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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.
In today’s Gospel Reading, a man had run up to Jesus and knelt before Him and was calling Him “Good” and asking Him about eternal life. Sounds pious, right? Now, the man called Jesus only “Teacher” and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life, and those things could be problems, although at least some Bible commentators say even those things can be understood in ways that need not suggest the man was impious. But, to be sure, Jesus’s responses to the man indicated both that the man was in some way deficient in what he thought about Jesus and ultimately that the man, because of his relationship to his great possessions, would not even receive eternal life as a free gift. As we consider today’s Gospel Reading this morning, we realize that, in some sense apart from our possessions on earth, “Jesus gives us treasure in heaven”.
The Holy Spirit clearly had already been at work in the man, with grace that preceded him, raising the man from the spiritual death of his trespasses and sins, and calling him to faith in Jesus. And, the man had at least some sort of faith in Jesus, having run up and knelt before Jesus and addressed him as a teacher Who could help the man in regards to eternal life. But, the man clearly did not realize how much he needed Jesus! When Jesus went through the Commandments pertaining to love of neighbor, even presumably adapting the Commandments about not coveting to a Commandment about the man’s not defrauding people, like those in today’s Old Testament Reading (Amos 5:6-7, 10-15), the man remained confident of his own abilities, in his own righteousness, or at least perhaps from the time of what we would call his “Bar Mizvah”.
Apparently the man did not think that he had to worry about having broken the law before the time of his youth, like some religious traditions in our time, ignorant of or ignoring the Bible’s statements that the intention of our hearts are not only evil from our youth but also evil continually, that on our own none of us does any good before God (Genesis 8:21; 6:5; Psalm 14:3; 53:1-3; confer Weedon CPR 25:4 pp.28-29). Others may not see us break the Commandments by overt deeds against the Commandments, but we nevertheless fail to keep them perfectly in deeds, and especially not in words and in thoughts. Even with God’s grace that precedes us, we may think of ourselves as better than the man in the Gospel Reading, and so we may not, as he did, run up and kneel before Jesus and seek eternal life as we should. Or, in our case, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther puts it in his Large Catechism, literally run a hundred miles to where we find Jesus’s forgiveness, such as in preaching, individual Holy Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar (LC “VI”: 23-24, 27, 30-31, 34).
Yet, even as we, like the man in the Gospel Reading, may not realize how much we need Jesus, or act like it, still Jesus, having looked at us, loves us, not because of anything in us—who we are or what we have done—but because of Who Jesus is and what He has done. The Divinelyinspired St. Paul in writing to the Romans puts it this way: “God shows His love for us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 ESV). Jesus shows us, as He showed the man in the Gospel Reading, the “one thing” that we lack: namely, the repentance that turns in sorrow from our sinful natures and from all our sin, leaving false gods like possessions behind, and follows Jesus in faith and so inherits eternal life. And, as we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 3:12-19), there is an urgency to Jesus’s calling us to repent, for we are to repent every day and not wait until a future day, a day that might not come or, by the time we “get around to repenting”, a day that might be too late.
Make no mistake about it: the man in the Gospel Reading’s having sold all that he had and having given to the poor would not have earned him the treasure in heaven of eternal life. But, if and when the man had repented and followed Jesus, then Jesus would have freely given the man that treasure in heaven, just as if and when we repent and follow Jesus in faith, then Jesus freely gives us the treasure in heaven of eternal life. True God in sinless human flesh, Jesus is the only person Who could truly say that He had perfectly kept all the Commandments, not only from His youth, but also from the moment of His conception, and not only the Commandments about loving His neighbors, but also the Commandments about loving God. On the cross, Jesus showed His love for God the Father by obeying His will, and there He also showed His love for His neighbors, by giving His life for you and for me (Scaer, CLD VIII:71-73). Jesus kept the law for us, and He made up for failing to keep it. On our own we are unrighteous, but God freely gives us Christ’s righteousness. No one is good except God alone, and no one can forgive sin but God alone (Mark 2:7), only God chooses to forgive sins through those whom He sends for that purpose, who act on His behalf, in the ways that He sends them to forgive sins.
So, thanks to grace that precedes us, we are brought to the Baptismal Font, where by the water and Word of Holy Baptism we are forgiven as we are born from above as children of God, made fellowheirs with Christ, provided, as St. Paul writes to the Romans, that we suffer with Him, in order that we may also be glorified with Him (Romans 8:17). So baptized, we run one hundred miles to privately confess our sins to our pastor for the sake of individual Holy Absolution. And, so absolved, we kneel at this Rail to receive in the Sacrament of the Altar bread that is the Body of Christ given for you and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins, and so also for eternal life. Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper—these are the ways that God forgives our sins and so answers our requests for eternal life, thereby giving us that treasure in heaven.
Now, as St. Mark by Divineinspiration tells it, the man, who eagerly ran up and respectfully knelt before Jesus at the beginning of today’s Gospel Reading, at the Reading’s end, was indignantly disheartened and sorrowfully went away. The only individual whom St. Mark’s whole Gospel account reports Jesus’s loving apparently ends up being the only individual whom the Gospel accounts report even tacitly refusing Jesus’s direct command to follow Him. But, to be sure, the man’s reaction is “on him”, not “on Jesus”—we cannot fault the Messenger, the message, or its timing. Jesus wanted the man to repent and acted accordingly. Although we are not told whether the man ever did as Jesus called him to do, we can ask and answer whether we ever do as Jesus calls us to do. Today’s Epistle Reading especially warns all against hardening their hearts and being unable to enter God’s rest because of unbelief. Unless we resist, God’s grace that follows us helps us not to trust in false gods such as possessions but to find in Jesus our treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal (Matthew 6:20; confer Luke 12:33). With that treasure secure in heaven, even here and now on earth, come what may, we can have God’s peace, contentment, and joy.
As we considered today’s Gospel Reading this morning, we have realized that, in some sense apart from our possessions on earth, “Jesus gives us treasure in heaven”. We use our earthly possessions in service of that treasure in heaven (Marcus, ad loc Mark 10:21, 723), and thereby we give evidence of the repentance and faith by which we receive that treasure in heaven (Scaer, CLD VIII:74). We live each day in that repentance and faith, until we finally and fully experience the eternal life that God so graciously gives us, for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +