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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
As we heard in last week’s Gospel Reading (Mark 9:30-37), on the way from Caesarea-Philippi through Galilee, Jesus was teaching His disciples that He would be delivered over into the hands of men, be killed, and after three days rise. The disciples did not understand Jesus’s unusual way to greatness, and, afraid to ask Jesus about it, they instead talked about their own greatness. When the group arrived at Jesus’s home-base in Capernaum, Jesus asked the disciples about their discussion, but they kept silent. Jesus sat down and taught the Twelve that whoever wants to be first should be last of all and servant of all. To illustrate that point, Jesus took a little child and put him in the midst of them and then, having taken him into His arms, said that whoever receives one such little child in His Name receives not only Jesus Himself but also the One Who sent Jesus.
This week’s Gospel Reading immediately follows. John tells Jesus about someone they saw casting out demons in Jesus’s Name and how they tried to stop him, to hinder him, because he was not following them. Jesus says not to stop him, for no one who does such a mighty work in Jesus’s Name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of Jesus, because the one who is not against them is for them. Jesus says even someone, who gives a cup of water to the disciples in His Name, because they are of Christ, will not lose his or her heavenly reward. Then, still likely with the little child in His arms, Jesus talking about causing one of those little ones who believe in Him to sin. Then, after talking about causing another to sin, Jesus talks about causing oneself to sin. In so doing, Jesus gives a sharp contrast between entering eternal life, the Kingdom of God, and entering or being thrown into hell, where an unquenchable fire eternally torments the outside of one’s body and an undying worm eternally torments the inside of one’s body. Seemingly keying off the eternal fire that will affect only the damned after the Day of Judgment, Jesus then says that everyone will be salted with fire in this life. Jesus says that such salt is good and that its saltiness can hardly be restored. Finally, Jesus tells those who had argued over greatness and who tried to stop the man who was not following with them as a disciple but nevertheless was casting out demons in Jesus’s Name, both of which were possible causes of sin and contention among them—Jesus tells them that they are to have salt in themselves and be at peace with one another. Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, there are a lot of difficult, even riddle-like, aspects to today’s Gospel Reading! Preachers might like to take just one individual part of it and go on at great length, perhaps losing sight of the whole. Preachers might especially like to take just one individual part because all commentators do not agree on how the whole fits together, much less do all commentators agree on even the meaning of the individual parts. Furthermore, today’s Gospel Reading is not all that Jesus had to say about the topics He discusses! For example, Jesus’s statement here that “the one who is not against us is for us” (confer Luke 9:50) must be kept in tension with Jesus’s statements elsewhere that “whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30; Luke 11:23). More than a decade ago, the Canadian seminaries’ theological journal published an article I wrote precisely on that topic: keeping those two statements in tension (Lutheran Theological Review XIV:10-26). This past week, as I read and listened to news coverage of Pope Francis’s visit to the United States, I could not help but think of how the Pope and those who follow him in some ways are “for” the Lord and in many other ways are “against” Him.
In some ways, you and I who believe are little different. For example, our redeemed natures are “for” the Lord in the best possible ways; meanwhile our sinful natures remain “against” Him in the worst possible ways. Like John and the other disciples in today’s Gospel Reading, and like Joshua in today’s Old Testament Reading (Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29), at times we might try to hinder those who are for the Lord instead of receiving them in His Name. Or, at times we might cause other people to sin, even as we fail to take action to cut off or tear out of our own lives the things that cause us to sin. Apart from God by nature, we deserve to be thrown not only into the sea with a great millstone hung around our necks, but we also deserve to be thrown into and so enter hell, with its unquenchable fire eternally tormenting the outside of our bodies and its undying worms eternally tormenting the inside of our bodies.
But, praise the Lord! As we sang in today’s Introit (Psalm 135:1-3, 13-14; antiphon v.13), the Lord has compassion on His servants! The Lord calls and enables us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. Today’s Epistle Reading spoke of our confessing our sins and being forgiven (James 5:13-20), and faith lives in such penitence. When we so repent, then the Lord forgives our sin. The Lord forgives all our sin, whatever it might be, for Jesus’s sake. True God in human flesh, Jesus was born, lived, and died for you and for me. In dying on the cross, Jesus suffered the hell we deserve to suffer, so that we do not have to suffer it. For Jesus’s sake, God the Father by His Holy Spirit freely forgives the sins of all who believe—including you and me—and so He gives us the “reward” of eternal life, entrance into His Kingdom. As much as we, however old we are, might know about, think about, and discuss spiritual matters, our believing comes down to little child-like trust in God to forgive our sins graciously for Jesus’s sake. For, as Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading makes clear, even such little ones believe in Him.
For most of us, we first came to believe as little ones in Holy Baptism, if not before. At the Baptismal Font, the Name of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—was put upon us, calling upon and proclaiming the Triune God, acting according to His will and with His authority, in His power and presence. Those who do not so baptize or who, instead of receiving, hinder or keep from Jesus little ones to whom the Kingdom belongs (confer Mark 10:14)—those arguably are not with Him and do not gather with Him, and so they are against Him and scatter. Those who are baptized into the Triune Name and privately confess the sins that they know and feel in their hearts are also individually absolved in that Triune Name, forgiven by their pastors as by God Himself. And, so absolved, they are received at this Rail, to receive from this Altar, bread that is Jesus’s body and wine that is Jesus’s blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins, and so also for life and salvation. God so strengthened and preserved our members Harold and Paul that now they commune with us as part of “all the company of heaven”.
In these ways—Baptism, Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar—and with the fiery sufferings and persecutions that come with them, we have salt in ourselves and are at peace, first peace with God and then also peace with one another. Perhaps we do not often, if ever, feel that peace completely. Perhaps more often we feel concerns at our workplace, trouble in our families, our own physical and spiritual failings, and the resulting death that surrounds us. But, take heart and be of good cheer! As Jesus told His disciples the night He was betrayed (John 16:33), in the world we have such tribulation, but Jesus has overcome the world, and by His word to us we have peace.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +