Trinity XII [Mark 7:31-37] (22-Aug-2021)

   

St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

His ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

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. 

In our Gospel reading today, we have a wonderful parable about Jesus healing a man who both couldn’t hear and couldn’t speak. These two things often go together, especially if people are born deaf, because if they can’t hear, they are not able to learn how to talk. It seems as though something like this was the case with this man in our reading.

So let’s go through this passage, verse by verse. First of all, we read: Then [Jesus] returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. Mark makes a particular point of telling us a bit about the geography of where Jesus was going and where he had come from. All this might not seem so important to us, but for some reason, it was important for Mark to tell us the exact place where this event happened. Just before our reading today, in the same chapter of Mark, we read about how Jesus had gone to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon are cities which are in modern day Lebanon. Jesus had travelled a long way north. Actually, the region he grew up in, Galilee, and the town of Nazareth, were also quite a long way north of Jerusalem. But if you still keep going further, you reach what is now today Lebanon, and what the reading calls, the region of Tyre and Sidon. In that place, Jesus met a woman who pleaded to him to heal her daughter who had an unclean spirit.

In our reading today, we read that Jesus had returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. The Sea of Galilee is also in the northern part of Israel, close to Nazareth, and also when Jesus grew up, he spent a lot of time in Capernaum, which is also on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. Here Jesus travels onto the other side of the Sea of Galilee, into the region which is called the Decapolis. Today this area is part of modern-day Jordan.

Now, sometimes it’s helpful for us to look these places up on a map, and see where they are. Often our bibles have maps in the back of them. We might not think that all this geography is very important. However, it teaches us something important, and that is, that Jesus didn’t just walk around aimlessly. He actually visited specific places, specific towns, and met specific people, at a specific time and place. The Gospels claim that the life of Jesus is actually history. There was a time when Jesus was actually born, in the town of Bethlehem. You can visit Bethlehem even today. It still exists. There was a time when Jesus actually rose from the dead, from a tomb outside of Jerusalem. You can visit Jerusalem today. It still exists. These are not made-up places, but Jesus actually went there and did things there.

And this is of great comfort to us too, because we here in Australia, as far as Mark probably thought when he wrote his Gospel, are at the end of the earth. At the beginning of Acts, we read that Jesus said to his apostles that they would be his witnesses to the end of the earth. So, just as Jesus visited this man in this particular region, which today is part of Jordan, so also Jesus even visits us, in our particular gathering of Christians, in our particular city, in our particular country, in our particular part of the world. Just as this man who was deaf and unable to speak met Jesus, so also do we, when we hear the word of God, read and preached, but also in the sacraments. We are his baptised children, and Jesus promises to be with us and to walk with us through our lives. He also gives us his divine food for the journey, his body and blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is just as much here, but invisibly, as he was there healing that man in the region mentioned in our Gospel reading.

So, we also read: And they brought to [Jesus] a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

It’s a very interesting way in which Jesus heals this man, quite unlike anything he does for anyone else. We know that this man was both deaf and unable to speak. Everything then that Jesus does from here, he does for the specific benefit of this man. So Jesus takes him aside from the crowd privately. Why does he do this? Well, when there is a crowd all around this man, and he’s not able to hear or speak, then it’s very difficult to know what’s going on. Jesus takes him aside by himself, and then the man knows precisely who it is that is dealing with him. Jesus doesn’t want the man to think that it was the crowd who worked this miracle, or someone else. He wants him to realise that this is He, Jesus, who is dealing with him, and Him alone.

Then we read: He put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. The man who can’t hear or speak can still Jesus what Jesus is doing. We know that there were blind men, for example, who came up to Jesus and asked to see, on a different occasion. They would have been able to hear Jesus’ voice, and then when they were able to see, they would have been able to recognise whose voice it was when they were able to see Jesus with their own eyes. Now, this man who can’t hear or speak sees Jesus put his fingers into his ears and touches his tongue. Jesus is using a kind of sign language that makes it very clear to the man what is going on.

Then we read: And looking up to heaven, [Jesus] sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened”. Here Jesus speaks His word, and the man is healed. But first, Jesus shows to the man a gesture of prayer. He looks up to heaven and sighs. He wants to show to the man that the power he has to heal him is from heaven itself and from God himself. It’s not simply a human power. Of course, we know that Jesus Himself is true God, and actually has no need to pray to the Father for this power, because He has this power already in Himself. But Jesus always prays to the Father, and always asks for things from His Father, because he wants to show us that He and the Father are one, and that their will is always united together.

Jesus here, also shows us a wonderful example in prayer for us. He simply looks to heaven and sighs. We read in Romans: Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. This is a wonderful comfort for us. Often, our minds are so muddled and so “all-over-the-place” that we sometimes don’t know how to pray. We just can’t find the words. I think a lot of Christians feel like this at the moment with everything that is happening in the world at the present, with all the unrest and unease. However, Jesus gives us a great example: He simply looks to heaven and sighs. It’s like the people who were bitten by the serpent in the Old Testament, when Moses made a bronze or brass serpent, and put it on a pole. All the people needed to do was simply look at it and they were healed. So also, Jesus simply looks to heaven, to the place where he would soon be seated in glory, after he was to be crucified and risen from the dead.

There’s also those wonderful words in Psalm 121, which also convey a similar thought. I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Here in prayer, we simply raise up our eyes a little bit. We raise our eyes from whatever is going on in life, whatever trouble, whatever suffering, whatever sin we are wrestling against, whatever sadness, whatever it is—we lift up our eyes to the hills, we look to heaven, and God recognises this prayer for what it is. He hears the sighs we make, and He recognises it as the Holy Spirit’s prayer for whatever is troubling us. If God even hears our sighs, and recognises our prayers when we just even lift our eyes up a bit, how much do you think he really loves to hear us when we open our mouths and speak to him and tell him what is troubling us? So we should be encouraged by this simple small gesture of prayer that Jesus demonstrates to us, simply to lift up his eyes to heaven and sigh.

Then we read that Jesus says: Ephphatha, which means, “Be opened.” In the Gospel of Mark especially there are a number of places where we hear Jesus say something in his native language, which was Aramaic. Aramaic was a kind of more modern Hebrew dialect that people spoke at this time, and people still speak it today in parts of Syria and Iraq. When Jesus goes to raise up Jairus’ daughter, a twelve year old girl who had died, we read that he said: Talitha cumi, which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, we read that he prayed: Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. Here we see Jesus say, “Abba”, the word for Father in his native language, Aramaic. Also, when Jesus was on the cross, we read that he said: Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? Which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Here in the Gospel of Mark, we have a few of these little instances where we hear Jesus speak in his native language.

Of course, this makes us wonder: why wasn’t everything in the Gospels written in Aramaic? Actually, the whole New Testament was written in Greek, and Jesus didn’t speak Greek. Why didn’t they write everything in the language that Jesus actually spoke? Well, just imagine, for example, that Jesus was an Aboriginal person in the South Australian desert, who spoke a language like Pitjantjatjara. And he had twelve disciples up there in the desert who all spoke Pitjantjatjara. Then Jesus was going to send out all of these disciples, and tell them to speak the Gospel to everyone in the region, and to the whole of Australia, and to the ends of the earth. Could you imagine what would have happened if they all went out and spoke Pitjantjatjara to everyone? Nobody, even in Adelaide, would have understood them! So, if they wanted to be understood, they would have had to have spoken English, because it is commonly understood, not just here in Australia, but all throughout the world.

So also, in Jesus’ time, that language was Greek. It was the most widely spoken language of the Roman Empire in that part of the world. Jesus’ native language was just the local language of that area, and outside of that region, people wouldn’t have understood it. However, St Mark, often likes to remind us that these things took place in a very specific part of the world, in a specific language, which Jesus would have learnt as a little boy from listening to Mary and Joseph. It was Jesus’ mother tongue.

Now, you see, this man, whom Jesus heals in our reading, certainly had a mother, but not a mother tongue. He wasn’t able to learn it from his mother, because he couldn’t hear her. Now, Jesus speaks a powerful word of healing, causing the man’s ears and mouth to be opened, and he gives him his own mother tongue, his own native language, to speak.

The same goes for us as people who live in this world. We human beings have fallen into sin, and as a result, we are completely deaf to the Word of God, and we are completely unable to confess that word back to him, completely unable to pray, to praise God, to speak the Word to others, without the gift of the Holy Spirit. Last week, when we were reading about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, we were talking about the way in which Tax Collector recognised his own sin, and recognised that only God could atone for his sin and do something about it. Here in our reading today, we learn that we are completely unable to recognise these things without the gift of the Holy Spirit. There are many people in our world, and sometimes in the church, who cannot hear the Word of God. It just doesn’t make any sense to them. The Gospel just sounds like Law to them. Everything that points up, they hear in a kind of downward way, and everything that points down, they hear in a kind of upward way.

I remember going to a music concert with a friend once to hear St John’s Passion, by Bach. Now, if you don’t know what this is, it’s a three hour piece which sets the history of Jesus’ suffering and death to music from the Gospel of John. There was an old lady sitting next to me, who said at the end, “And to think that they’re still killing each other in the Middle East!” I couldn’t believe it. After all of that, the only thing she could say was that the suffering of Jesus was just another example of Middle-Eastern violence.

But we are all deaf to the Word of God, and we completely misunderstand it, and get it backwards, and upside down, and all over the place. The Holy Spirit is the author of the Scripture, who inspired the biblical writers to write down what they did. And so, when we read the Scripture, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us understand what it is that we are reading. And even so, before we even think to do that, it is the Holy Spirit who comes to us through the Word, and converts and changes our hearts, so that we can pray and so that we can speak to God. Martin Luther says this very nicely in the Small Catechism, where he says: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him, but the Holy Spirit calls me by the Gospel, etc.

In the baptism ceremony of the church, for many centuries, these words: “Be opened”, have often been said to the person who is being baptised, so indicate that it as a baptised person, it is the Holy Spirit who opens our hearts and ears and mouths to hear and speak the Word of God.

We read in the reading: And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

This is such a strange thing. Jesus doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. What he did, he did for the benefit of this man, not so that he could gather fame for himself. Jesus opens the mouth of this man, but commands the people to keep their mouths shut. But they get everything backwards! They do the opposite of what Jesus says. Jesus is the obedient one, the one who prays to his Father, and opens the man’s ears and mouth. But all people are disobedient and do the opposite of what we are commanded by God. They were amazed by Jesus, but were completely unable to keep his command.

The same goes for us. We believe in the wonderful things that Jesus has done, his miraculous birth, his miracles, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, but we are completely unable to keep his commandments. If we do what is right on this earth, we are only just making a small beginning. When we show Christian to love to people, we are only just making a beginning to what that love really should be.

In the last part of the reading, it says: And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Of course, there’s something worth mentioning about these miracles of Jesus, which I’ve mentioned before. Often we look at a miracle of Jesus like this one, and we think what’s the purpose, or what’s the point of it. But the most important thing about it is simply the fact that it happened. It is a wonderful thing that Jesus healed a man of his deafness and his inability to speak. And we should stand in awe, first of all, in the simple fact that Jesus did this.

But the crowd also say here: He has done all things well. This reminds us of those wonderful words which are written about God right at the beginning of Genesis, when God created the world, and it says: God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Here Jesus also has done all things well. It was very good. It was a wonderful thing that Jesus had done.

And so, just as God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, at the beginning had created all things by his Word, so also, Jesus here—the true Son of God, praying to his Father, and working with all the power of the Holy Spirit—speaks the healing of this man into existence through his Word. He does the same for us with our faith: he speaks it into existence through his Word. He does the same in Baptism: he washes us into his kingdom through the speaking of his Word. The same happens in the Lord’s Supper: he places his body and blood upon our altar through the elements of bread of wine, simply through the speaking of his Word: This is my body, this is my blood. Everything that happens in the church that is of any lasting value happens through the speaking of Christ’s Word. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the Word of God endures forever. That’s the way it always is with Jesus. So let’s listen to his Word, with ears that have been opened by Him, and speak this Word and pray to him, with mouths that have been opened by Him. Amen.

 

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Trinity XI [Luke 18:9-14] (15-Aug-2021)

  

St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

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. 

Today, in our Gospel reading, we have a wonderful parable of Jesus, a very well-known parable, about the Pharisee and the tax-collector. Our reading begins where it says in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.

Before we begin to look at the parable itself, it is very much worth our while to examine our hearts according to these words. Do we trust in ourselves that we are righteous, and do we treat others with contempt? You know, in the Gospel of John, we read a wonderful passage there where Jesus says: If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. It is a truly, wonderful gift to have the word of Jesus, to abide in it, to be his disciples, to know the truth, and to be set free by the truth. I can’t imagine, in some sense, a greater gift in the whole world.

However, we live in a world where many people do not abide in the word of Jesus, who are not truly his disciples, who do not know the truth, and instead, are bound and slaves to various lies. And we would be in exactly the same position, if it hadn’t been for the wonderful grace and favour of our Lord Jesus, and his inexhaustible mercy toward us. There are all kinds of people who have heard the word of God, and yet they don’t listen to it. They are just numb to it, or they can’t hear it, or they even really hate it, and mock it, and ridicule it. There are all kinds of people who look like they are disciples of Jesus, but take no notice of what he says, and almost don’t have any interest in what he says, especially if it requires them to change their mind about something.

There are many people who are not interested in truth. They are only interested in following and doing what most people around them do. They just go along with the flow like sheep, and go astray like sheep. They believe whatever their told, and don’t want to think differently. But also they are bound, imprisoned, enslaved, and they don’t even know that they are not free, let alone want to be free.

But to be a Christian, to be one of Christ’s baptised children, to be a believer in Christ, to be a follower of him, a disciple of him, is to abide in Christ’s word, to know the truth, and to be set free by the truth. One of the most important things that we Christians need to keep at the forefront of our minds is that we are all conceived and born in sin. All our thoughts, words and actions are tainted by sin, even before we have branched out and done anything. St Paul puts it very sharply in the third chapter of Romans. He quotes a long list of passages from the Old Testament. None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grace; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and they of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes… All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In Galatians, St Paul describes exactly what the human heart has contained within it. He says: The works of the flesh of evident: sexual immortality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. Jesus himself gives a similar list: He says: From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

In the last year or two, with everything that has gone on in the world, many people have come to realise that not everything we are told by the press, by the media, by politicians, by those elected to govern us, is the truth. Many people have come to realise that those who are in power do not necessarily have people’s best interests at heart. On the other hand, many people still trust, what they call, “the system”. We have seen corruption in all kinds of levels of society, censorship, control. Many people are worried and anxious, and think about what might happen next, and where things are going.

We Christians should never be surprised that there is evil in the world, and that there is a certain level and extent and prevalence of evil in the world. We can so easily think that we are righteous and then treat other people with contempt, just as Jesus warns us in the reading today. No: we are not righteous, in and of ourselves. If we know the truth, it is not because we are people who are so arrogant that we just always think we are right. If we are Christian, it is not because we are spiritually or morally superior to those who are not. No—the creation of our bodies and souls was a work of God alone, our redemption by Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection was a work of God alone, and our conversion to Christianity was also a work of God, and a work of God alone. Our will needed to be converted first, before it could do anything that pleased God, and even now, our will still reacts and turns against God. Jesus said to his disciples, and his words still apply to us: You did not choose me, but I chose you. We have nothing in and of ourselves to claim any righteousness before God. Everything we have, we have as a complete, total, pure gift alone, and we can do nothing but simply thank God for what he has done for us, how he worked to save us, how he continually works through us and around us and behind us and in front of us to preserve the fragile and precious faith that he has given to us.

So: Jesus tells us a parable that we should not trust in ourselves that we are righteous, and treat others with contempt. Let’s read the parable.

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

In this parable, Jesus polarises the world. He doesn’t polarise it in the way that we normally think. He does not put the left-wingers on one side, and the right-wingers on the other side. He does not put the Fascists over there, the Communists over there. He does not put the rich over here, and the poor over there. He does not put white people over here, and black people over there. He does not put love-filled people over here, and hate-filled people over there. He does not put conservatives over here, and liberals over there. No—none of that is relevant in this parable. Because however human beings want to polarise and divide people, God still divides and polarises each of them even more. Jesus takes the knife of his word and cuts right through the heart of every single person.

He puts the one who exalts himself over here, and the humble over there. He puts the one who is justified before God over here, and the one who is not over there. There is a polarisation: there is a separation. It’s not like Jesus just says: “Let’s not divide people, let’s find the middle ground.” No—he doesn’t. Because when people try to divide and polarise society and people and families and whatever, they testify to something that is actually true, and that is: there is a judgment. However, the truth of the matter is that God is the judge, he is the one who justifies, he is the one who divides truth and error, he is the one who exalts the humble and humbles the exalted. That is the polarisation: that is the true judgment, the judgment between the sheep and the goats on the last day.

What is so incredible about this passage is that the Pharisee that Jesus speaks about seems to be the model Christian. He says: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. Look! Almost everything this man says is great! First of all, he prays to God. If only we prayed more. Second, he thanks him. If only we were more thankful to God for everything that he gives us. Third, he is not an extortioner, he is not unjust, adulterer. Let’s assume that he is telling the truth! If only there were more people everywhere that didn’t commit these kinds of sins. Fourth, he fasts twice a week, and he gives tithes of all that he gets. If only we had such self-discipline, and devotion towards God. If only more people supported the church like this man.

However, he is so wrong about one thing, which makes all the difference. He says: I thank you that I am not like other men. Here is the lie. He is exactly like other men, because he thinks that his righteousness before God consists in the things that he has done. He is exactly like other men, because he thinks that his own sin isn’t all that serious, and that he put all of his good works in the scales of divine justice, and weigh up the balance. He is exactly like other men, because he doesn’t recognise the sin that is at work in his fleshly, human heart, just like that same sin works in all kinds of people.

For example, take Hitler and the Nazis. They said: We Germans are not like the Jews. Hermann Sasse, a Lutheran theologian in Germany at that time, who ended up living here in the city of Adelaide, said: No, we Germans are exactly like the Jews. Why? Because we are all sinners, both Germans and Jews, and whoever else. Hermann Sasse saw that the problem with the Nazi party’s understanding was that they didn’t recognise sin.

But then, we can also turn things around, and say: We are not like the Nazis. We can have a certain self-righteousness about ourselves, and start to imagine ourselves as if we lived in some kind of historical movie, as if we would have been the heroes and they would have been the villains. Every terrible movement that has done great damage to the world and the human race has come about because of sin, and that sin is the same thing that we carry around in our own hearts. So, when we see terrible things happening in the world, our answer before God is not to say: We thank you, God, that we are not like those people over there. No, our answer before God is to say: God, I am exactly like those people over there, and I repent. My heart, my flesh, my corruption is the same as them, and if there is any reason why it hasn’t spilled over to the same extent as it has in them, it is purely by the grace of God, who has worked in us to restrain us. And so, we are not the heroes. We have never been the heroes. There has only been one hero, and that is Jesus Christ alone. He is the one who has taken all the corruption, all the dirt, the filth, the damage, the murder, the polarisation and the judgment of the world, he has taken every single last drop of it, and he has died for it all on the cross. He stretched out his arms and his hands and his feet, and submit himself and was willing to be nailed to it all. He is the one Saviour who has ever lived. All his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane ran from him. Peter denied him three times, even though he was the first preacher on Pentecost. Paul locked up and persecuted and killed Christians. None of them were righteous, because Jesus is the only one who is righteous.

Now, we come back to the two men in our parable today. If no-one is righteous, why is he tax collector justified? Why is he exalted? Well, this has really nothing to do with him. You see, a tax collector was not a person that was thought very well of, at all. Tax collectors at that time were often Jews who worked for the Romans—they were considered to be traitors to the Jewish people. Now, Jesus is not saying that all Pharisees are bad, and all tax-collectors are good. There would have been plenty of tax-collectors who had no interest in Jesus. And we do read about some Pharisees, like Nicodemus, who helped to bury Jesus. It’s like the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Jesus is not saying that all poor people go to heaven and all rich people go to hell. There are plenty of poor people who will not be saved, and there are plenty of rich people who will be saved. However, there is a danger when we are wealthy and rich, that we think that we have everything and don’t need God. In the same way, there is also a danger in being a Pharisee, even a religious person, a devout person. There is a danger, sometimes, in being devout, in being religious, in being committed to God, because we start to think that our devotion, our religiosity, our commitment, our piety, even our Christianity itself, earns something before God, or is something that makes us better than other people, or is something in and of ourselves that justifies us before God. And then we think: God must bless me, because at least I am better than that person over there.

No – that is not how it works. Let’s look at the tax-collector. We read: The tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

There is always something we can be certain of when we think about our salvation. People always look to themselves to work out if they are saved, and this is dangerous. They start to think, I can see God working in me. But this man doesn’t say anything like that. He can see sin working in him. Perhaps, he doesn’t know to what extent sin is working in him – God alone knows that and sees that. God only allows us to see our sin in little bite-sized chunks, because otherwise it would completely and totally overwhelm us.

This man recognises that he is a sinner, and if he is a sinner, then the good news is that he qualifies to be saved. Because Jesus only died for one kind of person in the world: he only died for sinners. People who are not sinners have no need and no use for him.

The tax collector also says: Be merciful to me. Actually, this is not the normal word, “be merciful.” There is a word, “have mercy”, that has historically been used in the church service throughout the centuries, eleison. The words, “Kyrie eleison”, is Greek for, “Lord have mercy”. But in this passage, this is not that word. It is a different word: ilástheti. And this word has to do with atonement. It’s as if he is saying, “Atone for me”, or “make atonement for me”, or something like that. He is looking at his sin, and he sees that is great. But he is not simply asking God for mercy, as if to say: God, I know you have every reason to punish me, but I’m asking you not to. He’s asking God to do something about it. He’s asking him to do whatever needs to be done to forgive it, to expel it from his heart, to cast it out, to blot it out, to wash it away, to purge it from himself.

This little word should be of great encouragement and comfort to us. Because when we sinners come into the presence of God, we have an atonement. We have a Jesus, who has shed his blood, and has offered himself in our place before the throne and the judgment of God. And when we enter into his presence in this life, we simply say to him: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner”. We say: God, let this atonement that Jesus carried out be mine, let it have its full effect in me, let it apply to me, let it be that thing that I can cling to, and be completely and totally certain of your mercy and your favour and your love towards me. That’s what the atonement of Christ gives to us: it gives us the mercy of God, and all the blessing of God.

You see, when this Pharisee dies, all the things that he prided himself on would die with him. When the tax-collector dies, the mercy and the atonement of God continues. And it continues in such a way, that the sin, which he felt so deeply that he beat his breast over it, that that atonement and mercy would make him completely and totally sinless and clean and pure as he enters heaven to rejoice with all the angels of God. The tax-collector humbled himself under God’s judgment, and trusted in God’s capacity alone to make things right. This is the reason why this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

So, let’s go down to our houses today also justified in the sight of God. Let us recognise that we have a sinful heart, just like everyone around us, and humble ourselves with a repentant attitude before God’s throne and his judgment over sin. But also, let us trust in Jesus Christ, our Saviour, our Lord, our King, who has died for us, risen for us, atoned for our sin, and is so full of mercy and grace and forgiveness, that we cannot even begin to comprehend or understand it. He is the one who humbled himself to became like us, and now has ascended into heaven, and is exalted to the right hand of God. Jesus, my Lord and my God, what a wonderful thing it is that you are merciful also to me, even to me, a sinner!

Amen.

 

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Trinity X [Luke 19:41-48] (8-Aug-2021)

 

St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

And when Jesus drew near and saw the city, he wept over it.

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. 

Our Gospel reading today has four parts to it: the first part we read about Jesus weeping over the city. The second part, we see him making a prophecy about the city of Jerusalem. The third part, we read about Jesus cleansing the temple. And the fourth part we read about Jesus teaching in the temple.

Our reading today comes at the end of Luke, chapter 19, and this chapter is a very rich chapter. We first read about the little man, the rich man, who is called Zacchaeus, who climbs up into a high tree, to get a glimpse of Jesus as he goes by, and Jesus invites himself to his house.  Next, we read about the parable of the Ten Minas, a mina being a sum of money. In the old times, this was often called the parable of ten pounds. Then, following this, we read in Luke 19 about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And then we come to our reading today, about where Jesus weeps over the city, cleanses the temple, and teaches there.

So, you can see that the events of our reading today take place in the week of Passover and Easter. The church has always celebrated Palm Sunday on the week before Easter, because if you count up the days in the Gospels about when these things took place, it works out to be a week before Easter. And so, throughout the centuries, the church has called this week Holy Week, because it is the week when Jesus was there in Jerusalem, having been welcomed by the crowd on Palm Sunday, it is the week when Jesus celebrates his Last Supper with his disciples, it is the week when Jesus offers his life as an atonement and sacrifice on the cross on Good Friday, and it is also it is the week when Jesus rose from the dead. We should never underestimate what God can do in a week!

So let’s read from our Gospel reading, and see what it says. First, it says: And when [Jesus] drew near and saw the city, he wept over it.

There are a few of times in the New Testament, where we read about Jesus weeping. The most well-known passage is where Jesus visits Mary and Martha, after their brother Lazarus had died. As they are walking to the tomb, we read, very simply: Jesus wept. These two words are the shortest verse in the entire bible. But there’s a little comment immediately afterwards. We read: So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”

On one hand, some people who see Jesus weep, recognise his love and his compassion. Some people think that this is a sign of Jesus’ helplessness and weakness, and think that all Jesus can do in the face of death is cry. Also, they are a little bit angry with Jesus, thinking that he was too late. Mary and Martha both had said to Jesus: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. The people who saw Jesus weep, thought much the same thing, and were critical of Jesus, and his timing, and now, of his weakness. Well, in actual fact, a few verses later, we read about how Jesus wonderfully raised Lazarus from the dead. So, it’s very easy to criticise Jesus and to think that in our eyes he did something that we are not happy about, but we often think like this because we don’t know what Jesus is going to do next.

So we see here in John’s gospel how Jesus wept. We do see his weakness, actually. The weakness which he willingly took on when he, as true God, the Lord of heaven and earth, who is equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, descended from heaven, and became a man, a true human being like one of us. We see the wonderful weakness which Jesus took on in his earthly life, for example, when he became a baby, his fasting in the wilderness for 40 days when he became hungry. Of course, we also see his weakness when he offered his life on the cross, and suffered a terrible death.

But also, we need to remember that whatever Jesus does, and however he presents himself to us, he always does it as both man and God together. You see, Jesus is not two different people: he doesn’t switch his divinity or his humanity off, according to what he is doing. So for example, when he touches a person and heals them, it’s not just a man who touches the person, but it’s God who touches them, because Jesus is our Lord and our God.

Imagine the problem when you have the butter in the fridge and you want to cut it. If you put the butter in the oven, or the microwave, it just melts and goes everywhere. If you try and cut it with a knife, the butter it too hard. So you have to heat up the knife, and make the knife hot, by putting the knife in the fire on the stove, and then the knife cuts and melts at the same time.

So, we could think of Jesus’ human body like a knife that is connected to fire. It’s like his humanity is the knife, and his divinity is the fire. So, as I said, when Jesus touches a person, it is touch of a man and God together. Also, when Jesus was in his mother’s womb, it was not simply a man who was in his mother’s womb, but God who was there. And so, in the history of the church, Mary has been called “the Mother of God”, and rightly so, not because she is the mother of God the Father, but because the person she had in her womb and whom she gave birth to was God.

So, also, when we think of Jesus dying on the cross, it was not simply a man who died, but God who died, and we say this, not because God can actually die, but because in the person of Christ, because he is both man and God, God dies, and experiences death and goes through it.

Also, in the opposite way, we see some amazing things that Jesus does in the Gospels. For example, he walks on water. Now normally a human being can’t do this, but because he is God, his human body is able to do this. It’s not just the foot of God on the water, it’s a real human foot. When Jesus is on the mount of Transfiguration and his face and his clothes shine, this is not just the light of God, but this is Jesus’ actual human body that is shining.

Also, in the Lord’s Supper, there are many Christians who say that this is just bread and wine, because it is impossible that Jesus body can be in heaven and in the Lord’s Supper in all kinds of different church gatherings all throughout the world at the same time. But you see: because Jesus is both man and God, his human body is able to take on divine qualities, and do things that normally a human body can’t do. So, we simply believe Jesus’ words as they read plainly: This is my body, and this is my blood. It is the body and blood of Christ, who is both true man and true God.

Now, let’s come back to our reading. Why am I making a big point about this? Because when Jesus weeps, we have to realise that because Jesus is both true man and God, that this is not just a man who weeps, but it is God who weeps, because Jesus is God. Even though we would normally say that God doesn’t experience emotions and cry and weep like us, here in the person of Christ, our human weakness is taken on by God, and God experiences our human weaknesses and emotions, because Jesus is God.

And why does he weep? He weeps over the city. When he wept over Lazarus, the people said: See how he loved him! In the same way, we can look at Jesus weeping over the city, and say: See how he loves this city! And he does.

What I am teaching here is very offensive in some ways to our human flesh. We think, if God is God, how can he weep? How can God be so weak? If I feel weak, of what comfort is it to me if God is weak too? No: actually, God is strong, but he entered into our human weakness, in order to make us strong like him. He wants you to realise that your tears are precious, because he also shed tears. He entered into our weakness, suffered and died, so that he could for us that wonderful salvation, and bring us to the new Jerusalem, where there will no more tears.

So what does Jesus say about the city? He says: Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.

The people had just welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem with great praise and fanfare. We read: The whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen. But at the same time, we also read that some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

They welcomed Jesus, but they didn’t recognise what kind of a king he was. Many people saw him as a political figure, who was to come into Jerusalem, kick the Romans out, and rule as an earthly king. But Jesus’ rules as a different kind of king. He is crowned instead with a crown of thorns, and enthroned on the cross. Those that mocked Jesus thought they were pretending, but in actual fact, they were giving Jesus his real coronation on this earth. Although Christ even now rules from heaven, seated at the right hand of God, on this earth, we see his kingdom as one of the cross.

And so, many people don’t recognise the kingdom of Christ. They don’t know the things that make for peace. They don’t recognise the time of their visitation. They see God who rides on a simple donkey and sheds tears, and they say: I want something much more glorious that that. But what they don’t realise is that in this person, Jesus Christ, and in his words, in the glory of God, the glory of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, whose glory is above heaven and earth, and everything that we could possibly imagine or comprehend.

And so, in our reading, Jesus prophesies about the city of Jerusalem, that it will be destroyed. It says: For the says will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.

Right at the heart of this message of Jesus, is the fact that Jesus’ greatest failure in the eyes of the world—his suffering, his death—is actually his victory, his wonderful atonement for the sin of the world, and the time of God’s great visitation upon the world. This word “visit” is a very loaded word in the Scripture. Sometimes, we read that God visits his people in wrath and anger, but also in grace. On the cross, we see both. God visits the world in his wrath and anger, and he pours it out upon Jesus, who is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. All of God’s justice, and judgment, and anger against sin is poured out on Jesus, and laid upon his shoulders. But also, we see here God visiting the earth in showing his grace, because when we look to this Saviour of ours, and we recognise in him his atoning work for our sin, God bestows upon us the forgiveness of our sin, and shows his grace. This cross, this Jesus, this Saviour is his grace upon us.

So, Jesus makes it very clear, that when God visits us, when we hear the word of God, no matter how humble it seems, it is important that we recognise it. The preaching of the cross is the visitation of God. The absolution, the bestowal of the forgiveness of sins in the church by the pastor, is the visitation of God. The sacrament of Holy Baptism, which you have received, the new birth by water and the Word, by water and the Spirit, is the visitation of God. The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the gift of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins, this is the visitation of God. So recognise it for what it is. Let these things not be hidden from your eyes. Don’t look for something more glorious that what God in his glory gives to you.

In the year 70 AD, there was a great fulfilment of this prophecy, where the Romans came and invaded Jerusalem, and tore down the temple. Even, I heard somewhere from an archaeological study, that when the Romans burnt down the temple, the fire was so hot, that it melted the gold, which got into the cracks in the floor. Because the Romans wanted the gold, they pulled up the floor as well, just as Jesus says here: They will not leave one stone upon another in you.

For us too in the church today, there is a great urgency and a great need for us to hold on to the word of God, and not let any of it go. If we don’t recognise the time of the Lord’s visitation, then God can always take his gifts away from us and give them to some other people who want them. Even today in the church, governments around the world, including our own here in Australia, are pressuring the church to do what they want, rather than what God wants. As Jesus says: The days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side. We should not be afraid of the pressure, if they want to hem us in. Jesus knows how to lead us forward, and he knows how to look after us, and he knows the names of each and every single one of his sheep. So, it’s a good thing to despair of ourselves, to despair of our world, to despair of our country and our people, because these things are all tainted by sin, and it has been like that for a very long time. However, in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, there is no despair. There is only hope, because in Christ, and in his cross, and in his blood, and in his sacrifice, and in his person, is all the glory of God, all the fulness of the majesty of God, all the joy of heaven, all the promises of eternal life.

In the last part of our reading, we see Jesus enter the temple and cleanse it. We read: He entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” I’ll just talk briefly about this. We see here that in the place of prayer, in the place of the devotion to God, in the place of worship, comes the world of business, and trade, and commerce, and money, and bargains, and everything like that. This worldly stuff is not what the temple is about. Jesus is very sharp about this, that he simply drives these people out without questioning them and talking to them.

But then afterwards we read something that we can so easily miss. On one hand, Jesus throws these people out of the temple. But then it says: And he was teaching daily in the temple. This is what belongs in the temple, and also in our churches: the teaching of Jesus. If you knew that you were going to die at the end of the week, what would you do? For Jesus, he teaches, and he teaches daily. This is the wonderful visitation of God: he cleanses us out of what is evil and does not belong, and then he teaches us.

And this teaching continues according to the blessing of God, and according to his arrangement. We read: The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.

You can see here that despite the plans of the chief priests and the scribes, they couldn’t do anything. God was the one who was miraculously preserving this preaching and this worship, no matter who wanted to close it down. This should also be of great encouragement to us, and we should pray to God that he would continue to visit us, continue to cleanse us out and lead us forward, and continue to teach us the words of his Son Jesus Christ, that we would learn it and be constantly sharpened in it, and that he would preserve us and protect us from all harm, and not just us personally, but also protect and preserve the word of God and the sacraments in our midst, as his living and wonderful visitation upon this earth.

So let’s commend ourselves to our heavenly Father, to Jesus Christ, to the Holy Spirit. Let’s remember the loving and compassionate tears of our Saviour Jesus, and his plea to us as his children. Let’s also submit ourselves to his cleansing, just as cleansed the temple, and also to his wonderful teaching, and the great message of Gospel, which brings us salvation and life and every blessing from the throne of God in heaven. Amen.

 

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.