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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 the Gospel Reading last Sunday (Luke 4:16-30), Jesus told those attending a synagogue in His old hometown of Nazareth that Old Testament prophecy of God’s Savior’s preaching Good News was fulfilled in their hearing, and, in the Gospel Reading today, which picks up where the previous Reading left off, we hear about a series of miracles that confirmed the truth of what Jesus said about Himself as the Savior (Just, ad loc Luke 4:31‑44, p.199). Starting in a synagogue in His new hometown of Capernaum, Jesus rebuked a spirit of an unclean demon that came out of a man. Then, in a future disciple’s home, Jesus rebuked a fever that came out of a woman. And finally, there He healed all those brought to Him, who were sick with various diseases, and demons also came out of many. But, lest you think that today’s Gospel Reading is only about what Jesus has done in the past to others, this morning we realize that also now in the present and in the future “Jesus heals you!”
To be sure, Jesus’s teaching and preaching, His proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God, in the synagogues of different cities, is arguably central to all of the individual parts of today’s Gospel Reading. But, we also are told how His authoritative and powerful word was brought to bear on individuals. In fact, the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke’s account uniquely reports that those in need who were brought to Jesus He healed individually, apparently by laying His hands upon each one of them. And, individually through such touch is also how Jesus heals you.
You may have come here this morning weak and weary, impotent in the face of inflation, tired of the political stalemates over our nation’s serious issues, frustrated by the Church on earth still made up of sinners, threatened by the coronavirus and the flu and their supposed combination called “flu-rona”, grief-stricken over losses among friends or family or your own decline, and maybe already sorry both over thinking, saying, and doing things that you should not have thought, said, and done and over not thinking, saying, and doing things that you should have thought, said, and done.
As mentioned last week, during a famine God provided food for the widow of Zarephath and her son and Elijah the prophet, but, when her son became ill and died, she spoke against Elijah falsely for coming to bring her sin to remembrance and to cause the death of her son (1 Kings 17:18). Sin’s being in the world truly in some sense is responsible for all sickness and death. And, faithful prophets—such as Elijah; Jeremiah, whose call we heard about in today’s Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 1:4-10, 17-19); Jesus, as in the Gospel Reading; and pastors today—all must speak everything that the Lord commands them. Jeremiah, as we heard, was to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, but he also was to build and to plant. So, the Lord Jesus, Who, in the Gospel Reading, rebuked both the spirit of an unclean demon and a high fever, later, as St. Luke uniquely reports, told His followers to rebuke brothers and sisters who sin against them and, if they repent, to forgive them (Luke 17:3; confer Just, ad loc Luke 4:31-44, p.201).
When we repent of our sinful nature and of all of our actual sin against God—when we are sorry for it, trust God to forgive it, and want to stop doing it—then God forgives our sinful nature and all of our actual sin. Thoughts, words, or deeds committed and omitted—God forgives all of our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us our sinful nature and all of our actual sin for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus did not want the spirit of the unclean demon or the other demons to speak, and we do not in every case want to believe what such demons say, but we cannot deny that what they said in this case was true: that the man Jesus was and is the Holy One of God, the Son of God, the Christ, Who came to “destroy” them, by conquering them and subjecting them to eternal torment in the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Out of God’s self-sacrificial love described in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 12:31b-13:13), Jesus took on our sins and went to the cross to die for us, in our place, the death that we deserved and otherwise would have suffered. On the cross, Jesus, the Stronger One, attacked and overcame the strong one, the devil, and took us, his spoil (Luke 11:21-22). And, the benefits of Jesus’s victory over the devil on the cross Jesus gives us especially individually through Baptism, Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar.
Faced with all those who were sick with various diseases in the Gospel Reading, Jesus could have simply willed to heal them all at once, or He could have proclaimed them all healed at once by His authoritative and powerful word, but instead, one at a time, individually, laying His hands on each one of them, He healed them. The power of God arguably flowed through the human hands of the man Jesus, thanks to the Personal union of the Divine and human natures in Him. And, now for you, that same power of God flows through the water of Holy Baptism, rescuing you from the devil; through the touch of Holy Absolution, forgiving you as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with you Himself; and through the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ given for you and the Blood of Christ shed for you, and so give forgiveness, life, and salvation. The Sacraments apply the Gospel to you as an individual (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, XI:37). As you receive the Sacraments in faith, the Sacraments bring you into the Kingdom of God, and the Sacraments keep you in the Kingdom of God.
Baptized, absolved, and communed, you are already now in the Kingdom of God, and so you already now have as your possession all the benefits of that Kingdom, even if you do not yet fully experience all the benefits of that Kingdom. In this lifetime, we will be weak and weary, impotent, tired, frustrated, threatened, grief-stricken, and sorry over thoughts, words, and deeds that we continue to com‑mit and to o‑mit. Unless the Lord returns first, in this lifetime we will get sick and eventually die, one way or another—no good hygiene, social distancing, wearing masks, or getting vaccinated can change that. But, our deaths in this lifetime move us to the life of the world to come, and there, with the resurrection of the body and the resurrected body’s glorification in God’s eternal presence, you and I will fully experience a healing far greater than that healing that the people sick with various diseases experienced that Sabbath evening in Capernaum so long ago.
The next morning, Jesus moved on from Capernaum, and, in a 15-24 open letter to civil leaders of what we today know as Germany, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther once warned that God’s Word and grace is like a passing shower of rain that does not return where it has once been, but moves on, as it were, driven away by ingratitude and contempt (Luther, To The Councilmen of All Cities in Germany that They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, AE 45:352-353). When God’s Word and grace move on, then the faithful must move on with them. Here our Lord is, as we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 71:1-11; antiphon: v.12), a rock of refuge to which we may continually come, and come with gratitude and respect. Working through our parents when we were small children or working through someone else, the Holy Spirit originally brought us here in our need to the Lord Jesus, Who, as it were, laying His hands on each one of us, heals us. Now, whom else can the Holy Spirit working through us bring here in his or her need to be so healed? Identify someone, invite them, and may God bless our efforts in His Holy Name.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +