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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.
While I was studying today’s Gospel Reading this past week in preparation for preaching this morning, the National Football League was ramping up preseason play. And, what may be a familiar N‑F‑L rule may provide an analogy for understanding what the concern was with which the Pharisees and Scribes challenged Jesus in the Gospel Reading. In the N-F-L, generally a ball carrier on the ground who is touched by the opposing team is considered to be “down by contact” (unlike in College Football where the opponents’ contact is not necessary for a player to be considered down). In the Gospel Reading, the Pharisees and Scribes considered hands that were not properly washed in their special ceremonial way to be “defiled”, and so anything they touched with those defiled hands was considered, as it were, “defiled by contact”. As we this morning reflect on today’s Gospel Reading, we realize that in part Jesus teaches the Jewish leaders and us about how, with Him, things are not down or defiled “by contact” but “Holy by Contact”. Thus this sermon’s theme: “Holy by Contact”.
For today’s Gospel Reading we returned to St. Mark’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, after three weeks of Readings from the sixth chapter of St. John’s account. When last we left St. Mark’s account at the end of its sixth chapter, the people of Gennesaret were excited about Jesus’s healing their sick, even by the touch of His garment, but, as St. Mark’s account’s seventh chapter begins, Jewish Pharisees from the area and scribes from Jerusalem challenge Jesus about His disciples’ ritual cleanness by touch. According to the tradition of the Pharisees, who thought of themselves as the holy and pure community of the true Israel, people’s hands before eating had to be washed in the special ceremonial way they required (whatever way that might have been). Especially when returning from the marketplace, where “holy” Jews might have had contact with unclean Gentiles and with things they had touched—such as cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches—special washings were required, or at least according to their tradition, though not according to God’s Word. So, Jesus turned their challenge back on them. Using words from Isaiah that we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 29:11-19), Jesus called the Pharisees and scribes “hypocrites” and accused them of close “lip service” (NEB) but a distant heart, the vain worship of teaching their own commandments that void God’s Word. And, Jesus illustrated that point with a not‑isolated and relevant example: the somewhat obscure practice of Corban that could allow children to get around God’s commandment through Moses to honor their parents, sometimes without even honoring God.
As we hear today’s Gospel Reading this morning, the Holy Spirit turns both the Jewish leaders’ challenge and Jesus’s accusations onto us. We, too, are hypocrites—of course all the time by nature on our own before our conversion, but also sometimes as sinner‑saints even after our conversion. At times we might hypocritically honor God only outwardly, while our hearts remain far from Him. For example, we might go through the motions of the Divine Service without truly meaning what we say or believing what God does here, not that such are ever the fault of the Christian liturgy. At times we might hypocritically worship God in vain, putting our own ideas about holiness in place of His Word. For example, we might go about as if what we do in service to our congregation matters more than the way God would have us reconcile with and forgive one another, maybe even hypocritically acting as if everything is okay when it is not.
Since even we who believe continue to sin against God’s moral law, even we who believe need to continue to repent. As we heard in the Old Testament Reading, we might wrongly think that no one sees us or knows us, but the Lord certainly does. And, the Lord turns things upside down! Through Isaiah the Lord says that the meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, that the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel. We are so meek and poor when we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sin of honoring Him only outwardly. God forgives our sin of worshipping Him in vain. God forgives all our sin, whatever t might be, for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ.
If not the greatest case of the separation of lips and heart, as one sermon‑writer points out, then perhaps one of the most obvious cases of the separation of lips and heart, was the example of Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane (Oschwald, CPR 25[3]:39). Judas’s lips could hardly have been closer to the Lord and his heart further away, than when Judas called Jesus rabbi and kissed Him to signal whom the Jews should seize and lead away under guard (Matthew 26:48-49; Mark 14:44-45; confer Luke 22:47-48). Yet, the God-man Jesus Christ came and allowed Himself to be so betrayed in order to die on the cross for your sins, for my sins, and for the sins of the whole world. There on the cross, Christ gave Himself up for the Church, as we heard in the Epistle Reading (Ephesians 5:22-33), so that He might make the Church holy and present Her to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And, in that Epistle Reading St. Paul pointed out that Christ cleanses the Church by the washing of water with the word, that is, by Holy Baptism, which is just one of the ways God makes us holy—sanctifies us, sets us apart, dedicates us to holy use. When we repent and believe and receive God’s forgiveness in the ways that He appoints for us to do so, we are no longer defiled or profane but, we who believe are, as it were, “Holy by Contact”.
Our English language has “a certain poverty” when it comes to the word “wash” (Trench, Synonyms, 160), which English word is used to translate more than one original Greek word in today’s Gospel Reading. In the Gospel Reading, St. Mark refers more literally to the “baptizing” of such things as hands, cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches—the latter of which could hardly be easily immersed! There, at the Baptismal Font, we are ceremonially washed with water and the Word and so cleansed from all our sins: past, present, and future. As we live in that forgiveness of sins with daily repentance and faith, we seek out private Confession and individual Holy Absolution for the sins that we know and feel in our hearts, the sins that trouble us most, in order for our pastor to free us from them. And, so individually absolved, we come and are admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar where we eat bread that is Christ’s body and drink from a holy cup containing His blood that are given and shed for us, for the forgiveness of our sins. Here at this Altar and its Rail, the holy things are “common” among the holy ones. When God with His Word touches us who believe with the water in Holy Baptism, the pastor in Holy Absolution, and the bread and wine in Holy Communion, we are made, as it were, “Holy by Contact”. (Today’s Hymn of the Day and the two Distribution Hymns especially emphasize the blessings of these Sacramental gifts and our thereby receiving forgiveness of sins by grace through faith in Jesus.)
When we are so made “Holy by Contact”, the honor of our lips and hearts are aligned! For example, we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, and we are saved; we believe in our heart that God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, and we are justified (Romans 10:9-10). We worship God by teaching and practicing the true doctrine of His Word, in all its articles. We disciples walk according to that Word, not free to do whatever we want (Buchsel, TDNT 2:172), or to do the works we imagine to be good but the good works God commands (Pieper, III:37), such as honoring our fathers and mothers. We live together in the forgiveness of sins as St. Matthew records Jesus’s indicating, going right away, when brothers and sisters in Christ sin against us, and telling them their fault between us and them alone (Matthew 18:15). Like the father in the so‑called Parable of the Prodigal Son, we have a heart of compassion for those who sin against us and embrace and kiss them (Luke 15:20), for, like the sinful woman who kissed Jesus’s feet (Luke 7:38, 45), we ourselves have experienced our Lord’s forgiveness.
Whether or not you and I might fully understand the National Football League’s rule about being “down by contact”, perhaps, with the Holy Spirit’s help, we now understand that, while the Jewish leaders were wrong about the need for their special ceremonial washing, the Jewish leaders were right at least about the importance of contact and its role in holiness! In the Divine Service, God comes into contact with us sinners and makes us righteous. We who believe are “Holy by Contact”. So, we hold not to tradition that voids God’s Word, but we hold to that Word. And, we hold to the confession of the Christian faith (Hebrews 4:14) and to the sure and certain hope that it sets before us (Hebrews 6:18).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +