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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.
Two powerful forces are aligned in an epic struggle. One side’s “captain” is older and wiser, considered to be “the greatest of all time”. Their battle is followed closely, with some even participating in it in various ways, and the outcome ultimately will impact all people. No, I am not talking about Super Bowl 55 (the “L-V”, if you are not up on your Roman numerals), but I am talking about today’s Readings for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, all of which Readings to some extent use athletic or battle imagery to refer essentially to the cosmic struggle between Good and evil. This morning we consider today’s Readings, primarily the Gospel Reading, directing our thoughts to the theme, “The cosmic victory can be yours!”
Today’s Gospel Reading “immediately” picks up where last Sunday’s Gospel Reading left off (Mark 1:21-28), with Jesus, Simon and Andrew, and James and John’s both leaving a Capernaum synagogue—where Jesus taught and cast out an unclean spirit, and from where Jesus’s fame spread everywhere—and their entering the house of Simon and Andrew. As we heard—in what is likely Simon Peter’s vivid recollection, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and recorded by St. Mark—Jesus “immediately” causes a high fever to leave Simon’s mother-in-law (confer Luke 4:38), that evening He heals the sick and casts out demons from those brought to Him there, and the next morning He departs Capernaum in order to go through all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. Jesus cared about all the people there, as He cares about everyone everywhere!
The people whom God addresses through Isaiah in today’s Old Testament Reading apparently felt that He did not care about them, that His promises to them were meaningless (TLSB, ad loc Isaiah 40:27, p.1153). As we heard, they said that their ways were hidden from the Lord, that their rights were disregarded by their God. Such can be a common complaint! At times, we may feel the same way: as if the Lord does not know what we are going through, as if He has failed to fulfill His promises to us. Laying ill with a high fever from the coronavirus or some other infection, we may question why the Lord does not, as He did with Simon’s mother‑in-law, immediately come and take us by the hand and lift us up. Is “He too busy for us and for our problems”? (TLSB, ad loc Mark 1:29-34, 1657.) Are we too old or too young, too rich or too poor, too lightly or too darkly colored, or too much or not enough of something else that He is not addressing our concerns in the way that we want Him to address our concerns? How easy it can be to give up faith or to fall into despair!
Too often we do sin in those and in other ways, for we are sinful by nature. Sin and its consequences, various diseases and temporal and eternal death, are the result of human kind’s giving in to the influence of demonic power all the way back in the beginning, when the cosmic struggle kicked-off. A specific sickness can be, but is not always, linked to a specific sin. Regardless, on our own, we are unable to do anything about our sin and the deaths that it deserves. But, out of His great love, mercy, and grace, God calls and enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust Him to forgive our sin. When we so repent, then God forgives us our sin. God forgives us our lack of faith and despair. God forgives us all our sin, whatever our sin might be; God forgives us our sin for Jesus’s sake. True God and true man, Jesus was born into this world of suffering, was tempted as we are but without sin (Hebrews 4:15), and ultimately was completely victorious over sin, death, and the power of the devil. And, He gives that victory to all who repent, including you and me.
In today’s Gospel Reading, the Divinely‑inspired St. Mark says that Jesus would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew Him. In last Sunday’s Gospel Reading, we heard one unclean spirit both call Jesus “the Holy One of God” and seemingly say that Jesus had come to destroy them—that before Jesus rebuked him, telling him to “be silent” and to “come out” of the man whom he possessed. Indeed, in certain places and at certain times, Jesus certainly tried to control what and when people heard about Him, arguably both to prevent misunderstandings of His identity and work and to make sure that He was not arrested until the time was right. And, when that time was right, He certainly permitted Himself to suffer under Pontius Pilate, be crucified, die and be buried. Jesus did all that for all people, including us! To the cross He bore our griefs, carried our sorrows. There He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by His wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-5.) And, as He raised up Simon’s mother‑in‑law, so was He raised from the dead, showing Himself to be victorious over sin, death, and the power of the devil.
To prophets before Him, to Jesus Himself (who went out preaching as to battle [Marcus, ad loc Mark 1:35-39, p.204]), and to those whom Jesus sends, like St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 9:16-27), God entrusts the preaching of this Gospel of the forgiveness by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Miracles, such as healing those who are sick with various diseases and casting out demons, are no longer needed in the same way in order to give the Word of God its authority, but other miracles related to the Word still serve as signs that effect and confirm the Word. The Word with water in Holy Baptism rescues us from death and the devil. The Word with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution forgives our sins as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself. And the Word with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar are the Body and Blood of Christ given and shed for us, which we receive regularly, in part because of our own pressing need, from the devil prowling around us like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (Small Catechism, LSB p.330; 1 Peter 5:8).
As Jesus caused the fever to leave Simon’s mother-in-law, and she responded by serving Him and His disciples the Sabbath meal (confer Matthew 8:15), so Jesus serves us by both giving His life as a ransom for us (Mark 10:45) and giving us the benefits of that ransom in our Sunday meal, and we respond by both thanking and praising Him and serving Him in the persons of our neighbors (confer Smith, CPR 31:1, p.46). Such service of our neighbors by not doing what the Commandments prohibit and doing what the Commandments enjoin is a struggle that includes the kind of self‑discipline that the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul describes with athletic imagery in today’s Epistle Reading, ultimately our keeping our bodies under control, lest after preaching to others we ourselves should be disqualified. And, as Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading explained to Simon and those with him, preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments remains our primary focus as pastor and people, for our own and for our neighbors’ benefit. Our ways are not hidden from the Lord, and our rights are not disregarded by our God. Primarily through His Word and Sacraments, but also in countless other ways, He cares for each one us. All are precious to Him. Knowing that gives us peace and joy now. And, at our deaths or His final coming, whichever comes first, we will fully experience His blessings and at least better understand His ways that right now to us are unsearchable (confer 1 Corinthians 13:12).
God wants all to be so blessed, as today’s Gospel Reading can be taken to emphasize (confer Marcus, ad loc Mark 1:32-34, p.201), but sadly the cosmic struggle between good and evil brings winners and losers and corresponding emotions, similar to the outcome of a Super Bowl. (I will not tell you which teams I think correspond to good and evil, whether the team whose militaristic logo includes a battle flag and menacing skull or the team whose militaristic logo is an indigenous person’s arrowhead.) The good Lord Jesus Christ has already overcome the forces of evil around us, and, by grace through faith, living daily in His forgiveness of sins, “The cosmic victory can be yours!” Thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:57).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +