Transfiguration (Year A) [Matthew 17:1-8] (23-Feb-2020)

This sermon was preached at Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Semaphore, 8.45am, and Good News Lutheran Church, Albert Park, 10.30am.

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

He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

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 we are celebrating the event of Jesus’ transfiguration. This is the wonderful event in the life of Jesus where he took Peter, James and John up a mountain, and his clothes and face began to shine with bright heavenly light. We are also told that Moses and Elijah appeared next to Jesus, talking with him about his departure, his journey to Jerusalem to die as the Lamb of God for the sin of the world. We are also told that when Peter, who was completely amazed by this appearance and had no idea what to do, was suggesting that he make three tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, a cloud came and covered over everything. And God the Father spoke from the cloud, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

This is such a wonderful event, and yet many Christians don’t often think about it too much. We have a custom in our church of remembering this event, and celebrating it on the last Sunday of the Epiphany season. The Epiphany season is that time of the year after Christmas, which begins by remembering the visit of the wise men to the baby Jesus, and the Baptism of Jesus. The word Epiphany means to “show”, or “manifest”, or “display”. We see God making a wonderful “showing” when he sent the wise men a star to lead them to the country of Israel, and also when he “showed” himself as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit at the Baptism of Jesus: The Father spoke from heaven, the Son was being baptised in the water, and the Holy Spirit came upon him in the form of a dove. Today, as we celebrate the Transfiguration, we remember the wonderful way in which God showed to us the power and the divinity of his Son, Jesus Christ—he shows us that he is truly the powerful Son of God himself—by speaking his voice from the cloud, as wonderful light radiates and beams forth and shines from Jesus face, and body and clothes.

Actually, the two events of the Baptism of Jesus and the Transfiguration form a kind of pair of bookends to the Epiphany season: we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus at the beginning of the Epiphany Season at the beginning of January, and we celebrate the Transfiguration at the end of the Epiphany season. And both of these events have something in common. On both occasions, God the Father actually speaks his voice in the hearing of all the people who were present at these events. In fact, at both events, he says the same thing: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. However, at the Transfiguration, he says something extra: Listen to Him! It’s this command of God to listen to Jesus that I’m going to focus on today, and I think that these words of God the Father actually give us a wonderful interpretation of everything that goes on. In fact, these words are the centre and the focus of this event at the Transfiguration – Listen to Him!

 So firstly, today, I’d like to take us back to the Old Testament, to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 18. Now, the book of Deuteronomy is a particularly special book in the Old Testament, which contains—if you like—a long sermon or speech from Moses, just as all the people are about to cross the River Jordan and enter into the promised land of Canaan.

Now, during the book of Deuteronomy, Moses gives the people all kinds of warnings to the people about what they should do and not do when they enter the Promised Land. Particularly, they must remain faithful to God, and not start worshipping the false gods of the people in the land. But not only that, but the people were not allowed to copy to worship practices of the people who worshipped other gods, and use these practises to worship the true God. For example, you might remember in the book of Exodus, when the people worshipped the Golden Calf. Not only did they worship this statue, but Aaron said that the calf was in fact God himself, and that through worshipping this statue of the calf, they were worshipping God himself. Do you see? Aaron made it look like they weren’t worshipping some other god, but that they were actually worshipping the God of Israel. But the people weren’t allowed to do this—they weren’t allowed to use idols, and such like, in such a way that they could gain access through them to God. The way to meet God was not to worship a calf statue made out of gold.

So, in Deuteronomy 18, this is what Moses preaches to the people. He says: When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this. The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.

Let me read to you this last verse again. The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. Moses is saying that God will raise up a prophet like himself, from his brothers, from the Jewish people. Now, there are a number of places in the New Testament, where this verse is taken to be talking about Jesus. After Pentecost, Peter uses this passage to speak about Jesus in one of his first sermons, after he heals a man sitting outside the temple. Stephen, the first person to be killed for the Christian faith, uses this passage from Deuteronomy to refer to Jesus. It’s as if to say, that since the people entered the Promised Land all those hundreds and hundreds of years ago, after Moses had died, they have been waiting for a prophet. And Christians say, that this prophet that the Jewish people had been waiting for centuries, is in fact, Jesus.

Let me read the prophecy again. Moses says: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. Now, let’s have a look at the Transfiguration, and see how this prophecy is actually fulfilled in our reading.

First of all, Moses calls Jesus a “prophet like me”. Actually, at the transfiguration, Moses is there. In fact, we’re not entirely sure whether this is Moses in his spirit, or in his body, because at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, it says that nobody knew what happened to Moses body. Mysteriously, here is Moses, talking to Jesus. And after Moses had received the law, we read that his face began to shine with bright light, such that he even had to put a veil, a cloth, over his head, because the people just couldn’t cope with and withstand this wonderful light. In the same way, Jesus’ face shines, but not only that, but his whole body shines, and even his clothes. But Jesus doesn’t normally appear like this, but he is always the Son of God, he is always God of God, Light of Light, but most of the time when people saw Jesus, this light was not hidden by a cloth or a veil, like Moses, but is was hidden simply by his human flesh. So Jesus is like Moses, in that his face also shone like Moses’ face.

Also, Jesus was like Moses, in that both of them performed miracles. But they performed very different types of miracles. Moses performed miracles that were frightening and scary for people. They were miracles that revealed God’s anger and his judgement and his wrath. For example, Moses put his hand in his coat, and it was full of leprosy. He put his staff on the ground, and it became a snake. He poured water on the ground, and it turned to blood. He brought about many plagues in Egypt—flies, frogs, darkness, death—you name it!

Now, when Jesus came, he also performed miracles, but miracles that were comforting and encouraging and which strengthened people. For example, he turned water not into blood, but into wine, for people’s enjoyment. He didn’t bring about leprosy, but he healed lepers. He healed many people, he cast out demons, he gave sight to the blind, and allowed the deaf to hear, and raised the dead. So Jesus’ miracles were of a different character to Moses’ miracles. But the fact that they both performed miracles like this, means that Jesus is very much like Moses.

But also, Jesus was a prophet like Moses, in the way that he spoke. Moses brought the 10 Commandments to the people. But then Jesus applies and comments on the commandments in a way that had never been done before.  He says: You have heard that it was said, “You shall not murder”. (Jesus quotes the 10 Commandments). But then he says: But I say to you, whoever hates his brother is a murderer. So Jesus is also like Moses in the way that he speaks. Moses spoke the thunder of God’s law, and brought the people in a limited way into God’s presence through all the laws and details about worship, about the tabernacle, and the priests, and the food regulations, and all that kind of stuff. But Jesus also speaks the thunder of God’s law, but he does so in order to lay them bare and to bring them the forgiveness of sins, which he won for them through his suffering, his blood, and his death on the cross. That was something that Moses didn’t bring, but Jesus did bring. So in this way, Jesus is very much like Moses, and he is a wonderful teacher of both the law and the Gospel, but especially the Gospel. We read in John’s Gospel: The law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Now, if we look back through the bible, we read that there were many great prophets, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And if we were to name the greatest of these prophets, we would probably say, Elijah. Elijah was an amazing prophet, and he spoke God’s word clearly and boldly at a time when very few people wanted to hear it. However, we believe that Elijah was not this prophet that Moses spoke about, but that Jesus is this prophet.

And we realise this at the Transfiguration, because not only is Moses standing there with Jesus but also Elijah. And together Moses and Elijah testify by their presence, that the prophet that the Jewish people are looking for is not Elijah, but Jesus Christ. Can you see this wonderful way in which Moses and Elijah point to Jesus here? And together they show that Jesus is the fulfilment of these words from Deuteronomy: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, from your brothers—it is to him that you shall listen.

But there are two more things in the Transfiguration that relate to this prophecy. First, it says that Jesus will come from among you, from your brothers. Moses means that Jesus will come from the Jewish people, not from some other people. And so, we see Jesus here, just like an ordinary Jewish man, amongst his three friends, Peter, James and John. He takes them up the mountain, these three fishermen, who grew up similarly to him, and to whom Jesus talks to as an ordinary person to ordinary people. Jesus came from among them, from among the Jewish people. But then, when they arrive at the place, a separation occurs—Peter, James and John are over there, and Jesus is over there. Jesus is shining with brilliant light, with all the light of his divine nature, brighter than the light from heaven itself, and Peter, James and John are completely dazzled by it. Because Jesus is not just a normal Jewish man, but he is also the Son of God, and in fact, true God of true God. At the end of the reading, when the cloud has gone, and everything is back to normal, Jesus touches his disciples, like a brother, like a friend, and he says: Rise, and have no fear. Don’t be afraid, it’s me, let’s go, let’s walk together. And so, Jesus comes from among his people, from the Jewish people, from their brothers.

But secondly, God the Father wants to make it especially clear that these words from Deuteronomy apply to Jesus. Moses says: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among you, from your brothers—it is to him that you shall listen. At the Transfiguration, God the Father himself hides his voice in a cloud, and speaks his voice to all who are there: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him! Moses said: It is to him that you shall listen. And now God the Father says: Listen to him! It’s as if God the Father is coming with his own finger, and pointing to his only Son, and saying to Peter and James and John: This is the one that you’ve all been waiting for, this is the one you should listen to. In fact, every Sunday, this is what we Christians actually come here to do. We come to listen to Jesus. We don’t come to listen simply to a pastor, or to listen to each other over morning tea. We come to listen to Jesus, as he speaks his own words to his people, through the absolution and the forgiveness of sins, whenever someone is baptised through the words that are spoken, in the Lord’s Supper when we hear that this bread and wine is in actual fact his body and blood, and in the sermon, when the word of God and the words of salvation are proclaimed and spoken to you. So listen to God the Father’s voice, when he says to you: Listen to him! Listen to Jesus!

Now, there’s another aspect to the Transfiguration that we haven’t really spoken about yet. What happens here is an amazing vision. And Jesus himself calls it a vision, but it’s not like the disciples were dreaming or day-dreaming, and what they saw wasn’t actually real. It was real, it happened. They saw it, and they saw it as something that was happening right there in front of them, they didn’t imagine it, and it didn’t happen in their heads.

But also, there’s something very mysterious in the way that Moses and Elijah appeared. Because in one sense, they were dead—but also, there was something very strange about the deaths of both these men. With Moses, nobody knew where he was buried. In the book of Jude, it says that there was some kind of dispute between the archangel Michael and the devil about the body of Moses. We don’t really know much about it, but it’s a strange thing that nobody knew where Moses’ body was, and yet, here at the Transfiguration, here is Moses. Also, Elijah was taken into heaven on a chariot—he didn’t die a normal death, and he also didn’t have a grave site. And yet, at the Transfiguration, here is Elijah. All this is very mysterious, and strange, and is a holy mystery that we leave in the hands of God. We don’t want to delve into it too much, because if we do, it can even become dangerous to us. When Peter starts to ask about these things, God brings down a cloud. It’s as if he puts all these things off limits. Sometimes Christians are deceived into thinking that they need to penetrate through this cloud of unknowing to discover God in the darkness there. No—the cloud comes down, the mysterious things are off-limits, and God the Father points us to Jesus.

Now, there are actually many people in our country and in our society who are interested in spiritual things. In the 60s, many hippies went to India to find spiritual enlightenment. Many people still go to wellness clinics in Asia to find spiritual health. Many people want to receive visions, and they want to contact the dead, and cross over into other dimensions, and they start to wonder about all these things. People even today, just like superstitious people in ancient times, look up at the stars, and practice astrology, and try to derive meaning from them, as if the stars and the zodiac are telling us messages about our lives.

Well, Moses spoke about these things in Deuteronomy: Earlier, I read where Moses said to beware of the practices of the nations when they entered into the Promised Land. Moses says: The nations, which you are about to possess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this. Moses makes a long list of these strange practices of the nations: fortune-telling, sacrificing children, practicing divination—which is, let’s say, “trying to get a message from something that doesn’t give messages”—, interpreting omens (like reading stars, or tea-leaves, or bird-calls, or whatever, to get some warning), sorcery (which is witchcraft, or occult), charming (which is attaching some spiritual power to something that doesn’t have that power—like saying, “this magic rock will protect you”). Moses also mentions, “mediums” (who are people who claim to give messages from the dead), or “necromancy” (which is talking to dead)… all these things, Moses says, the nations listen to these people. But the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. Instead, who should you listen to? Moses says, “It is to him you shall listen!” To the prophet like me! God says: This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased. Listen to him!

What Moses describes with all these strange practices things, is basically the traditional religions which are found all across the world. If you go to India, you’ll find talking to the dead, reading omens, fortune-telling in Hinduism. If you go to Africa, you’ll find it there with the witch-doctors. If you go to South America, you’ll find it there with the shamans, or whoever. And this stuff is making a strange come-back in Australia. If you start take notice, you’ll see this stuff everywhere, and realise just what a pagan country Australia.

What you need to know, and what Moses teaches, and what God the Father teaches at the Transfiguration, is that, if you hear a message from any of these people, who practice this stuff, it is not Jesus. It is not the voice of Jesus. The Word of God does not come through these people, and these practices. It is mutually exclusive to listen to the fortune-tellers, and to listen to him!

So we don’t become distracted by the wonderful spiritual vision at the Transfiguration, and go off trying to chase our own personal spiritual vision, through whatever means. We don’t become distracted by the presence of Moses and Elijah who are there, and start trying to build tents for dead people, and try to talk to them, and get messages from them. King Saul wanted to talk to dead Samuel, and he was rejected by God.

And so, at the Transfiguration, there are so many comforts for us. We don’t need to embroil ourselves in all this complicated, mystical stuff. We are simply told to listen to Jesus, to hold fast to his Word, and never let it go. When we have the Words of Jesus, we have everything we need. We have everything we could ever possibly want, and we will never be disappointed. He is our true Saviour, our true God, our true Light, who has won the true forgiveness of our sins, and promises us eternal life with Moses and Elijah, and all his saints, in wonderful glory, just like we see in the Transfiguration. Our bodies will be transformed to be like his. The forgiveness of sins which receive even today through the absolution and the Lord’s Supper is the beginning of that wonderful Transfiguration that will happen to us on the last day so that all our sins will be completely erased and we will shine like Jesus. So let’s listen to him, and take tremendous comfort in this event! Amen.

Pentecost VII (Proper 9 B) [Mark 6:1-13] (8-Jul-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am (lay-reading), and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 9am.

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

A prophet is not without honour, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.

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, Jesus goes to his hometown of Nazareth, where he grew up as a boy, and he is goes to the synagogue and he preaches there. And instead of being welcomed with open arms as their local boy, he is rejected and kicked out. We read: They took offense at him.

And Jesus says: A prophet is not without honour, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.

And we read also: [Jesus] could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief.

I’d like to focus first of all on what Jesus says: A prophet is not without honour, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. What’s Jesus talking about? Well, obviously, he’s talking about himself, in that here he is, as a prophet, coming to his own hometown, but he is not honoured at all. Jesus is also hinting that when a prophet comes from a faraway place, people receive the prophet well. Maybe they think, “Here’s someone from a faraway country, and they’ve got something new and exotic to say.”

It’s strange how someone from a faraway place often has more authority than a local person. If someone came and said something wise to us, and they happened to be from an exotic, ancient culture with all kinds of strange customs, we might listen. But for a lot of us, if it were our mums that said the same thing, we might not take any notice.

And so, what Jesus says is true: often someone from another place holds more weight or more authority. But this is not exactly what he is talking about. He says: A prophet is not without honour, except in his hometown. Here Jesus is speaking about prophets, and he refers to himself as a prophet.

So what exactly is a prophet? Well, Jesus is often referred to as a prophet. But of course, he is much more than simply a prophet, like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Daniel. He is also the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. Even so, Jesus is called a prophet. When John the Baptist was preaching and baptising, there were some Jews that went up to him and asked him, “Are you the prophet?” And John says: No.They didn’t ask John if he was a prophet, any old prophet, but the prophet. They were looking forward to a particular prophet.

Now, to work out what they were talking about here, we have to go back to Deuteronomy chapter 18. Here we find Moses giving a sermon to the people and he says: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen… I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. And so from this passage, we see that the Jewish people were looking for a particular prophet, who could come from their people. God says that they must listen to him. And God is going to put his own words in the mouth of this particular prophet, and if people don’t listen to him, they will be cut off from God’s people. You can see that whoever this particular prophet is going to be, it is going to be very important that people recognise him when he comes and listen to him.

In the New Testament, in the book of Acts, in two different places, we read that this prophet was actually Jesus. This is preached by Peter in a sermon, and also by Stephen in a sermon. We know then that this prophet is Jesus himself, it is to him we should listen. The words that Jesus speaks are God’s words, and whoever does not listen to him will be answerable to God. Moses says: It is to him you shall listen. We read in the Gospels about that event in Jesus’ life, called the Transfiguration, where he is standing on the top of a mountain together with Moses and Elijah, and the face of Jesus shines with bright radiant light. We read that on that occasion a voice came from heaven in a cloud. And what did he say? This is beloved Son. Listen to him. Do you hear that? Listen to him. Here God the Father himself is telling us that this Jesus, His only Son, is the prophet that Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy where he said: It is to him you shall listen. Even God Himself confirms this and says: Listen to him.

And so, back to our reading, here is Jesus, and he is in his own hometown. He is with his friends and family and relatives. Moses said this would happen: The Lord God will raise up a prophet from among you, from your brothers. And yet the people are so blind, that they can’t recognise Jesus as the person who fulfils the prophecy of Moses. And they take offense at him. Now this is a frightening thing, because Moses also says that if they don’t listen to this prophet, it will be required of them of the Lord. And so Jesus gives a testimony about what is going on. He says: A prophet is not without honour, except in his hometown. What a sad day this must have been for Jesus, that he should be rejected in his own town. And yet, the people are too busy remembering his childhood. They say: Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? You can almost hear an old lady in the crowd saying: “I changed his nappies.”

On the other hand, Jesus’ words are so full of grace and power. One word from Jesus has the power to forgive each one of our sins and promise us eternal life and an open door of heaven. And he actually does promise each of us this. He baptises us and writes his name on us, and puts his cross on each of us. We belong to him and we are his. And he writes our names in his book of life. And week after week, and day after day as Christians, we learn more about this wonderful Saviour that we have—and the more we learn about him, the more we learn about how much he forgives us and loves us. Jesus is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, and he is so much greater than any prophet who has ever lived, that every word that he speaks is full of grace, full of love, full of joy, full of hope. Listen to the prophecy he speaks to you: Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Or what about the prophecy he speaks to the thief on the cross: Today, you shall be with me in Paradise. Who would want to reject such a wonderful prophet like that?

Today, people often misunderstand what a prophet is, though. People often think that it is the same thing as a fortune-teller. People think, “a prophet tells things about the future”, and so does a fortune-teller, so they must be the same thing. Jesus speaks life-giving words—he doesn’t read palms. And then, many people don’t really believe in fortune-tellers, so they don’t really believe in prophets either. But there’s a great difference between a prophet and a fortune-teller, and we have to know the difference. In the chapter from Deuteronomy which we read from before, where Moses prophesies that there will be another prophet, Moses talks about a whole lot of forbidden practices: interpreting omens, sorcery, mediums, and this also includes fortune-telling. Moses says: These nations which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. You can see here that fortune-telling is completely forbidden. But instead, what does Moses call us to listen to? He says: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. We should listen to Christ, not a fortune-teller. And Moses here plays off these fortune-tellers directly with Christ. They are in direct opposition to each other.

Now this is important for us too, because sometimes in the church we might encounter someone who claims to be a prophet, and they claim to bring a word from God. Or sometimes, even Christians get involved in some New Age stuff, and go and visit someone who they think can tell them the future. We need be discerning and to ask the question: Is this from the Holy Spirit?

Well, in the book of Acts, we read an example about this. In Acts 16:16, we read: As we [that is, Paul and Silas and Luke] were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” Do you see, here is a girl who is a fortune-teller, possibly like some kind of New Age person in our time. And we read here that she actually tells the truth about who Paul is. It’s true: These men really are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation. But then we read: Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

So you can see here that even though this fortune-teller was telling the truth about Paul and Silas, Paul told the spirit to come out of her, and rejected her. You can see here that this is not prophecy of the Holy Spirit, and this kind of occult stuff cannot be used in the service of Christ and of his kingdom. It is forbidden, and God rejects it.

This is so important for us—because often when we look at a situation like this, like fortune-telling, two different opinions will come about. Some will say: That’s a load of rubbish! Fortune-telling doesn’t really work. And on the other hand, some will say: Maybe it does it work. But the important thing for us as Christians, is not whether it works or not, but where the power is from. This also applies to all kinds of spiritual stuff, and pseudo-spiritual stuff. The question is not whether it works, but where the power is from. Even if it works, it may still be from the devil. A fortune-teller is not sent by God—a prophet is sent by God and speaks with all the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is not to fortune-tellers we should listen. But it is to the true prophet, to Christ, to Jesus, that we should listen. He is even better than all the prophets put together, because he promises to you the forgiveness of sins. He has paid for all of your sin with his own suffering, with his own death, with his own blood. And now he is risen from the dead, he is seated at God’s right hand and he now brings all of his power and all of his promises right here to you. And he even breathes out upon you the Holy Spirit so that you can hide yourself in his wounds, so that you can place your body and soul into his arms, and so that you can rest him until that time when he draws you to himself in eternity.

We receive all the wonderful gifts of our prophet Jesus, simply by trusting in him, and believing in his word. We know that his words never lie. They are completely reliable and trustworthy. We read in our reading that when the people were offended by Jesus, that Jesus could do not no mighty work there… and he marvelled because of their unbelief. He only performed a few healings for some individuals, but not for the benefit of the whole town. On the other hand, when we hear God’s word, we should pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit so that He will create a living faith in us, so that we trust in Jesus’ words. Who knows what wonderful work Jesus can perform among us when we simply trust in his living, prophetic word? Jesus is the one who gives the gifts, faith is simply the hand which he puts them in.

Now, even today here in the church, we join Jesus in bringing his prophetic ministry to the world by testifying about him, and speaking his words. We read in the book of Revelation: The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. When we speak about Jesus, either I as a pastor in sermons and in pastoral work, or you wherever you happen to be among your friends and family, you speak with the spirit of prophecy when you speak the truth and testify to Jesus. And isn’t it so often the case that prophets are not welcome in their own hometown? There are so many parents that worry about their children falling away from the faith, and if we parents spoke to our children about Jesus, their hearts only get harder—of course, they know too much about us! Often I’ve seen this at funerals, where an old Christian person has died, and then all the children are organising the funeral, and they’re not Christian, except for one. And the burden of trying to arrange a church funeral for their Christian mother or father seems to lie on this one person, and the rest of the family just comes up with one silly idea after another. There’s the old expression: You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family! Well, Jesus wants to encourage us by his words and by his example here in our reading. He says: I know what it’s like. I had an earthly family too. I grew up on a certain street, in a certain town, in a certain place—and then when I spoke the truth to them, they rejected me. And Jesus says: Do you think it was my fault they didn’t listen? Of course not! So be encouraged. We are living in a time where so many people don’t want to hear the truth, and don’t want to change their mind about anything. And then we think, if we speak too loudly, or speak out of place, we’re just going to get our heads chopped off, and have some angry person come at us and ram it down our throats. Be encouraged! Jesus came to his own people, and his own people did not receive him. They threw him out of town, he suffered, he died. And Jesus says: Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted… (who?) the prophets – (the prophets!) – who were before you.

Being a faithful Christian can be a lonely walk sometimes, a lonely way. But Jesus always walks it with you, and he wants to encourage you. He will open your mouth at the right time, and when it is the time to close it, he will keep it closed. But in the meantime, he will send you the Holy Spirit, and he will teach you his word, and he will build up your faith.

Even now, Jesus has placed us under his authority, and has spoken to us the forgiveness of all our sins—our sins of speaking when we shouldn’t have and giving the faith a bad name, our sins of not speaking when we should have spoken. Jesus walks with us, he takes us with him. We read in our reading: Jesus went about among the villages teaching.

Let’s thank Jesus for also coming to our church today and teaching us his word! Amen.

Dear Lord Jesus, we have so often not given you the honour you deserve, and we have taken offense at you, and hardened our hearts. We ask that you would send us your Holy Spirit, forgive us, and we ask that you would take charge of our spirits and place them under your authority. We commit ourselves into your hands for your service and as you would use us for your kingdom. Amen.

Pentecost VI (Proper 8 B) [Mark 5:21-43] (1-Jul-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.

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 read about how Jesus is called to the home of a man called Jairus, whose daughter is dying, and when they get there, they find her dead, and Jesus raises her from the dead. But also, along the way, a woman in the crowd with a bleeding problem touches Jesus’ garments, and she is healed.

So our reading starts, where we read: Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” And he went with him. This man simply brings his needs to Jesus, and Jesus is happy to go with him. The man is particularly desperate because he has a daughter who is dying. He doesn’t want to see his child die, and he believes that Jesus is his only hope—or even his last hope—in preventing that from happening.

Then we read about something that happens as Jesus is walking along to his house. We read: And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years. Here we see another person who is very desperate. What a devastating thing it must have been for her to have this problem for so long! She must have despaired of life itself sometimes. And yet, like Jairus, she comes to Jesus as her last hope.

It also says about her that she had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.

This little verse gives us a tremendous insight into this woman’s life and her struggles. There are many people in our society like this, and maybe you feel like this. Maybe you’ve suffered much under many physicians, and spent all that you had, and you haven’t got any better but you’ve just become worse. Anyway, in our country, where we have so many good things, and where we are able to benefit from all kinds of advances in technology, many people often wonder why they find it so difficult to stay healthy and fit. After all, those who hold to the theory of evolution have said that the human race is getting better and better, and it’s all about the survival of the fittest. But then, people ask, “why I am sick all the time?” There are many Christians who often only pray for themselves or for other people when they are sick, as if it’s the most important in their life.

Physical health is a good thing, and it’s a good gift from God, but it’s not the most important thing. Health can so easily turn into an idol, and we fear losing our health more than we fear God himself. Even many Christians can start to direct all their spiritual attention to their physical health, and become obsessed with it.

But before we go on, I’d like to say something about doctors, and the vocation of being a doctor or a medical professional. There are some Christians who don’t like doctors, and think that instead they should pray to God for healing. Now sometimes, we have no choice—some people who live way out bush in the middle of “Woop-Woop” can’t get to a doctor, and so they have to make do with their home remedies. But even if we go to a doctor, we should always also pray for our healing too. A good doctor is a wonderful gift from God.

In 2 Chronicles, we read: In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet, and his disease became severe. Yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians. Now this passage is not saying that doctors are bad, but is accusing King Asa of never praying to God, even when he was very sick. On the other hand, we read in the bible, that Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts was a doctor. At the end of Colossians, Paul writes: Luke the beloved physician greets you. We can see from the examples of these writings how God used this doctor Luke for a wonderful purpose in his kingdom.

Now it’s a wonderful thing to have a good doctor. And we might go to the doctor, and get a prescription for some medicine. Now, doctors only ever do their best, from what they know from their studies and research. The actual task of healing belongs to God. Whether the medicine works, whether the particular medicine works in our particular situation, and exactly how long it takes for us to become well again—all those things are not controlled by the doctor, but by God. So we shouldn’t neglect praying for our health when we go to the doctor, but be ready and willing to become well or to stay unwell according to God’s will and according to his timing. It’s in him that we live and move and have our being. A doctor provides a treatment, but then we look to God to make that treatment effective in his time and according to his will.

Now the fifth commandment states: You shall not murder. The bible teaches very clearly that human life right from its very beginning in conception to the very last breath is exactly that—human life. And it is sinful to take away human life, whether it is at the very beginning, by aborting a child, or at the very end, by euthanasia. It is God who is the giver and the taker of life, not us. Job says: The Lord gives, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. We need to pray for more Christian doctors in this country, because the medical profession has changed tremendously in recent years, because doctors are being asked more and more to take life, rather than to help preserve it. One of the greatest evils that has been unleashed on this country and throughout the world has been the murder of millions of unborn children, and one of the greatest evils that is underway in this country at the moment and throughout the world is the push to bring in euthanasia. A mother’s womb and a hospital bed are supposed to be safe places—and they need to stay that way.

Sometimes there are certain things for which modern medicine simply doesn’t have the answer. We also have naturopaths in our country too, and often they have a particular knowledge of herbs, or massage, or other things, that might be helpful. If we make use of people like this, we should also look to God for our healing through them.

But let’s come back to the woman in our reading for a moment. We read about her: She had heard reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well”. And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

It’s quite an amazing thing that happens here. The woman is hidden in the crowd, and she simply touches Jesus’ clothes, and she is healed.

But then we read: And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Now we might ask, “Why did Jesus single this woman out, and even maybe embarrass her a bit in front of everyone?” After all, we might think that her problem was quite personal and she might have liked to keep it to herself. But if Jesus hadn’t singled her out from the crowd, no-one would ever have known what had happened to this woman, including us.

The same goes for us as Christians: we often come on Sundays to meet Jesus as part of a crowd, sometimes a small crowd or a large crowd. And yet, he blesses us individually—he singles us all out from the crowd. He doesn’t simply say: I forgive you all your sins, to the crowd, but he addresses these words to you personally, with his stamp and his seal on the envelope. Your personal salvation is Jesus’ personal interest. None of us were baptised as a crowd with the pastor holding a great big fire hose! No—all of us were baptised individually, and Jesus gently and lovingly singles us out from the crowd to apply his message of salvation and forgiveness and eternal life to you personally, just like this woman here.

But also, we learn from this, that it wasn’t simply the mere touching of Jesus’ clothes that healed her. Jesus says: Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease. He says: Your faith has made you well. We read not only that the women touched Jesus’ clothes, but she also said in her heart: If I touch even his garments, I will be made well. She knew, and believed, what wonderful divine power belonged to this man, Jesus, and so when she touched his clothes in faith, the power of Jesus to heal her went out from him.

The same goes for us in a spiritual way—when we trust God’s word and believe the Gospel, and trust in the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life, Jesus’ power goes out to us, and he fills us with the Holy Spirit. Now, when it comes to physical health, Jesus will heal us according to his will and according to how it benefits his kingdom. Don’t forget also, that eventually we will also all die, and it is a wonderful thing to be with Jesus in Paradise. Many times in our lives, we will recover from illnesses and all kinds of things. But in the next life, our bodies will be transformed and purified and cleansed of every single scrap of disease and illness and disability, because all of these things are present in the world because of sin. And so when we receive the forgiveness of sins in this life in the church, it points us forward to that time when we will also be given complete and physical healing of every single problem we endure in this life. Sometimes, even the things we have endured in this life will be transformed in such a way that they will be signs of our victory in faith. For example, after his resurrection, Jesus still had his wounds, but they were no longer a sign of his shame and humiliation, but a badge of honour and victory over death. St Paul says: The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Now, just one more thing I’d like to say about the verse, where it says that Jesus perceived in him that power had gone out from him. Here we see how our physical healing, whether in this life or the next, comes as a result of Jesus’ power going out from him. Sometimes, Jesus lets us stay a little longer than we might like in our sickness and trouble, and we start to wonder why he doesn’t fix us up.

In 1 Samuel, we read about how Saul went to inquire of the Lord, but he didn’t answer him. So instead, he went and consulted a medium (or a witch) instead. When he didn’t receive an answer from God, he then went and made use of the wrong spiritual powers, and made use of the occult. You see, in our country, we have doctors and naturopaths, but then there is also a third category, which we might call “supernatural” healers. And these people are not always easy to spot. But as our society becomes less Christian, there has been a rise of strange healing practices which rely on spiritual forces, and sometimes stray into the occult. But we need to be aware of this, because there are many, many practitioners of occult medicine that are around.

But listen to what it says about Jesus: He perceived that power had gone out from him. It’s one thing to go a doctor or health practitioner and get a prescription, or some herbal remedies, or whatever, but we have to also be careful that we use the means that God allows to us and not make use of the wrong power. So in giving a little warning, I’ll mention a few things that you should watch out for and avoid.

Firstly, be careful of when people say that the “mind” can heal the “body”. Let God heal your body, but don’t elevate your mind in the place of God. There is a whole church dedicated to mind healing which is called “Christian Science”, which are neither Christian nor scientific. Medicine should work whether you believe in it or not. If a practitioner says the reason the treatment didn’t work is because you didn’t believe in it, then it probably means that they are relying on your mind-power more than the treatment. Also, beware of things that claim to be “holistic healing”, if it claims to deal with your soul or spirit in some strange way, or involves some strange prayer which has nothing to do with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Second, be careful of healing practices that talks about manipulating energy or forces or magnetism, and things like that. There are many alternative medical practices that speak in scientific terms which are completely unscientific and are really talking about some mystical, psychic, occult power. An example of something like this is a practice known as Reiki.

And especially, avoid like the plague anything that claims to be obviously occult, like a medium. I once heard of a woman who went to a psychic medium and was healed of some condition, only then to be diagnosed with another serious disease.  And she was angry with God, and began to blaspheme.  Fortunately, a Christian person heard her blaspheming and spoke to her and she renounced her use of the medium. I’m saying these things because I don’t want you to suffer much under many physicians, and spend all that you have, and instead of getting better you just get worse.

Now, when we were baptised, we took a vow: I renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways. And sometimes, during our lives, God then shows us something that we have done—maybe in trying to make ourselves well—which was not from him, and made use of some other spiritual power or an occult power, and sometimes when we didn’t realise it. Don’t despair! The door of forgiveness stands wide open for us. If only we would touch the hem of Jesus’ garments we would be made well. For us, when we hear Jesus’ words of forgiveness and receive the Lord’s Supper, “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins”, we touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. And Jesus says: Your faith has saved you; go in peace.

At the end of our reading today, we read about where Jesus raises up Jairus’ daughter from the dead. When they arrive at the house, someone comes out and says: Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?

But what they don’t realise is that Jesus doesn’t just have power over disease, but also over death. There will come a time when this little girl will die again in the future, but in the next life, when her body is raised from the grave and she is transformed and transfigured just like Jesus himself, Jesus will make her even more beautiful than she has ever been in this life.

And so Jesus says: The child is not dead but sleeping. And it says: And they laughed at him. Our world likes to mock the Christian faith, and say that when a person dies, they die, and that’s it. But Jesus knows better than we do. When we die, it is only a sleep. Our soul goes to be with Jesus, just as he said to the thief on the cross: Today you will be with me in Paradise. But at the end of the world, he will also raise our bodies, just like Paul says: Behold! I tell you a mystery! We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. We also read that Jesus will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.

And so, he says to the girl: Little girl, I say to you, arise. Here Jesus gives a wonderful example of just how easy it is for him to raise someone from the dead, and gives a little foretaste of what will happen at the end of the world. As Luther writes in the Small Catechism: On the last day, he will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.

We also learn here that even our faith is a gift. The woman with the bleeding had heard about Jesus’ reputation, and a living faith was created in her. The same with the girl’s father. But when Jesus spoke the word to the girl and raised her up, she made absolutely no contribution to this resurrection whatsoever. She was dead, but when Jesus’ spoke his word to her, she arose. In the same way, when Jesus speaks his words of salvation, of eternal life, of the forgiveness of sins, of the resurrection of the body, it is his powerful word that does the thing, it is his power that goes out from him. We simply receive in faith the gift that he gives, and Jesus’ words create that faith.

And so, let’s place our weak bodies into Jesus’ forgiving and transforming hands, and ask him to use us however and wherever he sends us, and finally, to give us the gift of eternal life, where our bodies will be transformed and purified from all disease and death to be like his.

Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for healing this woman in our reading, and for raising this girl. Forgive us, heal us and use us as you will. Amen.

Epiphany V B [Mark 1:29-39] (4-Feb-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In our reading today, we follow on from where we left off last week, where we read about Jesus preaching in a synagogue in Capernaum and then he cast out an unclean spirit from a man. And we read at the end of our reading from last week that as soon as he had this, at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee. This sounds like this was something that might have happened over days or weeks, but we read later in our reading, that news must have spread among many people within only a few hours.

We read in our reading today about very specific times when things happened in the day which followed this event. We read at the beginning of our Gospel reading today: And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. After having gone to the synagogue, we read that Jesus went around to Peter’s house, probably for a meal. Then later in the reading we read: That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. So let’s say Jesus went to Peter’s house in the afternoon, now we read about what was happening in the evening, where Jesus was healing people. Then later again in the reading it says: And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. So here we read about what Jesus was doing in the very early hours of the morning of the next day. And that really summarises what’s going on in our reading today. So we’re going to look at three things in our reading today:

I.                   What Jesus did on Saturday afternoon.

II.                 What Jesus did on Saturday evening.

III.              What Jesus did on Sunday morning.

So let’s come to our first part, where we read about

I.                   What Jesus did on Saturday afternoon.

We read: Immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. And what does Jesus find at their house when they get there? Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay in bed with a fever, and immediately they told him about her.

Here we find a wonderful encouragement about how we should deal with our family and relatives as Christians. Many Australians have all kinds of troubles with their families. There are many families who have people who don’t speak to them. Sometimes people are easily offended, and they blame their parents for all kinds of problems. Sometimes people just don’t know how to solve their problems without yelling in each other’s faces. It’s a great thing if people are able simply to sit down and talk about difficult issues without being personal, without attacking, without yelling.

But families are a gift, and we have all kinds of people in our families, and people with all kinds of different opinions about religion and politics, and all kinds of things. But also, even though our families can be people who are quite different from us, we find ourselves connected to them in a particularly special way, even if there’s some kind of estrangement and people are not really talking to each other much anymore. In our reading, Peter’s mother-in-law is in trouble: she is particularly sick. She is laying ill with a fever. And what does he do? He and the other disciples with him simply tell Jesus about her.

This gives us such a wonderful example, because when our relatives, our parents, our children, our spouse, our parent-in-law, our grandparents, our grandchildren, our aunties and uncles and our cousins are in some kind of trouble, what should we do about it? First, simply tell Jesus about them. We often don’t have any power to help them, but Jesus does.

And so we read in our reading: And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. These words are so simply, it almost sounds like this was just so normal and natural for Jesus, the kind of thing he could easily do every day with no fuss or bother.

Now, we pastors often go around visiting people, and praying for people. And it’s very common if we ask people what they’d like us to pray for that they say to pray for good health. Now, good health is a good thing. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray: Give us today our daily bread. And good health is part of what we need to do our daily tasks for each day. But sometimes we can make a bit of an idol out of health, and we can carry on as if it’s the most important thing in our life. It’s not. It’s a wonderful gift, but it’s not the most important thing. Even more important that the health of our body is the health of our soul. At the beginning of John’s third letter, he writes: Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.

And so what are the things that are good for our soul? Sometimes people say a good walk or a good cup of coffee is good for the soul. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the word of God. In order for our souls to survive, we need the word of God. The word of God is that thing that we put our trust in, that when we hear it and believe in the gospel, that we have a saving faith created in us, and God looks at us and sees not us and all our sins but he sees his Son Jesus and his righteousness completely covering us over. God sees our faith in the word of God—that word of God which never lies, and that word of God which shows us our Saviour—God see that faith and he counts it to us as righteousness. Even if our lives are completely full of sin, it is the word of God in the Scripture preached in its truth and purity that has all the power in it to create a new heart and a living faith in us, because this is the word from God’s own mouth himself.

And so we should pray for the Holy Spirit for ourselves that we would hear the word of God and understand it, we should pray for our pastors that they would also preach the truth in the power of the Holy Spirit, and we should also pray for the members of our church to receive the Holy Spirit and believe the word so that we may also be drawn together. We should also pray for unbelievers that their hearts would be converted by the power of that same word and the Holy Spirit.

All these things are more important than physical health, because even if we ever find ourselves in hospital, or having chemotherapy, or coughing up blood and phlegm, or hooked up to a dialysis machine, or generally be “as sick as a dog”, we can always continue this holy Christian work of bringing the needs of our friends and our fellow Christians and the world to Jesus.

However, even though the things of Christ’s kingdom are more important than physical health, it’s not as if physical health is not important. Christ healed many people, who would go on to die. Even when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus died again someday. So what was the point?

But when Jesus heals people, he shows a wonderful truth and a wonderful reality. Our bodies are his creation. He formed us in our mother’s womb, and our bodies were shaped and formed with his hands. But then after we die and we go to be with Jesus in heaven, we also have the promise in the Scripture that at the end of the world there will be a resurrection of the dead. Just as Jesus takes this woman who is burning up with fever by the hand and cools her down, so also he will gather all the dust and ashes of our rotted and decayed bones and bodies and he will raise them up with the same effortlessness as he does with the woman with the fever in the reading. And it won’t be as if he simply resuscitates us, so that we’re still the same ugly mob that we were on earth, but we will be completely transformed to be like Jesus. In Philippians, St Paul writes that Jesus will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. In 1 Corinthians it says: Behold! I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

So when we die, we believe that our soul will go to be with Jesus. Jesus said to the thief on the cross: Today you will be with me in Paradise. And St Paul says: My desire is to depart and to be with Christ. But also, our bodies are not simply the leftover bits. Sometime later there will be a resurrection of the dead, and those who believe in Christ will experience a complete and total healing of our bodies and a glorification and transformation of our bodies so that we will be like Jesus. Our bodies were created by God, and he will also redeem them. How we will experience the timing of these things once we die, we have no idea, and the bible doesn’t tell us these things. We leave that up to God.

So let’s come back to our reading. It says: The fever left her, and she began to serve them. When we or someone we know is sick, we should pray for healing. Even in James, we are told that we should call the elders of the church, and let them pray over us, and even have them anoint us with oil, as a special marker for committing the sick person to God, in the name of the Lord, and pray for us. Also, in the church, pastors also speak God’s word and bring the Lord’s Supper to people in their times of sickness. Whatever happens, whether we are healed now or not, we know that there will always be a miracle. At least we know that on the last day Jesus will completely heal and transform our bodies, because he has died on the cross and risen from the dead and forgives us all of our sins. There will always be a miracle. But whether or not we experience a miracle of healing in this life, on this side of the grave, is not promised to us. We should ask for it, but if we don’t receive it, that’s OK. We will wait for a more glorious time in the next life. What we read in our reading is that Peter’s mother-in-law began to serve them. If we do receive a great miracle of healing, the purpose is so that we can serve, and particularly to serve Christ and his disciples, his church, in his kingdom. But if we remain sick, the question is still: how has Christ called me to serve his kingdom here in my condition? How is God’s name glorified through this, whether I am healthy or sick? That’s the wonderful thing we learn from this event so very simply told to us in our reading.

So let’s come to the second part of our reading today, about

II.                 What Jesus did on Saturday evening.

After Jesus had cast out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue, the news spread fast all around the place. We read: That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

Last week, I spoke in detail about unclean spirits, and demons, and what exactly they are and how Jesus went about casting one out from a man. I won’t say it all again, but I’d like to make a couple of comments about our reading here. Two things are mentioned: diseases and demons. Jesus heals people with diseases, and the demons he casts out. There are two categories here—not everyone who is sick is demonised, and not everyone who is demonised is sick. Jesus deals with both situations.

But the reading tells us something specific about the demons. It says: He would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. The demons here have personalities, and they speak. And it’s a strange thing that at the same time as Jesus is revealed as the Holy One of God, and at the same time as Jesus begins his ministry, all these demons are revealed. All of a sudden there are all kinds of people with demons.

And the thing about demonic powers, and unclean spirits, is that because they are supernatural creatures and belong to the devil, they have some access to certain knowledge that normal people like us wouldn’t otherwise know. This is, for example, where psychic power comes from. And so, sometimes, the people with demons know something that people otherwise wouldn’t know, and sometimes these things are true. But in the reading, it says: [Jesus] would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. The demons knew him, but Jesus doesn’t allow them to share their secret, hidden knowledge. Even though they know the truth, they are not allowed to speak. The reason for this is that once the devil leads people along with something true, he starts to take the truth away by mixing in errors with it. The only thing that can silence the evil spirit is the word of God, which is the living words of Jesus. And we need to be so careful that we don’t mix in half-truths with God’s word. But this is what the devil does: he feeds on the word, and adds things in, but then ultimately he takes the truth away, and people are left with nothing but emptiness and lies. Proverbs 30 says: Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

So it’s a wonderful demonstration of Jesus’ love for us and his power that he comes into the world, and he deals with evil and silences it in its tracks.

Let’s come now to the third part of the reading about

III.              What Jesus was doing on Sunday morning.

We read: And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you”. And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogue and casting out demons.

Jesus gives us a wonderful example here. He has had a busy day the day before, and he has a busy time ahead of him. And so in between, he spends some time alone and prays. He debriefs with God, and he prepares himself with God. When something wonderful happens in our life, we should remember to spend some time to tell God about it and commend it to him. When we are about to do some difficult work, we should also ask him for the strength to carry it out with his blessing and power.

Isn’t it funny how Jesus prays? He created the world together with his Father and the Holy Spirit. Why would he need to pray? Because he is a true man, a true human being like this, and this is what humans were created for: to talk to God and to live in fellowship with him.

But then also when Peter finds him, Jesus tells him that he’s eager to go and do some more preaching, and says: for that is why I came out. What does he mean by this? Where was he coming from? Jesus is talking about the fact that he came down from his eternal glory with his Father and entered into this world as a tiny baby born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus had existed right from before the beginning of time, in eternity with the Father. And he came forth into, he came out from heaven into the world, took human flesh, for what purpose, that he could go out and preach. And we see how the kingdom of Jesus goes from one town to the next town, with Jesus preaching his word all the way. And this Jesus came down from heaven just for this purpose, and he is true God. And as a true man, he prays to his Father, drawing all his strength from him. We see here the wonderful mystery of the fact that Jesus is both true man and true God in one person. He is the same Saviour who has suffered and died for us, and risen from the dead for us. And even today he comes to meet us, to preach his word to us, to come to our home in the afternoon, to help in all our troubles and to look after us in all our sicknesses, to spend the evening with us, and even before we have even woken up and thought about him, he has already gotten out of bed before us and has committed us and our day to the Father. What a faithful Saviour we have! Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for the wonderful way in which you look after us each day and at each part of the day. Teach us to bring our needs to you, and bless us so that we may serve you each day for your kingdom. Amen.

Epiphany IV B [Mark 1:21-28] (28-Jan-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Last week, we read about a specific message and a particular word that Jesus was preaching, where he said: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.

Today we read: They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath [Jesus] entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.

In our reading today, we don’t read about what Jesus was saying. The text simply says that he was teaching. But we do read the kind of effect that it had on people, and why it had this effect. We read: They were astonished at his teaching. But why were they astonished? We read: for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. Jesus was teaching not with simply human authority, like the scribes that the people were so used to. It is one thing to be a scribe, and to check and double-check words and grammar—this is a good thing. But it is another thing to teach. When Jesus teaches, he is not simply teaching empty words, or rhetoric. He is not saying a beautiful or a clever or a funny way of putting things. He is not showing off his ability to communicate, or his skills in giving a speech. This is all human authority. But Jesus’ teaching has authority, because he is not only a human being, but he is also true God at the same time, in one person. And so Jesus’ teaching is crystal clear, it is completely and totally true, and there are no half-truths. Sometimes people say things in a clever way so as to say two opposite things at the same time, and they end up saying nothing. In actual fact, they just want to say something to keep people happy, and to be politically correct, or to be diplomatic. But this is not how Jesus speaks: every word that he teaches is God’s word. Proverbs 30 says: Every word of God proves true. Jesus prays to his Father: Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. He also says that the Scripture cannot be broken. St Paul also writes to Titus that God never lies. And because of this, we read in Hebrews that the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And so when Jesus teaches, the people are astonished, they recognise the divine authority of Jesus, they recognise that there is something different about what he says that no one else has said to them before. They recognise that no-one has called them to repentance in the sharp, clear way that he has, and no-one has comforted them with the divine comfort of heaven in the way that he has.

But then, in the middle of Jesus’ teaching, something very strange happens. We read: Immediately there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him.”

First of all here, we are told that there was a man with an unclean spirit. An unclean spirit is another name for a demon, or sometimes it is called an evil spirit. Now what is an unclean spirit? One of things we often forget when we read the bible is that creation includes things that we can’t see. In the Nicene Creed, we confess: I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, or seen and unseen. The visible creation is what we see around us, and the creation of these things is describes right at the beginning of the bible, in Genesis chapter 1. Visible things include light, water, the sky, the earth, land, the sea, plants, trees, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the solar systems and galaxies, birds, fish, animals, reptiles, insects, and also, of course, humans. But then there are also certain things that God creates that are invisible: this includes heaven and hell, and also angels. Angels are spiritual beings, spirits that are created by God, that don’t have bodies, don’t have flesh and blood. However, like human beings, angels also were created with a free will. God commanded human beings to love him and serve him, and he created the angels to do the same. Loving and serving God means that we do it willingly—God does not have us like puppets on a string, making us love him by force. That wouldn’t be love.

And so, we also believe that the devil decided to use his free will not for God and in service of God, but in hatred towards God, and in rebellion against him, and for evil. Then Satan tempted the first people into sin, and the human race became sinful too, because they listened to the voice of the devil instead of God, and also chose evil over good. But also, we read that the devil was not the only angel who fell into sin, but there was a large number, who form a kind of army with the devil as the leader.

In our reading today, we read that an unclean spirit had entered into a man. Now, in our culture, something has happened in the last two or three hundred years, which is called the Scientific Enlightenment. From this time onwards people have made all kinds of advances in science, which has been a very good thing. However, at the same time, people started to reject things in the bible that weren’t able to be proven by science, or weren’t measurable by science. People started to deny that there’s anything that exists that you can’t see. We can see this today, where many people don’t believe in the existence of heaven or hell, angels or demons, the devil, or even God himself. They look at the world with a set of rules that just completely does away with anything that they can’t measure or prove with science.

Many people in the church too have often read passages such as the one in our reading today in a scientific—or we might say a “rationalistic”—way. This isn’t to say that we don’t use our brains when we read the bible. Of course, we do.  But we shouldn’t use our brain and our reason to try and make the bible say something that it doesn’t say. Especially we shouldn’t try and make the bible say the opposite of what it doesn’t say! This is exactly what the devil did when he tempted Eve: God had said that if they ate the fruit, that they would surely die. What does the devil do? He interprets God’s word in such a way as to make it say the exact opposite of what God actually said. The devil says: You will not surely die.

And so, it is common for people to read a passage like this in our reading today and to say that this man didn’t have an unclean spirit, but that he had a mental illness. However, this is not what the text says. Mental illness does exist, and sometimes there are certain mental illnesses that have symptoms which look similar to demon possessions. But they are not the same thing. Later in chapter 1 of Mark, we read that Jesus healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. There are two things here: Jesus was healing people who were sick, and he was casting out demons. They were not always the same thing. So there are two mistakes that people make: sometimes they think that there is no such thing as demon possession, and that everything is mental illness. Sometimes people think that there is no such thing as mental illness and everything is demon possession. Both of these things are wrong. Sometimes a person can go to a doctor or a psychiatrist and be treated for their mental illness—no problem. However, there are also situations where medical treatment can’t help—the reason is that the person is not really mentally ill, but are spiritually troubled.

But let’s pretend that the man in our reading does have a mental illness. Let’s listen then to what the man says. He says: What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God. What kind of mental illness is able to recognise Jesus, and to speak hidden things about him that other people wouldn’t otherwise know? Also look at what Jesus does in return. We read: But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him.”

When we’re dealing with mental illness, we’re dealing with a person who is sick, and who needs treatment. And when anyone is sick, whether they have a physically debilitating illness or are mentally ill, we should pray for them, and they should go and seek treatment. And we pray that Jesus would bring healing to the person, either in a natural way through treatment or through medicine as God provides through a doctor, or in a supernatural way through a special miracle of God. We know that in this life, God may or may not give a miraculous healing. But we do know that for those who believe in Jesus, that he will heal us completely and totally in the next life and completely transform and glorify our bodies so that we will completely free of all of our sickness and troubles.

Sometimes people—especially some charismatics or Pentecostals—make the mistake of believing that when people become Christians, they become sinless. So every time they see and recognise sin at work in them, they think it must be an evil spirit. Now, it is true that because our heart is sinful, the devil has a close ally inside of us. But some people make the mistake of always wanting exorcism, when in actual fact, they need absolution, and forgiveness. They need to hear the words that Jesus has died and paid for each and every single sin and their whole sinful heart and their whole sinful condition, and even in the church today we can hear the words of forgiveness from God himself spoken to us. When we hear the words: I forgive you all your sins, the devil has no more power to make accusations. Jesus has pulled his teeth out, and the devil can’t bite us anymore! As St Paul says in Romans: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When we’re talking about demon possession, we’re talking about two beings: one is a human being, a man or a woman like you and me, and the other is an invisible being, a demon or unclean spirit, who has entered in and joined itself to the person. This unclean spirit can take control of the person, like in our reading, where it uses the person to speak its own words. In our reading the unclean spirit uses the person and says: What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us? The unclean spirit even gives the person a special insight into hidden things that the person otherwise wouldn’t know. In our reading the unclean spirit says: I know who you are—the Holy One of God. Notice here that the demon tells something that is true, but the means of know that truth is not right. The words are true, but the authority is not right.

And so we might ask the question: how did this man end up like this? Well the text doesn’t actually tell us. However, Jesus does say to his disciples: I am the way and the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me. We know that outside of Jesus and his kingdom, life is a dangerous mess, and people are open and susceptible to all kinds of spiritual danger. However, in our reading, when Jesus is present there in the synagogue, and begins to teach, the unclean spirit is exposed.

Now, we read in the Scripture where God the Father’s voice comes down from heaven and says: This is my beloved Son: listen to him. This happens at the Transfiguration, when Jesus’ face and clothes began to shine with bright, white light. In the Old Testament, Moses had already spoken about the coming Messiah, and said: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. All throughout the New Testament, we read various passages that confirms this prophet to be Jesus, and even God the Father says: listen to him. Moses had said centuries before: It is to him you shall listen. But on the other hand, in the same passage, Moses says some other things. He says: There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.

So, do you hear that the nations listened to fortune-tellers and diviners, and lists a whole lot of occult practices that people did. All through the history of Israel and the kinds, we see that the Jewish people often mixed in the practices of the nations with God’s law. And so, what this passage teaches us is that fortune-tellers and diviners are not speaking with the voice of Jesus. Jesus does not use fortune-tellers and diviners to speak, but they use a different spiritual power. Moses says: Don’t listen to fortune-tellers and diviners. But God the Father says about Jesus: Listen to him.

In our culture, many people recognise that there’s more to life than what we can see. But then the mistake that people often make is that they think that everything spiritual is good. That’s not true. The truth is that the greatest good is spiritual good, but the greatest evil is spiritual evil. You can’t make use of a fortune-teller, or a psychic, or a clairvoyant, or a medium, and think that this is the Holy Spirit—it’s not. God has specifically said in his word that listening to Jesus Christ and listening to fortune-tellers and diviners are mutually exclusive things. And so when people open themselves up to these kinds of false ideas and false practices, and particularly occult practices, they also open themselves up to unclean spirits.

In the bible, an unclean spirit is also called an evil spirit or a demon. The bible speaks very negatively about them. But outside of the church, people use positive-sounding ways of speaking about them. People might say: I have an angel who speaks to me. Or: I have a spirit guide. Or: I try to hear what the universe is trying to say to me. Or: I communicate with my higher self. Even sometimes people can be mistaken and deceived for thinking that they are talking directly with God or the Holy Spirit, even when they reject and go against what the Holy Spirit has revealed in the Scriptures. All these things are examples of people trying to make contact with the unclean spiritual realm.

Now, the amazing thing about our reading today is that Jesus deals with this man very simply. We read: Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” The word “be silent” means to “get muzzled”. Jesus speaks to the unclean spirit like a noisy dog. And we read: The unclean spirit, convulsing him and was crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. Even in Luke it says that the man was done no harm. Jesus, being true God and true man in one person, knows exactly how to separate an unclean spirit from the person standing in front of him. And with his powerful and authoritative word, he simply casts the unclean spirit out.

And we read: And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” And at one his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

What is important here is Jesus’ words, and his authority. There is no spiritual wrestling match that goes on. Jesus is not addressing the unclean spirits as equals. He has complete and absolute authority over them.

In the church, Jesus has spoken his same authoritative word of power to you when you were baptised. And when we are baptised, we make a clear statement against the devil and say: I renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways. We confess the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, and we renounce the devil. This is who we are as Christians, and our whole life is a lesson in renouncing the devil and confessing Jesus Christ. In ancient times, when a person was baptised, they would rebuke the unclean spirit, and this excellent practice has been reintroduced into our churches in recent years to emphasise the power of Christ’s work against Satan in baptism. It’s no accident that as less people in our society are baptised, spiritual and demonic trouble have increased for people. In baptism, our Lord Jesus with his powerful word forgives us our sin, rescues us from death and the devil, and gives eternal life to all who believe this. Baptism is a wonderful defence and shield against all the attacks of the evil one, because we can continually look to Jesus and his promise to defend us from all evil. And when we are bothered and attacked by the evil one, we can simply say: Be silent! Get out of here! You don’t belong here!

Jesus is the one who has power over all spirits, and all the authority belong to him. We have access to his great authority because we have his authoritative word, which is a word of power. We are weak, but the word we speak is the word of Jesus. St Paul says: My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. So every time we speak the word of God in its truth and purity, and preach it, and sing it, and read it, the devil is cleared out. The devil knows his time is short when the word is in play, because these words are the words of the living God and the living Jesus who has risen from the dead. We cannot do anything in our power and authority—Jesus is the only exorcist. We pray to him, and ask him to work together with us, and to use us where he sends us. As the people say in our reading today: He even commands the unclean spirits and they obey him. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you for your word of authority and power. Protect us from all the power of the evil one. Amen.