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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.
Last week at the beginning of that sermon I asked you to put yourself in the Nazareth Synagogue, as it were, and to imagine your reaction to a life‑long acquaintance’s suddenly claiming to be the Christ; this week at the beginning of this sermon I am asking you to put yourself in the Capernaum Synagogue, as it were, and to imagine your reaction to the spirits of unclean demons’ crying out with a loud voice about Jesus of Nazareth’s being the Son of God, Who had come to destroy them. If we did not know better, we might respond to such cryings-out by thinking that the possessed people were crazy, at least crazy for crying out like that in the middle of a church service, but Jesus, of course, knew better, and He responded with rebukes that silenced and cast out the demons. Nevertheless, what the demons said about both Jesus’s identity and the work that He was there to do are important for us, as we consider today’s Gospel Reading and realize that “Jesus is the Son of God sent to preach us into the Kingdom of God.”
Today’s Gospel Reading can be said to consist of six different parts (SQE §35-40) and to span three different periods of time over a total of two consecutive days, but the six parts’ “least common denominator”, as it were, is Jesus’s teaching and preaching and working signs in order to advance the Kingdom of God, not only there in Capernaum but also in every other place in the surrounding region and in all the synagogues of Judea. We can probably safely say that even those back in Nazareth who had initially marveled but ultimately rejected Jesus heard, as He essentially said that they would hear, what He did in Capernaum, to the people in Capernaum’s astonishment and amazement.
We might be equally astonished at Jesus’s teaching and amazed at His exorcisms. Even if we are not possessed by spirits of unclean demons, we are still under the devil’s influence and in need of Jesus’s rebuke. Think, for example, of Peter in the district of Caesarea Philippi, when Peter rebuked Jesus for teaching His disciples that He must suffer many things, be rejected, be killed, and after three days rise again, and Jesus rebuked Peter and called him “Satan”, not setting his mind on the things of God but on the things of man (Mark 8:31-33). Indeed, from the time of the serpent’s tempting the woman in the garden forward (Genesis 3:1-7), there has been enmity (or “hatred”) between the devil and his forces and God’s people (Genesis 3:15). Ever‑present reminders are sin and its effects in the world, such as the various diseases both of the people brought to Jesus and of us ourselves. Yet, the eternal fires of hell were prepared first and foremost for the devil and his angels, not for us. On account of our sinful nature and our actual sin we deserve those eternal fires, but “Jesus is the Son of God sent to preach us into the Kingdom of God.”
People often wrongly put Jesus’s reasons for coming into a false dichotomy (or “false dilemma”) of “either-or”, as if Jesus could not come both to save those who repent and believe in Him and consequently to condemn those who do not repent and believe in Him (John 3:17). Jesus was sent for the reason of preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God, but first it was necessary that He preach also the law that showed people their sin and so their need for the Gospel. Consider the call of Jeremiah in today’s Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 1:4-19); Jeremiah had God’s words put in his mouth and was set over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, but also to build and to plant. Jeremiah had to proclaim judgment and experience the opposition of those to whom he proclaimed that judgment, but the Lord would be with Jeremiah to deliver him. Like the people who heard Jeremiah, John the Baptizer, Jesus, and faithful pastors today, you and I are called to repent and believe the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
The God-man Jesus is that Good News of the Kingdom of God; He not only was sent to preach it, but He also brought it about then and still brings it about now for us. What the demons said about Jesus’s identity and the work that He was there to do are important for us, both because they are true and because they are about us. Jesus of Nazareth is the Holy One of God, the Son of God in human flesh, God’s long‑promised Messiah, the Christ, the One anointed prophet, priest, and king for us. What one demon may have asked as a rhetorical question, the Apostle John, using a related verb, wrote as a declarative statement: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Out of God’s great love and mercy, Jesus died on the cross for us, in our place. So, as we repent and believe in Him, God saves us by His grace for Jesus’s sake. Instead of giving us the eternal fires of hell that we deserve on account of our sin, God forgives our sin—all our sin, whatever our sin might be—and God gives us eternal life. As our Hymn of the Day put it, He heals our wrongs and helps our needs (Lutheran Service Book 842:1). God creates and sustains our faith in Jesus, forgives our sin, and gives us eternal life all through His Word in all of its forms.
In the Gospel Reading, the people in the Capernaum synagogue were astonished at Jesus’s teaching because His Word possessed authority, and, after the miraculous sign of the exorcism of the unclean demon, they were all amazed at His Word’s authority and power. God’s Word has authority and power for us all together as His Word is read and preached, preaching that itself can move us from the kingdom of the devil to the Kingdom of God. And, as Jesus laid His hands on every one that was brought to Him, God’s Word has authority and power for us individually as His Word with water cleanses us in Holy Baptism, casting out unclean spirits and making way for the Holy Spirit. God’s Word has authority and power for us individually as His Word with the touch of our pastor’s hand in Holy Absolution effects the forgiveness of our sins, as validly and certainly, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself, for so He does! And, God’s Word has authority and power for us individually as His Word with bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar are His Body and Blood that strengthen and preserve us in body and soul to eternal life.
God’s greater gifts to us, the still more-excellent way of today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13), are faith, hope, and love, which we receive from God and in turn live out in service to Him in the persons of our neighbors, as Simon Peter’s healed mother-in-law immediately began to serve those in her house. While we might be tempted to think of Jesus’s healing her as some sort of selfish act just to get His Sabbath supper, we should note that, if there is any selfishness in the Gospel Reading, it is in the people of the area’s trying to keep Jesus from leaving them. Of course, Jesus does not really leave anyone who repents and believes in Him but remains present with us through His Word and Sacraments, strengthening us in our lifelong battles against the devil and his forces, until the Last Day, when faith and hope give way to fulfillment and sight, and we fully and completely experience in our resurrected and glorified bodies the victory He has already won for us on the cross. Until then, we make reports about Jesus and His salvation in every place in our surrounding regions, and we bring to Him all who, like us, are still under the influence of the devil and so in constant need of Jesus’s forgiving touch. We make reports about Jesus and bring to Him others, not primarily because we think others will help meet the congregation’s financial needs, though greater financial resources can be a side benefit of God’s growing His Church, but we make reports about Jesus and bring to Him others primarily because, like God, we care about their eternal souls.
“Jesus is the Son of God sent to preach us (and others) into the Kingdom of God.” The praise and glory that He brings forth from us generally is without anyone’s individually crying out with a loud voice but rather with our all together, as we sang in the Psalm (Psalm 71:1-11; antiphon v.12), having our mouths filled with the Lord’s praise and with His glory all the day.
` Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +