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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 at Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Kilgore are blessed through the Texas District’s Church Extension Fund with a loan for our new Parish Hall, which will include new Sunday School classrooms. This past Thursday evening, more than one dozen of us heard from the District C‑E‑F’s Stephen Block how our investments in C‑E‑F can help ourselves as individuals, help Pilgrim, and help other congregations in our District. Yet, we must beware of ideas such as that which we arguably heard Thursday, namely that C‑E‑F is “building” the Kingdom of God. To be sure, physical buildings can play an important role in the Kingdom of God, but we are no more or less worthy of the spiritual Kingdom for any role we play in such buildings. The Gospel Reading that we heard today, with its report of a situation anticipated by the Old Testament Reading (1 Kings 8:22-43), speaks about buildings and worthiness, and so this morning, as we consider this Gospel Reading, we do so under the theme “Buildings and Worthiness”.
Today’s Gospel Reading comes as Jesus finished what is called the “Sermon on the Plain”, where His congregation had included people from all Judea and Jerusalem and from Tyre and Sidon (Luke 6:17-49). Some of those people apparently followed Jesus, as He then went to nearby Capernaum, where He often stayed. There, word about Jesus, perhaps even about His teaching from the “Sermon on the Plain”, reached a centurion, a military commander, who had a valued servant who was sick to the point of death. The centurion first sent elders of the Jews asking Jesus to heal his servant, perhaps even wanting Jesus to send someone else to the centurion’s house in order to deliver the servant. The elders of the Jews continually pleaded earnestly with Jesus, saying the centurion was worthy of the healing for building their synagogue. Without necessarily granting their rationale, Jesus went with them until friends whom the centurion sent expressed the centurion’s perception that he was unworthy of both coming in person to Jesus and of having Jesus personally come to him. Rather, the centurion asked the Lord Jesus to say a word and so let the centurion’s servant be healed, for the centurion, who both was under someone else’s authority and also had authority over others, apparently believed that Jesus was both under the authority of God the Father and also over all creation. At that statement, Jesus marveled at the faith of the centurion, and Jesus made the centurion’s servant well.
Like the centurion’s servant, you and I are sick and at the point of death, only with sin—sin such as that of the elders of the Jews’ thinking that someone’s deeds, such as building a synagogue, merit God’s doing something for them. The centurion seems to have known better, namely he knew that he was unworthy of being in the presence of God. We might take sinful pride in our contributions to building projects or in other such things that we do, and we certainly sin in countless other ways, for we are sinful by nature. Apart from faith in Jesus Christ, we justly deserve nothing but present and eternal punishment. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus points out the difference between the centurion and others in Israel, and so Jesus calls us to recognize our own unworthiness and Jesus’s own worthiness! And, when we, like the centurion, repent of our sin and believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sin, then He delivers, heals, and makes us well, as He did with the centurion’s servant. God does all of this for us not because of our own worthiness but only because He loves us and is merciful and gracious towards us for the sake of Jesus Christ, Who on the cross suffered and died for us but was raised again. Jesus, the Lamb Who was slain, alone is worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing (Revelation 5:12).
We do not know what, if any, battle songs the centurion of today’s Gospel Reading sang, but he might well have liked the Hymn of the Day we sang moments ago (Lutheran Service Book 755). The Hymn of the Day is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s adaptátion of an eleventh‑century Latin battle-song and other existing German translations of it. Luther’s hymn emphasizes our sorrow over sin and a confident plea for God’s compassion and grace through the blood of Jesus Christ shed for us. (See Precht, LW:HC, #265, 280-282.) The blood of the God-man Jesus Christ alone atones for all our sin—our sinful pride in our contributions to building projects or in other such things that we do, or whatever our sin might be—and Jesus’s blood also atones for our sinful natures. We receive the benefits of that atonement, the forgiveness of our sins, in His very Presence that we otherwise would be unworthy to enter.
As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading, King Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the first Old Testament Temple in Jerusalem connected the Presence of God, His Name, and the forgiveness of sins. Whenever a Jew or a foreigner, such as the centurion, was to pray at the Temple, Solomon asked that God there hear and do what the person asked God to do, especially forgive the person’s sins. So God today in this place hears and does! We begin in God’s Triune Name, which Name is put upon all of us who are baptized and so made worthy to enter into His Presence, the same Name in which we, who privately confess the sins that trouble us most, are individually absolved. We confess our unworthiness and His worthiness, all that the Triune God has done and is doing for us. We are most‑concretely in His Presence as we, under the form of bread, eat Jesus’s Body and, under the form of wine, drink Jesus’s Blood and so receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. (The medieval battle-song I mentioned, the other German translations of it, and Luther’s hymn all connect God’s deliverance to His Presence in His temple and to the Sacrament of the Altar they reflect Old and New Testament songs and the Sanctus of the historic Christian liturgy and their calling each person of the Blessed Trinity “Holy” [Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8].) And we end each Divine Service with that same Triune Name speaking words of our God’s blessing upon us.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus’s connected teaching and miracles bring forth the centurion’s faith and good works, and so also for us in this Divine Service: Jesus’s connected Word and Sacraments bring forth our faith and good works. As we sang in the Psalm (96:1-9), God’s strength and beauty are Present here in His Sanctuary. Our good works that flow from faith, and our good works include our contributions to building projects and other such things that we do, are truly fruits worthy of and in keeping with repentance and faith (Luke 3:8). Of course, we do them with the approval not of other people in mind but with the approval of God in mind, like St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (Galatians 1:1-12). So, like St. Paul, we necessarily distinguish between supporting the building of physical structures and spiritual growth of faithful congregations. To be sure, others may be seeking miracles here and now, but Jesus is seeking faith and makes clear elsewhere that, when He returns, He will find few with faith on earth (Luke 18:18). As Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading marveled at the centurion’s faith, so elsewhere He marveled at the lack of faith in His hometown of Nazareth (Mark 6:6), and so St. Paul “marveled” (the English Standard Version that was read said Paul was “astonished) that the Galatians so quickly deserted Jesus and turned to something other than the Gospel. What is marvelous about us in regards to faith?
We have considered today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “Buildings and Worthiness”. We realize that Christ has delivered us, His valuable servants, from our sins and that He has built us into His Church, having made us worthy with His own righteousness, by means of His Word in all its forms. May God always so build us and make us worthy!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +