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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.
We may not all be professors or even students of economic theory, but, if only subconsciously, we all somewhat get economics in practice. We live much of our lives exchanging goods or services, often in the form of money, for other goods or services. For example, children might earn allowances, as adults earn hourly wages or salaries, and then we buy things we need or want. In the Gospel Reading for today, the Second Sunday in Lent, Jesus seems to appeal to our economic understanding, such as our ability to weigh profits and losses. And yet, while our economic understanding may help us to some extent in spiritual matters, that ability to weigh profits and losses arguably is where the helpfulness ends, for losing and saving our lives are not economic exchanges, but losing and saving our lives are done “For Jesus’s and the Gospel’s sake”. The Divinely‑inspired St. Mark uniquely records Jesus’s pairing Himself and the Gospel as a reason for people’s losing their lives, and so this morning we reflect on the Gospel Reading and its treating of our losing and saving our lives under the theme, “For Jesus’s and the Gospel’s sake”.
You may recall that last week we talked about Jesus’s and our being “in the wilderness”: (1) being tempted by Satan, (2) with the wild animals, and (3) with God’s messengers ministering to us. Somewhat similarly this week, we again find Jesus being tempted—this time by satanic Peter—tempted to turn away from His true identity as “the Christ”, which our younger catechumens recently learned means “the Anointed One”, the Prophet, Priest, and King above all other prophets, priests, and kings. Better than others’ inadequate confessions of Jesus as someone who comes before the Christ (confer Mark 6:14-15), Peter for all of the twelve disciples, by the Heavenly Father’s revelation (Matthew 16:17), had confessed Jesus to be the Christ. But, when Jesus began to teach them plainly what that Christ, the Son of Man, must do, Peter showed with his practice that he did not yet understand that the way of the cross was the way of both the Christ and the Christian. Jesus would lose and save His life for all people, and His followers, in turn, would lose and save their lives “For Jesus’s and the Gospel’s sake”.
Have you given up anything for Lent? Giving up something that we enjoy—meat, sweets, moderate use of alcohol—can be not only an economic decision but also a worthwhile spiritual discipline, although of course giving up something does not make us more righteous before God. Giving up something for Lent is a kind of the “denying ourselves” that Jesus calls for in the Gospel Reading, but the real denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Him requires more than giving up only for a period of forty days something ultimately trivial. The real denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Him requires giving up our very selves at least for as long as our earthly lives. We are to break away from our own self‑centered existences that idolatrously make each of us our own gods and so a part of the adulterous and sinful (and unbelieving) generation. We are to stop indulging our sinful, evil desires. We are not to be ashamed of Jesus and His words but to lose our lives for “Jesus’s and the Gospel’s sake”.
Peter apparently was more concerned about Jesus’s and his own earthly lives and well‑being than about their heavenly lives and well‑being. Yet, as Jesus says, whoever would save such earthly life, gaining the whole world, as it were, that person will lose his or her heavenly life, forfeiting his or her soul to the eternal torment of hell. Too often, we seem to live as if we were ignorant of the consequences of how we live! We can give nothing—no degree of contentment, no lottery payout, no Louisiana casino jackpot—in economic exchange for our soul (confer Psalm 49:7‑8). Of ourselves, as today’s Collect put it, we have no strength, not to save ourselves, on our own to decide to be Christian, or to come to Jesus. But, the Holy Spirit calls us by Jesus’s words of the Gospel and enables us both to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God to forgive our sin “For Jesus’s and the Gospel’s sake”, and so He does forgive our sins “For Jesus’s and the Gospel’s sake”.
Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, suffered many things, was rejected by the leaders of the Jews, was killed on the cross, and after three days rose again, all for you and for me. Jesus, the Christ, denied Himself and took up His cross for all people. Jesus, the Christ, lost His life but saved it, out of His great love for you and for me. As God had promised in the Old Testament Reading (Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16), not only kings came from Abraham and Sarah but the King came from them. All who ever have believed, believe now, or ever will believe are part of Abraham’s and Sarah’s descendants and likewise are righteous by faith, our means of access into grace, as St. Paul said in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 5:1‑11). As St. Paul essentially described, when we repent and believe, then we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us while we were still sinners . We have peace “For Jesus’s and the Gospel’s sake”.
If we are ashamed of Jesus and His words of the Gospel, that is, if we fail to believe and accept them, if we fail to confess them in word and deed, then He also will be ashamed of us, that is, He will fail to confess us in word and deed. At least in part, Jesus’s words of the Gospel are so important because they are the way Jesus comes to us and gives us the benefits of His death on the cross. For most of us, we know for sure that first in Holy Baptism God with water and the word connected us with Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans 6:4; Small Catechism IV:14). At the Baptismal Font, all sins we have committed, commit now, and ever will commit are forgiven. Preaching of God’s words of the Gospel reminds us that fact! Yet, as we know and feel particular sins in our hearts, we privately confess them to our pastor for the sake of receiving individual Holy Absolution, an exercise of the Office of the Keys that Jesus promised to give His disciples when they confessed Him as the Christ (Matthew 16:19; 18:18). And, Jesus Himself is present with His true body and blood in the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar to give us the forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. God alone can and does take the initiative to save us, to give us faith and preserve us in that faith, through His means of grace, and through them He does all that needs to be done for our salvation.
God’s so saving us also transforms us, it makes us holy, so that we set our minds not on the things of men but on the things of God—thoughts and ways higher than ours, as the sky is higher than the ground below (Isaiah 55:8-9). We deny ourselves, we take up our crosses—whatever we suffer as Christians living our faith in the world—and we follow Him. We bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), loving one another, helping one another, but especially forgiving one another as we are forgiven. We are willing to lose our earthly lives “For Jesus’s and the Gospel’s sake”, and so on their account our heavenly lives are saved. And, when we fail to live in these ways, as we will fail, we live with repentance and faith in His forgiveness of sins.
“For Jesus’s and the Gospel’s sake” our sins are forgiven and our lives changed. Jesus the Christ has done what we cannot do: He gave Himself in economic exchange for our souls. He has done everything that needs to be done for our salvation. We consider the profit of our eternal life more valuable than the loss of our earthly life. As we continue not to be ashamed of Him but to confess Him in word and deed, we know that He likewise will confess us when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. For both the Christ and the Christian, the way of the cross is the way to that glory. With hymn‑writer Martin Schalling, who knew firsthand sufferings and the perseverance, character, and hope they produce, we prayed in the Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book 708:2-3) and pray again now:
Let no false doctrine me beguile;
Let Satan not my soul defile.
Give strength and patience unto me
To bear my cross and follow Thee. …
Lord Jesus Christ, my prayer attend, my prayer attend,
And I will praise Thee without end..
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +