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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.
Some 117-million people are projected to watch Super Bowl LVI this evening, which viewership would make it not only the most-watched Super Bowl but also the most-watched television event in history. You and I may not be all that interested in the game, however, although Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford did play high school football in Texas, including at least one game in Tyler. To make tonight’s game more interesting, fans at Super Bowl parties may pick the team that will win the coin toss, the teams that will be ahead at the ends of the first three quarters, and the like, but, for the teams themselves, there will be one of two final outcomes: either a win or a loss. That same sort of dichotomy of outcomes is found in today’s Gospel Reading, as well as today’s Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 17:5-8) and today’s Psalm (Psalm 1; antiphon: v.2). This morning we consider primarily today’s Gospel Reading, directing our thoughts to the theme of its dichotomy of outcomes: “Blessed or Cursed”.
Now, if the Rams, as expected, have the higher score when the game is over, but someone was to tell you that the Bengals really won, you might think that that person was crazy. The team with the higher score usually is the winning team, although someone might talk about the losing team’s “beating the spread” or “winning a moral victory”—those are different ways of looking at winning and losing. In today’s Gospel Reading, we might say that Jesus is similarly trying to get us to look differently at the matter of who is blessed and who is cursed. People might usually think that those who are poor, who are hungry, who weep, and who are hated are those who are cursed, and that those who are rich, who are full, who laugh, and who are spoken‑well‑of are those who are blessed. But, as the Divinely-inspired St. Luke uniquely reports, Jesus speaks a blessing on those who are poor, who are hungry, who weep and who are hated, and Jesus speaks a “woe”—a judgment like a curse—on those who are rich, who are full, who laugh, and who are spoken‑well‑of. Especially with Christianity, things are not always as they might seem!
External things such as possessions, food, emotions, and standing in the community may or may not be an indicator of one’s salvation or damnation. To be sure, not everyone who is poor, hungry, weeping, and hated is saved, just as not everyone who is rich, full, laughing, and spoken‑well‑of is damned. Yet, such external things in some sense do relate to the internal things that more-or-less “determine” whether one is saved or damned—namely, the internal things of repentance and faith. By nature you and I are spiritually dead, and, on account of our sinful nature and all of our actual sins, we deserve both to die physically and to be tormented eternally in hell. But, God calls and so enables us to repent and believe and so makes us spiritually alive. God sets before us blessings and curses that we then can choose. If we trust in our own riches, over-fill ourselves while others go hungry, find enjoyment in sinful ways, and are spoken‑well‑of because we neither condemn sin nor confess faith in Jesus, then we have our consolation now, will be hungry and mourn in the future, and will join the false prophets in hell. But, when we are poor in spirit, hunger for righteousness, weep in repentance, and are hated on account of our faith in Jesus, then the Kingdom of God is ours, we will be satisfied and laugh, and we can rejoice and leap for joy, for our reward is great in heaven. Our reward is great in heaven not because we have earned it in any way by our poverty, hunger, weeping, or being hated, but because God has freely given us His Kingdom and will satisfy us and enable us to laugh and join the faithful prophets in heaven on account of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
At some point during Super Bowl LVI or by the end of the game, some of the players may be drained. Their fatigue is quite different from Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading, from Whom power came out and healed all those who came to be both healed of their diseases and cured of the unclean spirits that troubled them. God in human flesh, Jesus had that Divine power according to His Divine nature but worked it for the people’s benefit through His human nature. Those healings were demonstrations of Who Jesus was—and is—and those healings were also indicators of the greater healing that Jesus would work for them and for all people, including us. Out of God’s great love and mercy, Jesus took the sin of the whole world upon Himself and died on the cross for all of us, in our place. Jesus suffered the curses we deserved! And, as St. Paul emphasizes in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 15:12-20), Jesus also was raised from the dead, the first-fruits, as it were, of those who have fallen asleep. All people who have died will be raised on the Last Day, and repentant believers will be glorified and fully enjoy God’s eternal presence. Jesus makes possible our living the eternal life of the blessed!
As in the Gospel Reading, with the great multitude of people from all over who came to hear Jesus and those who sought to touch Jesus, we are gathered together to hear His Word read and preached, and individually we are touched by Him in His Sacraments. With the water of Holy Baptism, we are incorporated into Christ, in Whom all God’s blessings are found as the source of every blessing. With the pastor’s touch of Holy Absolution, forgiveness is as valid and certain as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself, for so He does! And with the bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and the wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, in the Sacrament of the Altar, we have, as it were, a foretaste of the feast to come, the great messianic banquet that we will enjoy for eternity. Already now, earth and heaven come together as we join in worship with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, and, as we are so united with Christ, we are also united with all those who are in Christ, including those who have gone before us in the faith.
Both today’s Old Testament Reading and today’s Psalm describe those, who are blessed by so sharing in the salvation of God’s Kingdom, as trees planted by water that bear fruit. Truly, as we repent and believe and so are forgiven by God for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, we begin to at least try to keep God’s Commandments, especially as those Commandments pertain to our various callings in life: callings of child, spouse, of parent; parishioner or pastor; of employee or employer; and the like. As the Old Testament Reading described, we do not fear even when the heat comes, and we are not anxious in the year of drought, for our leaves remain green and we do not cease to bear fruit. Or, as the Gospel Reading put it, we rejoice in persecutions; we rejoice in persecutions not because we are persecuted, but we rejoice in persecutions because we are certain that our reward is great in heaven. When we are confident that we preach the Gospel purely and administer the Sacraments rightly, we expect such persecution, as the true prophets, our Lord Himself, and faithful Christians since have experienced such persecution. Ultimately, we do not judge by reason and our senses, but, instructed by the Word of God, by faith we see our present condition in light of our future condition. Any persecution and our other afflictions will end. There will be what is often called a “great reversal”, though we do well to note that not even then are those who have been materially poor promised great wealth!
Win or lose, both teams in Super Bowl LVI will make a lot of money. May the better team finish tonight’s game with the higher score, and may the other team console itself that at least it got to the championship game, which the other 30 teams in the league did not do. Far more importantly, may we be comforted that, though we deserve to be cursed on account of our sin, God instead blesses us, giving us the victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +