learning Greek and Hebrew, and all
sorts of things, and to shorten their course, to make them less-equipped to
speak the word of God.
But then there’s the pressure of expectations on pastors
in the field. The world is full of judges as to what a successful church looks
like. Basically, in the eyes of the world—and in the eyes of those who are
worldly in the church—a successful church is one that is full of young people,
has done away with its tradition, where everyone has a little job that makes
them feel like their part of it and got something to do. When people move to a
new area, some people go “church shopping”, walking around from church to
church with their notepad in hand, to see if a particular church fulfils their
needs. If a large number of people turn up to church, people congratulate the
pastor, or the pastor congratulates himself. If a small number of people turn
up to church, people blame the pastor, or the pastor blames himself. But how
many people turn up or don’t turn up is not a reflection of the pastor at all.
But the church was never called to be successful; it was
only ever called to be faithful. We have to imprint this on our hearts and on
our minds today.
The church stands or falls on pure doctrine and our
confession of faith. That means, teaching exactly what Jesus says, nothing more
and nothing less, and believing what he says. The reason to come to church is
to hear the word of God, the law and the gospel, and to receive the sacraments.
We come to stand in Jesus’ presence and listen to him and feed on him. People
don’t come to church because of a particular pastor. People don’t come to
church because they hate Jesus, and
don’t want to be around him.
+++
So what’s all this got to do with our reading today?
Our reading is about a poor old pastor who is feeling
mightily depressed. In fact, he is not that old—only six months older than
Jesus, not much past thirty. He had old parents, who probably died when he was
young, and he had lived in the wilderness for probably over half his life,
feeding on locusts and wild-honey.
What would you think if a church in Australia had a pastor
who was dressed like this and held to such a diet?
Our reading says: Now
when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his
disciples, and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look
for another?”
Amongst other things, John could do with a fair bit of
cheering up. He had been faithful to the word of God all his life. He had
preached law and gospel. He had said, “Repent and believe the gospel.” He had
faithfully witnessed to Jesus’ own baptism, and baptised him.
But we read that he is in
prison. He is in a dark place, and in a dark cell. What do you think he
must feel? That he’s useless? That he’s no good? That his whole ministry has
been a failure?
But why was he is prison? Well, King Herod was sleeping
with his brother’s wife, and he told him that it was a sin. And so, people
might say that John wasn’t very clever, he wasn’t very wise, he should have
been a bit more discerning with whom he preached against.
But John was faithful.
He saw sin, and he called sinners to repentance.
And also, there is a sense in which John hears about what
Jesus is doing, and he is encouraged by what he hears. But at the same time, he
can’t help but notice the stale food he has to eat, the dark, damp walls, the
displeasure of his surroundings, the smell and the stink of the place. And the
devil says to him, “If you wanted to be a successful preacher, you should have
done it like this or like that. See what a failure you are. See how useless you
are.”
So John sends out a message to Jesus and says, “Are you the one who is to come or shall we
look for another?”
And Jesus says to him, “Go
and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame
walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and
the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not
offended by me.”
Who is the Messiah here? Jesus or his faithful pastor?
Jesus is. And who has brought about the great miracles? Jesus or his faithful
pastor? Jesus. John did nothing.
This is what happens when people deny the real presence.
It is so easy to deny that Jesus is truly present with his body and blood in
the Lord’s Supper. It is so easy to deny that when a pastor speaks the
absolution, that Jesus himself is in the pastor’s mouth to speak his own
forgiveness. It is so easy to deny that when a baby is baptised, that Jesus is
actually there in the flesh sending that child the Holy Spirit, washing it with
his blood, and giving to it the complete and total forgiveness of every single
one of its sins in the present, past and future. It is so easy to deny that the
faithful preaching of the word of God is just human opinion and not the actual
word of God itself.
And so, what happens when we deny that Jesus is here? What
happens when we deny that Jesus actually rules his own church through sinners?
What happens when we deny that Jesus is with us always in our baptising and our
teaching until the very end of the age?
We replace the real Messiah with a fake one. We replace
Jesus with John. We make John the Baptist the Messiah, and crucify Jesus.
But our reading today is a great comfort, because we know
that Jesus is the true Messiah, and John is stuck exactly where he belongs, in
a damp, dark cell, just to show you that the church doesn’t stand or fall on
the ministry of one single pastor here and there, but on the works of Jesus.
And so, as pastors, we come here week after week to tell
you what Jesus has done. And when we do this, it’s not just you who sit in the
pew who are encouraged by it, but the pastor too who is encouraged by it.
St Paul says to Timothy: “Keep a close watch on yourself
and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself
and your hearers.”
Jesus sends a special sermon just to John: “Go and tell
John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor
have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by
me.”
How quickly people want to find someone else except Jesus
to be healed of their sight, or to make them walk! People are not satisfied
with the fact that Jesus did these things at a certain time in history. Now,
sometimes great healings and miracles happen through certain preachers, but it
is not always guaranteed that these things are from God, in fact, they can be
just as much a sign of the antichrist and false prophecy. And nevertheless, people
point to those churches and say, “What a great church!” and they point to the
bread and wine and to the water in the font and say, “What a flop!” Can you
hear what complete and total blasphemy that is?
And so Jesus wants to encourage John, not by pointing John
to his own work, but to Jesus’ work. It is Jesus who lets the blind see, and
the lame walk, who cleanses lepers and makes the deaf hear, and raises the
dead, and preaches the good news to the poor. John did nothing. He simply did
what was he was told.
All a pastor does is open his mouth and tell you about the
person and works of Jesus. But then on the last day, Jesus is the one who will
give people complete and total healing of their bodies and their souls, and
raise up their mortal bodies. The pastors did nothing. Jesus will do
everything.
And then notice that Jesus also gives John an extra piece
of encouragement at the end: “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”
Jesus wants to say to John: Listen! I sent you to be my
servant, my slave, and a steward of my mysteries. And now, all you can see is a
damp, dark wall of a dank cell. Don’t be offended! Blessed is the one who is
not offended by me. All you ever did was speak about me! I’m the one who built
the kingdom through the Holy Spirit in people’s hearts. All you did was preach
the kingdom, I’m the one who built it, says Jesus. And the suffering that you
feel, I felt much more deeply when I died on the cross. And the pain and
struggle that you are going through, I felt much more deeply in the garden of
Gethesemane. Jesus said: “My soul is greatly troubled, even unto death.” Jesus
wants to say to John: “Don’t be offended. I sympathise with you in your
weakness, I was made to be like you in every respect, yet without sin. So you
can confidently draw near to the throne of grace, that you may receive mercy
and find grace, even in the darkest prison.” And just as Jesus says this to his
pastors, he says it to us all: Don’t be offended by the darkness, because I am
with you.
And so Jesus then talks the crowds: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the
wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold,
those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. What then did you go out to
see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it
is written, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare
your way before you.””
John is not his own messenger, he is not preaching his own
message. He is preaching Jesus’
message, and he is Jesus’ messenger.
And he prepares the way for Jesus.
Once John has spoken his words, then Jesus is the one who acts, he is the one
who brings the Holy Spirit. And John did nothing.
But the fact that he simply spoke the words of Jesus means
that John is greater than a prophet. Every other prophet waited for Jesus to
come in the future, but John pointed to the living Jesus in his midst. And that
is what every pastor today is also called to do: to point to Jesus, to preach
his works in history to you, and to show you his living presence in the church
today—here—through his word and sacraments. Sometimes pastors need to preach a
hard word, a word of law. And sometimes pastors need to take a stand on that
word, and act according to it.
But by doing this, pastors are “servants of Christ and
stewards of the mysteries of God”, as St Paul says in our epistle reading
today.
The church needs more pastors today. Pastors need the
prayers of the faithful church, and we need to ask the Lord of the church, our
Lord Jesus Christ, to send us more faithful pastors. And many times the church
needs to carry the words back to their pastors, encouraging them with what they
have seen and hear Jesus do. As St Paul says: “To each has been given a
manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Let’s rejoice together in the
wonderful life-bringing, life-filled works of our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen.
Lord Jesus, we believe you are the Christ, the Son of the
living God. Send us the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, and bless all pastors in
your church. Keep them faithful and strong in your word, and raise up more
labourers in your vineyard. Amen.
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