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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. (Amen.)
“If we don’t get it, burn it down,” so Ánti-fa demonstrators against the latest U-S Supreme Court abortion ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, repeatedly chanted responsively Friday in Washington, D.C., “Every city, every town, burn the precinct to the ground” (FOX News). Perhaps not all that different is James and John’s seeming desire in today’s Gospel Reading, to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume the people of a village of the “enemy” Samaritans, who did not receive Jesus and apparently also the group traveling with Him for an overnight stay on their three-day journey through Samaritan territory to Jerusalem. Some people in the anti‑fascist movement sometimes use physical violence and property damage when they do not get what they want, as James and John also seemed to think were appropriate in today’s Gospel Reading. However, considering today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we realize that “God saves us from consuming fire”.
Some manuscripts of St. Luke’s Divinely-inspired Gospel account indicate that James and John, the so-called “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17), were thinking of the Old Testament prophet Elijah’s essentially having called down fire from heaven, which Elijah in fact did twice, consuming two different captains and their platoons of fifty men sent by the king (2 Kings 1:10, 12). Elijah also essentially called down the fire of the Lord to consume an offering that Elijah had made, along with the wood, the stones, the dust, and the water that was in the trench around it, demonstrating that the Lord—and not Baal—was God (1 Kings 18:20-40). And, we might think also of God’s raining on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven, on account of the homosexual lust of the boys and men of those cities (Genesis 19:24, 5). Nine years ago when we heard this same Gospel Reading, the U-S Supreme Court had just issued rulings in the cases of United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry in support of so‑called “same‑sex marriage”, which rulings, unlike the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson that we should agree with and be thankful for, might have prompted us to demonstrate and chant “If we don’t get it, burn it down!”
Even now we might like, if not to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume, then at least to see God’s judgment on all of those who participate in or otherwise support such things as so-called “same-sex marriage”, abortion, and trans-sexual or racial activities, not to mention those who carry out gun violence, especially against school children, and those who protest lawful government with physical violence and property damage. We may give more thought to destroying them than to saving them. Like James and John, we may presume to know God’s will and the timing of it, when in fact we do not. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus rebuked James and John, and some manuscripts both specify that rebuke as their not knowing of whose spirit they were and contrast them to the Son of Man, Jesus Himself, Who did not come the lives or souls of men to destroy but to save (confer Luke 19:10; John 3:17). And, in today’s Epistle Reading (Galatians 5:1, 13‑25), St. Paul warns the Galatians and us against consuming one another by biting and devouring one another in the Church. We sin by desiring more the fiery consumption of the godless than their salvation, as we sin by consuming one another, and as we sin in countless other ways, for we are sinful by nature. On account of our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, we ourselves deserve to be thrown into the eternal fire of hell (Matthew 18:8-9), apart from God’s calling and so enabling us to be sorry for our sin and to trust Him to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. For so “God saves us from consuming fire.”
As we heard in the Gospel Reading, when the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up—perhaps referring chiefly to His ascension (confer 1 Timothy 3:16) but referring also to all that went with His ascension, including His crucifixion and resurrection—when the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus knew the difficulty and danger of going to Jerusalem, but He maintained His purpose. In Jerusalem, Jesus later told the Twelve, everything that was written about the Son of Man by the prophets would be accomplished: He would be delivered over to the Gentiles and would be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon; and, after flogging Him, they would kill Him; and on the third day He would rise (Luke 18:31-32). Despite the Samaritans’ godlessness, Jesus loved them, and, despite our godlessness, Jesus loves us. Jesus took the sins of the world to the cross to die for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. When we are sorry for our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, then God does forgive us: all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us through His Word in all of its forms.
Jesus not only sent with His authority messengers ahead of Him to make arrangements for their accommodations on their journey, as in the Gospel Reading, but Jesus also, more importantly, sent with His authority messengers to retain and forgive sin on His behalf (John 20:21-23; confer Matthew 16:19; 18:18). Those messengers, for example, read and preach God’s Word of law and Gospel to groups such as this group. When someone does not repent or does not believe, those messengers are not to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them but to separate them from the communion of the Church (confer Matthew 10:10). When we do repent and do believe, those messengers are to baptize, individually absolve, and commune us with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us, so that we receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. As in the Old Testament Reading (1 Kings 19:9b-21), so today: “Even in the very worst of times, God’s Word is spoken and enacted by those He sends” (Penhallegon, CPR 32:3, p.16).
So forgiven by God through His Word in all of its forms, we also are transformed by God. His Holy Spirit at work in us produces the fruit of the Spirit that we heard in the Epistle Reading: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self‑control (confer Arndt, ad loc Luke 9:55, p.275). And, we, who belong to Christ Jesus, in Holy Baptism have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Romans 6:3-4, 10-11; Colossians 3:5). So, we give more thought to saving the godless than to destroying them. According to our callings in life, each of us speaks the truth in love about such things as God’s creating individuals either male or female, about His permanently uniting one man and one woman in marriage, about His intending such marriages to produce children whose lives begin at the moment of fertilization, and about His instituting governing authorities both to approve of those who do good and to carry out God’s wrath on these who do evil (Romans 13:1‑4). Those to whom we speak may seem to reject us, but they really are rejecting Him who sent us (confer Luke 9:48). As did our Lord, so may we experience rejection and persecution, including death, but we are never alone. As in the Old Testament Reading, God always preserves a faithful remnant in His Church. There may well be, as our District President claims, hundreds of faithful pastors and congregations in the Texas District of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, but, that there are faithful people in this organization does not mean that we should remain in fellowship with those who are not faithful. Rather, we should watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that we have been taught, and we should avoid them (Romans 16:17). As God first said through Isaiah and reiterated through St. Paul, we should go out from their midst (Isaiah 52:11 cited in 2 Corinthians 6:17).
Washington, D.C., was not the only place where there have been violent demonstrations in reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson. In some other places, demonstrators attacked installations of government, and in still other places demonstrators have attacked centers that support pregnancy, even setting one such center on fire. We do not react so. We know that, as the Divinely‑inspired author of Hebrews wrote, our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). In His time and away, He will bring about a fiery judgment where the condemned will be burning but not consumed (confer Exodus 3:2). Though, on account of our sinful nature and actual sin, we deserve such condemnation, by God’s love, mercy, and grace for the sake of Jesus Christ, “God saves us from consuming fire”. So, as we sang in the today’s Psalm (Psalm 16; antiphon: v.11), our hearts are glad, our whole beings rejoice, and our flesh also dwells secure.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +