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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.
Before, on, and after Thursday of this past week, the big topic of discussion everywhere seemed to be the United State’s “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”. From the director of Benefits Administration for the L-C-M-S’s Concordia Plan Services who called me Wednesday morning, to the technician who repaired our church photocopy machine Thursday afternoon, to one of our members and his daughter whom I visited Friday—everyone was talking about the measure often called “Obamacare”. By Divine Providence, the appointed readings for this morning are somewhat health‑related, though their focus is not on government‑provided health‑care, but especially the Third Reading focuses instead on “Divine Care”. So, the theme for this sermon based on that Reading is “Divine Care”.
In the Third Reading, St. Mark by divine inspiration tells us both of Jesus’s healing a woman whom He calls “daughter” who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years and of Jesus’s raising from the dead a man’s daughter whose age was twelve years. (The account of the healing of the woman sounds all-too-contemporary, with her suffering much under many physicians, spending all that she had, and not getting better but only growing worse.) In a way, the account of the healing of the woman “interrupts” the account of the raising of the girl, but that interruption draws attention to the accounts’ similarities. In both we find fear, faith, salvation and touch, as Jesus, Lord over even sickness and death, exercises “Divine Care”.
If you ask a pastor how he is doing, you are likely to get a less‑than‑usual answer. This past week, when I was on the telephone with a former seminary classmate, I asked him how he was doing, and he replied, “Better than I deserve.” As I at first chuckled and then had to agree with his answer, our conversation for a bit digressed on the topic of God’s punishment now and forever. For, such punishment now and forever is what each of us deserves by nature, on account of both the original sin we inherit and the actual sins we then commit. Now, generally we do not connect a specific sin with a specific sickness, but, in general, we can say that sickness and death are only in the world because of sin. The woman sick with a discharge of blood for twelve years is a good reminder of our sin, even as the dead twelve-year-old girl is a good reminder of our spiritual state before God calls us to faith through His Word. For, whether we are twelve days old, twelve years old, or any other age, before conversion, on account of our sins, each of us by nature is spiritually dead. Jesus alone exercises “Divine Care”. Jesus alone saves us and gives us life.
Saving and living are central to both parts of today’s Third Reading. Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, asks Jesus to lay His hands on his daughter so that she may be saved and live. Jesus tells the woman who had had a discharge of blood that her faith has saved her. (In both places, “saved” is a better translation of the Greek verb than “made well” as we heard in the English Standard Version.) And, Jesus makes clear to the woman that her “salvation” means both spiritual life and physical life; for, Jesus tells her both “Go in peace” and “be healed of your disease.” Salvation and life are available from Jesus because He is the God-man, Who on the cross gave His life for ours. We deserved punishment now and forever, but on the cross He suffered for our sins so that we do not have to suffer for them. As we heard in the Second Reading, though He was rich, for our sakes He became poor. When we turn in sorrow from our sin, when we trust God the Father to forgive our sin, and when we want to do better, then God the Father, for Jesus’s sake, forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be.
And, as Jesus saved and gave life to the women in the Third Reading by word and by touch, so God saves us and gives life to us by word and touch. In Holy Baptism, word combines with water that touches us and makes us God’s sons and daughters no matter how old we are. In Holy Absolution, the pastor’s words and touch combine to forgive our sins and send us away in peace as validly and certainly, in heaven also, as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with us Himself. In Holy Communion word is combined with bread and wine that touch us with Christ’s body and blood and so give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Baptism, Absolution, Communion—all are received by faith that drives out fear. In the Third Reading, the woman comes to Jesus in fear but her faith saves her, and Jesus told Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe.” Of course, faith is not the basis for our salvation and life, only Jesus’s death and resurrection are, but faith receives that salvation and life—that “Divine Care—through the means by which God offers them to us.
There is one more significant aspect of “Divine Care” that I want to mention this morning, and it can be a little difficult for people to accept. Partially obscured by the English Standard Version of this morning’s Third Reading, there are two references to the woman’s “disease” that in fact have much more meaning to them. The Greek word used can be translated “scourge” and also refers to divinely‑sent suffering. Now, what the divinely‑inspired prophet Jeremiah writes in the First Reading is true: God “does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.” However, while afflicting us with suffering does not bring God any joy, He nevertheless does afflict with us suffering because such suffering is necessary for our spiritual benefit. The troubles God sends us sinners are to lead us to repent and to purify our faith. As Jeremiah says in the First Reading, “Let [one] put his mouth in the dust—there may yet be hope.” God intends for us to live every day here and now in repentance and faith so that we might live eternally with Him. So great is God’s faithfulness that every day we receive from Him, as our opening hymn put it, “pardon for sin and a peace that endureth”.
This Wednesday our country marks 236 years since its thirteen original colonies officially declared themselves to be free states, independent from the British Empire. Regardless of what you or I might think about that original declaration or how free our states are in light of our present government, God in His infinite wisdom permitted both that original declaration and our present government. Whether or not we can see God’s plan, what He permits and sends is all part of His “Divine Care”. God willing, you realize this morning that far more important than patient protection and affordable healthcare and far more important than anything else related to our worldly government are the salvation and life God gives us sinners by grace through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. Almost as many years before the Declaration of Independence as we are now after it, Martin Luther added two stanzas to a popular Medieval Hymn to give us the basis for what we sang as our Office Hymn today. With his revisions, The Rev. Dr. Luther confessed a confident faith in the grace of God through the blood of Christ, and we do well to confess that same faith in “Divine Care”. We close by again praying the hymn’s final stanza:
In the midst of utter woe / When our sins oppress us,
Where shall we for refuge go, / Where for grace to bless us?
To Thee, Lord Jesus, only!
Thy precious blood was shed to win / Full atonement for our sin.
Holy and righteous God!
Holy and mighty God!
Holy and all merciful Savior!
Eternal Lord God!
Lord, preserve and keep us / In the peace that faith can give.
Have mercy, O Lord!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +