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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.
In today’s Gospel Reading, as Jesus was again setting out on His journey to Jerusalem, a man ran up and knelt before Him. The man’s eagerness to get to Jesus and his respect before Him are impressive! The man was asking Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” At a minimum the man had some positive understanding of Jesus both as a good teacher and as a teacher of the way to eternal life, but the man also had a major negative issue that Jesus at least tried to address in what follows in the Gospel Reading. As we reflect on this Gospel Reading today, the only day in our three‑year cycle of Readings that we have to consider this particular exchange (despite St. Matthew’s and St. Luke’s seemingly parallel accounts), we reflect on the Gospel Reading under the question “Who is good?” “Who is good?”
Today’s Gospel Reading from St. Mark’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account comes immediately after the Gospel Reading that we heard last week. In last week’s Reading, Jesus was in the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan teaching the crowds that gathered to Him, including both some Pharisees who asked about divorce and then later in a house His own disciples. Jesus spoke of those who divorce and remarry committing adultery and of receiving the Kingdom of God like a child and so being able to enter into it. The man in today’s Reading, as if summing up his accomplishments, said that since he was a child (AAT) he had kept all the Commandments of the Second Table, like that Commandment against committing adultery. As good as the man with great possessions seemed to think he was, Jesus said the man still lacked one thing. We might say that that “one thing” was the right relationship between him (and his material possessions) to God in the flesh of the man Jesus the Christ.
To be sure, the man did not recognize himself as a sinner by nature, one in need of the free forgiveness that Jesus came to earn with His suffering and death on the cross. The man asked what he needed “to do” in order to “inherit” eternal life. Since he asked what he needed “to do”, the man seemed to think that he had the ability to do something to inherit eternal life and that the goal of eternal life was reachable by him. Yes, the idea of “inheriting” eternal life can suggest something one receives simply by virtue of a death, without any merit of one’s own, but there can also be terms and conditions for inheritances. And, the man in the Gospel Reading’s self‑righteousness was all the more evident when he said that from his youth (probably about age 13 [CSSB, 1522], when he would have had his Bar Mitzvah and become a son of the Commandments) he had kept all the Second-Table Commandments to love his neighbors. The man clearly was not thinking at all about the First‑Table Commandments to love God, nor was he thinking at all about his sinful nature that, despite what Jesus might have granted for the sake of argument, prevented the man from truly keeping any of the Commandments in the first place. Contrary to what is sometimes imagined, there is neither an “age of assent” to sin nor an “age of accountability” for sin. Holy Scripture says that all have sinned and lack the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and the whole world is held accountable to God (Romans 3:19). Neither was the man in the Gospel Reading—nor are we—good by nature. Holy Scripture says that, from our youth, the intention of our hearts is evil (Genesis 8:21; cf. Weedon, 28). In fact, the Bible says every intention of the thoughts of our hearts is only evil continually (Genesis 6:5), for we are sinful from the moment of our conceptions (Psalm 51:5), and there is no one who does good, not even one (Psalm 14:3; 53:1-3; cf. Weedon, 28).
There is no one who does good, not even one—except, of course, God. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus asked the man why he called Jesus “good”, and Jesus said that “No one is good except God alone”. Apparently the man was not quite ready to call Jesus “God”, for he dropped the word “good” the second time he called Jesus “Teacher”. Yet, Jesus was and is God and man, divine and human. Perhaps ironically, the man in the Gospel Reading in effect claimed goodness to Jesus, the only One Who could say truly that He had kept all the Commandments (Weedon, 29), both the Second-Table Commandments to love neighbors and the First‑Table Commandments to love God. On the cross, Jesus to the point of death loved both God His Father and also His neighbors, namely, the man in the Gospel Reading and each one of us (Scaer, CLD VIII:71-73). St. Mark uniquely tells us that, having looked at the man, Jesus loved Him. Love is not the reaction we might expect from Jesus towards someone so evil claiming to be so good, but Jesus’s love led Him to try to lead the man, as He tries to lead us, to repent and to receive His forgiveness and His goodness.
Today’s Old Testament Reading (Amos 5:6-7, 10-15) describes the devouring fire of God’s wrath—the wrath we all deserve on account of our sin. But, God in that Reading also calls us to seek Him and live, so that He can be gracious to us. Likewise, today’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 3:12-19) warns against hardening by the deceitfulness of sin and against unbelieving hearts that keep people from inheriting the rest God intends for us all. So, too, Jesus’s words to the man in the Gospel Reading : to go, to sell all that he had, to give to the poor, to come, and to follow Him—those words called the man to turn from his sin and offered the man God’s forgiveness and goodness. The Gospel Reading says that the man was disheartened by Jesus’s saying, His Word, and that he went away sorrowful. As far as we know, the man never repented, and that makes this particular exchange the only one in the Gospel accounts in which Jesus’s invitation “to follow Him is even tacitly refused” (Taylor, 430; cf. Mann, 401). What is our response?
Through His Word, God calls us to repent, and, through His Word in all its forms, He both offers and enables us to receive His forgiveness and goodness. Holy Baptism works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe, as it did this morning for little Ansleigh Renae. Individual Holy Absolution from the pastor forgives sins before God in heaven as validly and certainly as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself. Holy Communion gives us the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine for forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Rather than being disheartened by Jesus’s Word and going away sorrowful, as did the man in the Gospel Reading, we, who repent and believe and receive God’s forgiveness and goodness in these ways, are encouraged and go away joyful, to live in our vocations with a right relationship between ourselves (and our material possessions) to God in the flesh of the man Jesus the Christ. With Johann Scheffler, as translated in our Hymn of the Day, “[We] thank [Jesus] that our souls are healed / By what [His] lips revealed”, and we love Him “not for hope of high reward” but “For [His] own sake” (Lutheran Service Book 694:3,5).
“Who is good?” Neither was the man in the Gospel Reading good, nor are we good, on account of our fallen human nature, but, on account of His good divine nature, the God-man Jesus is good, and, by grace on account of His death for us, He gives His forgiveness and goodness to all of us who believe in Him. We eagerly run up to Him and respectfully kneel before Him; His Word in all its forms encourages us, and we go away joyful. As we live with a right relationship between ourselves (and our material possessions) to Him, we do not earn or buy heavenly treasure, the resurrection of our bodies to eternal life with Him, but He freely gives that heavenly treasure to us for His own Name’s sake.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +