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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.
Any family that has had a child—or another loved one—suffer from a severe affliction of any length knows how devastating such an affliction can be, not only to the immediate family—parents and siblings—but also to the extended family—aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents—not to mention to family friends. All those people may have compassion both on the afflicted one and on the family-members and help them however they can, but what probably all most desire, the end of the affliction, may not come quickly enough or, despite promising solutions, even ever in this lifetime. We maybe can relate both to the boy with the unclean spirit and to his father in today’s Gospel Reading. And, considering today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we realize that, as none other, “The Lord has compassion and helps”.
In last Sunday’s Gospel Reading, the Lord made a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment to hear and to speak plainly (Mark 7:31-37). Then, our series of appointed Readings skips over more than a chapter of St. Mark’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, with today’s Gospel Reading’s picking up with Jesus, Peter, James, and John’s coming down the mountain where Jesus was transfigured before them (Mark 9:2-13) and their seeing both a great crowd around apparently the other nine disciples and scribes arguing with them, presumably about the nine disciples’ in-ability to cast out the unclean spirit from the boy.
Saints Matthew and Luke’s Gospel accounts also report this event—including some details unique to their accounts, such as the boy’s being his father’s only child (Luke 9:38), which could mean that the man’s wife, the child’s mother, might have died giving birth to this boy or to a subsequent child. But, the only report of this event that our series of appointed Readings includes, St. Mark’s Gospel account’s report, is said to be the most vivid of the three and to uniquely include both the scribes’ arguing with the disciples and Jesus’s later teaching’s both being in a house and mentioning specifically the exercise of faith through prayer.
Faith in the Lord Who has compassion and helps certainly was an issue. When the crowd saw Jesus, the people were greatly amazed, and, running up to Him, they were greeting Him. They may have been amazed by the timing of His arrival there, and they may have expected a miracle like that which followed. For his part, the father of the boy had tried to bring his son to Jesus but instead got the un-able disciples, though they had cast out demons before (Mark 3:15; 6:7, 13) and would do so again later (Mark 16:17). We might understand both the man’s disappointment at the disciples and his seeming skepticism whether Jesus was able to have compassion and help. In fact, we ourselves might be disappointed and skeptical in regards to the Lord’s compassion and help. Like those whom Jesus addressed in the Gospel Reading, by nature we all are part of the faithless generation—a generation elsewhere also described as adulterous, corrupt, and evil (confer Büchsel, TDNT, 1:663). Whether or not we sin as did the man in today’s Gospel Reading, whether or not we sin with the tongue as described in the Epistle Reading (James 3:1‑12), we all do sin, for we are sinful by nature, and, on account of our sin, we deserve to be not as dead but to be dead and to have our bodies and souls destroyed in the fires of hell (Matthew 10:28), where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:42, 50). But, the Lord not only remains present with us and bears with us, but, out of His love, mercy, and grace, He also calls and so enables us to repent. As none other, “The Lord has compassion and helps”.
God in human flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ has the greatest-possible compassion, the gut‑wrenching Divine mercy of the Messiah, the Savior. And, He helps at the greatest‑possible time and in the greatest-possible way, when and in the way that no one else does or can help (Isaiah 63:5). In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus Himself casts out one unclean spirit, but that exorcism shows that He is able to do far more, namely, to cast out the devil and so triumph over sin and death. The enmity between the devil and Eve, between the devil’s “offspring” and Eve’s Offspring, resulted in the death of Eve’s Offspring, but, in so dying, He defeated the devil (Genesis 3:15), and Eve’s Offspring was resurrected, and ultimately He will cast out the devil and his evil angels into the eternal fire prepared for them (Matthew 25:41). Jesus, in the words of today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 50:4-10), gave His back to those who strike and His cheeks to those who pull out the beard; He hid not His face from disgrace and spitting. Jesus suffered and died on the cross for us, in our place, on account of our sins. When we are sorry for our sins and trust God to forgive our sins for Jesus’s sake, then God does forgive us: He forgives our sinful nature and all our sins, whatever our sins might be. Like the man in today’s Gospel Reading, we come to Jesus, and “The Lord has compassion and helps”.
“The Lord has compassion and helps” through His Word in all of its forms. So, faith looks for the Lord’s compassion and help, and faith receives the Lord’s compassion and help, from the Word with water in Holy Baptism, from the Word with the pastor’s touch in individual Holy Absolution, and from the Word with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ given for you and the Blood of Christ shed for you. And, just as the man in the Gospel Reading with his weak faith partook of Christ’s merits no less than Abraham, Paul, and others who had a cheerful and strong faith, our worthiness for the Sacrament of the Altar does not depend on the relative weakness or strength of our faith but on our likewise equally partaking of Christ’s merits (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VII:71; confer Stephenson, CLD XII:138, n.34).
Especially the Sacrament of the Altar strengthens and preserves us in body and soul to live everlasting, and we need that strengthening and preserving! We remain those who are at the same time justified and sinful, those who are at the same time believe and in some sense do not believe, those who are at the same time are coming to Jesus not relying on ourselves and yet are unable to stop relying on ourselves (Voelz, ad loc Mark 9:23-24, p.672). What we know to be true in our heads and what we feel in our hearts do not line up as they should. We struggle to cling to God’s promises that seem to be so contradicted by what we experience every day (Plass, CPR 25:4, 19). We pray for greater faith, especially to forgive one another as we are forgiven by God (Luke 17:5). We pray for greater faith, that we might not fear the coronavirus and other things that can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. We pray for greater faith, that we might endure whatever God in His wisdom permits us or our loved ones to experience, until He takes us who repent and believe from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.
We pray, “I believe; help my unbelief”, and, like none other, “The Lord has compassion and helps”. Even after our prayer, there may be what seems to us to be too long of a time before we or our loved ones see that compassion and are helped. Prayers for physical healing, for example, are not fully answered until the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. And, even before then, the forgiveness of sins that God works for us by His Word and Sacraments is seldom, if ever, as dramatic as the exorcism in today’s Gospel Reading. Yet, the deliverance is no less real. To paraphrase the antiphon from today’s Introit (Psalm 31:14-16; antiphon: v.24), all we who wait for the Lord are strong and let our hearts take courage!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +