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“Impossible!” “Can’t happen!” Sometimes we exclaim that. If I were to try to tell you that it is my goal to make the USA’s olympic team in 2016 – as a gymnast – why you would laughingly exclaim, “Impossible!” Or, if I were to tell you that I could have, if I had wanted to, become a Nobel laureate in physics, you would (knowing me as you do) shake your head and say, “Impossible!” Or, if I were to say to you that I expect to earn a place in heaven by my righteous life and good works, you would kindly take me aside and earnestly say to me, “Frank, that is impossible. You will never enter heaven that way. But let me tell you how it not only can be but will be possible for you to live in heaven one day.”
In the gospel reading for this Sunday we hear Jesus speaking about possibilities of being saved. Let’s hear from our Savior how salvation on our own is impossible but how anything–even our salvation–is “Possible with God.”
At first glance we might want to think that what we hear Jesus saying in this gospel reading does not apply to us. Jesus’s comment, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” (verse 23), follows a conversation Jesus just had. A man had come to Jesus with a question: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17). And Jesus had told him, “You know the commandments: Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother” (10:19). And to that the man had replied, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth” (10:20). To make clear to this man that, while he may have thought that he had kept these commandments in his outward behavior, this man, like all people, lacked the true and total commitment to God the Law requires, and ,even more critically, he lacked that faith in God which trusts Him in all things, Jesus told him: “You lack one thing, go sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (10:21). Mark tells us that, hearing this, “Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” (10:22). Then it was that Jesus turned to His disciples and remarked, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”
We might think the disciples might have nodded in agreement and then have passed off Jesus’s comment without further thought, for they certainly were not wealthy men. But they didn’t; in fact, they “were amazed at His words,” and Jesus repeated and expanded His comment: “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (verse 25). And the disciples, “greatly astonished” at Jesus’ words, exclaimed, “Then who can be saved?” Why did they ask this? They were not wealthy. In fact, as they will say just a few minutes later, they had left everything to follow Jesus. But their reply is right on the mark. They understood what was involved in Jesus’ comment. They understood that even those who are not wealthy still put their trust in this world’s goods. Money–or, in broader terms, wealth–is, in fact, the most popular god around–in Jesus’s day and in ours. Money is the dominant power in this world. That is a fact that, I am confident, is obvious to all of us. We are all familiar with the reference to “the power of the purse.” In fact, it is not, as a saying goes, love that makes the world go round–it is money. And, as Jesus stated in the Sermon on the Mount, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money!” (Matt. 6:24).
The disciples understood that. They knew that the problem of the person with money is the problem of the person without money–the trust we put in money. As Paul wrote in his First Letter to Timothy: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (6:10). Knowing that the same trust in money that makes it difficult for a wealthy man to enter God’s kingdom also makes it difficult for all of us to enter God’s kingdom, the disciples exclaim, “Then who can be saved?”
And Jesus replies, “With man it is impossible” [not just difficult, but impossible!], “but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (verse 27). This is the good news we have come today to hear. Yes, we know that we also put that trust we must put in God in other things–other gods–instead. We all, in ourselves, lack that complete trust in and commitment to God that is required for a place in God’s kingdom. With St. Paul we affirm, “None is righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). For we all have a sinful human nature that trips us up every time. That is the bad news. But this is the good news–the good news we want to hear–that, while it is impossible for us to win our own way into God’s kingdom and so to be saved on our own, anything is possible for God–even our salvation, especially our salvation from sin, eternal death, and the power of the devil to keep us away from God. For our God has devised and executed that plan that removes the guilt of sin and covers us with righteousness–not a righteousness of our own accomplishment, but the righteousness of Jesus that is ours as a gift of God to be received through faith in our Savior. For the rich, the poor, and all of us in between, the Lord has opened wide the eye of the needle that admits us into God’s eternal kingdom.
Difficult? Yes, it was difficult–difficult for Jesus, the Savior God provided for us. How difficult Jesus Himself declares in the verses that come immediately after the passage that is our gospel reading today: “And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, He began to tell them what was to happen to Him, saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him. And after three days He will rise” (Mark 10:32-34).
One of the hymns we often sing in Lent puts the situation in terms of a dialogue as God the Father sends His Son into the world to win our salvation. “A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth, The guilt of sinners bearing And, laden with the sins of earth, None else the burden sharing; Goes patient, grows weak and faint, To slaughter led without complaint, That spotless life to offer. He bears the stripes, the wounds, the lies, The mockery, and yet replies, ‘All this I gladly suffer.’ This Lamb is Christ, the soul’s great friend, The Lamb of God, our Savior, Whom God the Father chose to send To gain for us His favor. ‘Go forth, My Son,’ the Father said, ‘And free My children from their dread Of guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, But by Your passion they will share The fruit of Your salvation.’ ‘Yes, Father, yes, most willingly I’ll bear what You command Me. My will conforms to Your decree, I’ll do what You have asked Me.’ O wondrous Love, what have You done? The Father offers up His Son, Desiring our salvation. O Love, how strong You are to save! You lay the One into the grave Who built the world’s foundation.”
Impossible? Not with God, for all things are “Possible with God!” Amen to that!