+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Pastor Galler is away on vacation. This morning for our reflection on today’s Second Reading, Pastor Galler adapted a sermon originally written by The Rev. Dale O. Snyder, pastor of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Wichita Falls, Texas, and Texas District Vice President for Area A (West Texas). Rev. Snyder’s sermon was published in the current volume of Concordia Pulpit Resources (28:3, 30-33), to which publication Pilgrim subscribes primarily in order to supply sermons on occasions such as this, when pastor is away and the congregation has not otherwise supplied the pulpit. The adapted sermon reads as follows:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Most employees, at one time or another, have to go through what is sometimes called a performance review. A part of that review may include answering questions like “What have you accomplished over the last twelve months?” and “What are your goals for the coming year?” We may dread such reviews. And what we may dread most is the part where we have to list our strengths and weaknesses. Strengths can be relatively easy and can make us happy: One can always write something like “hard worker,” “team player,” “conscientious.” But what about weaknesses? Those can be harder and can make us uncomfortable, because, whatever we write, we are admitting we are not up to par, that we do not measure up, that we are, well, weak. No one wants to think of himself or herself as weak. In our culture, weakness is bad and strength is good. The physically strong win athletic competitions. The mentally strong excel in academics. Yes, strength is good, and weakness is bad. Everyone knows that. And, as a result, we’re taught to cover up anything about us that can be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Parents may tell their son who has burst into tears, “Big boys don’t cry.” Because in our culture, crying can mean weakness, maybe suggesting that we are too fragile, too emotional, too vulnerable. Signs of weakness, we are taught, are generally to be avoided. But interestingly enough, in today’s Second Reading the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul tells us that he can boast in his weakness, because weakness allows the believer to see Christ’s power at work in and through His people.
Don’t get me wrong. Paul was a man who could be proud of all that he had accomplished. No problem with an annual review for him! He was intelligent. He had a way with words. We might say that in his day he was bigger than Billy Graham and a dozen other preachers combined. He had been given a special revelation on the road to Damascus, where he had seen the risen Christ with his own eyes. And, in the early verses of today’s Second Reading, he speaks of another great revelation he had: A vision of being taken up into heaven to see its wonders. Think about how that would look on his résumé! Paul: a man given access to the glories of heaven! But, instead of boasting about how great he was, Paul tells us that he instead rejoices in his weakness. And, he points to one particular example: A shortcoming, an ailment, or a failure of some kind that he’s unable to do anything about. He calls it a “thorn” in his flesh.
Have you ever had a splinter under your skin? Splinters can be annoying, bothersome, distracting. They can even get infected. Usually you have to have a needle, tweezers, and a steady hand in order to remove a splinter. But, I do not think St. Paul is talking about just a splinter stuck under his skin. Instead, we get the idea that his “thorn” is a bit more serious than that. People have speculated what the thorn St. Paul refers to really was. Was it opposition to his message and ministry? Was it some temptation to which he was particularly susceptible? Was it a physical problem, such as poor eyesight or a stutter? We simply do not know what it was, but we do know that Paul considered it a serious impediment, perhaps even to his ministry. Serious enough, in fact, to pray three times that God would remove it. Yes, Paul was anxious about this thorn in his flesh; he felt it was a distraction that he would be better off without. But, God saw it differently. For God knows that if nothing were ever to go wrong in our lives, we would probably be more likely to forget that we need him. If we never faced struggles of any kind, we may be more likely to think that we could make it on our own. After all, with no problems in life, who needs a problem solver?
There is, of course, one problem, one thorn in our flesh, that on our own we can never do anything about. That problem is the sin that is deeply imbedded in our flesh. No amount of digging with a needle, tweezers, and the steadiest of hands will remove it. No amount of self-discipline can eliminate it. No, we are stuck with it because of who, what, and where we are: weak, sinful people living in a fallen world, led astray continually by the lord of lies. Sin is the ultimate sign of weakness. We strive to hold it down, but we are never able to master it. The same “thorns” keep coming back again and again. Our sinful human pride tries to make us believe that we are better, stronger than we really are. What sins have you tried to overcome, only to fail over and over? Lust? Laziness? Lack of spiritual energy? Even though we know our God is intolerant of these weaknesses, these failures, and that the consequence of remaining in sin is eternal, still we are utterly unable to stop the sin.
The story is told of a man who blasted Christians for being hypocritical: “You Christians say one thing and then do exactly the opposite! You condemn violence—you say that one should ‘turn the other cheek’—but then you blow up in anger when someone does something to you. You turn a blind eye to those in need even though you have plenty, and your language is just as filthy as anyone else’s. You hold Jesus up as your great example, but then you fail to follow his example yourselves. You Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites!” To a great extent, the man is absolutely right. As Christians, we know what we should do, how we should act, and how we should speak. Then we turn around and utterly fail to do what Christ calls us to do. The reason? We are weak. We admit what St. Paul writes to the Romans: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (Romans 7:18). We are plagued by a “thorn in the flesh” called sin, and we ourselves cannot remove it no matter how hard we try.
But, our gracious and loving God did not leave us to face this thorn in the flesh, this weakness, on our own. In His mercy, he sent His only Son, Who put on our weak human form to make the payment demanded for sin. God is, of course, eternal, invincible, and immortal. Death cannot touch Him. But, when He chose to humble himself and become man, He made Himself vulnerable. Jesus, born of woman, became mortal. And that meant he became weak—weak enough, in fact, to die on the cross.
In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul tells us that the world in his day saw the cross as the ultimate sign of weakness. The usual response to the Gospel by nonbelievers was this: “How could the all-powerful God of the universe be nailed to the cross and die? That’s foolishness!” But, Paul responds that even in His weakness, God is stronger than man’s strength. By humbling Himself to death, even death on a cross, Jesus accomplished what no man could ever do: using His perfect, unblemished blood as the atonement, Jesus paid for all the sins of the world, including your sins and mine. The thorns on His head and the spikes holding Him to the cross, as it were, won our salvation. Yes, by becoming weak, Jesus conquered sin, death, and Satan once and for all. And on Easter, He showed His true strength by rising from the grave.
God still works to forgive our sins in what might be regarded as weak ways: through His Word read and preached, through His Word with water in Holy Baptism, through His Word with the touch of a pastor’s hand in individual Holy Absolution, and through His Word with bread and wine that are Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. To the casual observer, these means of grace appear to be weak or nothing at all, but to the eyes of faith these means of grace are the strength and power of God to salvation for all who repent and believe (Romans 1:16). St. Paul downplays his miraculous visions and such in part so that people accept him and his message because of the power of the message alone. Ultimately, as in today’s First Reading (Ezekiel 2:1-5), whether people hear or refuse to hear God working in these ways, they will know that the Word of God has been among them. The people of Jesus’s hometown of Nazareth may have missed that He was the Prophet that day in the Third Reading (Mark 6:13), but they will know on the Last Day, to be sure.
Now, by grace through faith, Christ’s power rests upon us. The Holy Spirit dwells in us and empowers us to live as Christ’s servants. We share His love—imperfectly, even to some extent hypocritically, to be sure—but never giving up, using the strength He gives to continue on despite our weakness. Christ turns our weakness into strength, using our faults to help us see that we can never win the crown of righteousness on our own, so that we rely only on Christ and His power. With today’s psalmist (Psalm 123), we can lift up our eyes to God in heaven for deliverance from the scorn and contempt we might experience on earth, but we acknowledge that God’s answer to such prayers may be the same as His answer to Paul’s prayers. Relying only on Christ and His power, we are content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities of every sort. For, we say what Paul says: “when I am weak, then I am strong”.
One day, unless Christ returns soon, we will all face the ultimate sign of the weakness of our fallen humanity: death. And, while our culture sees death as weakness, for us it takes on new meaning in the shadow of the cross and the open tomb. The cross and grave, signs of weakness to the world, are signs of power for our lives. So, to remember the power over death that God promises you, picture your “weak” body being lowered into the earth and consider what meaning St. Paul’s words then will have: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect—made perfect!—in weakness”.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +