Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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. (Amen.)
You do not have to be a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers, or even a fan of Major League Baseball, perhaps to have noticed, as I did, the feat that Shohei Ohtani accomplished this past Thursday: namely, hitting more than 50 home runs and stealing more than 50 bases in one season, which no other Major League Baseball player has ever done, though both the Atlanta Braves’ Ronald Acuña last year and the Seattle Mariners’ Alex Rodriguez in 19-98 came close to doing (CNN). Ohtani is already being named among M‑L‑B’s greater players (Wikipedia), if not the “greatest of all time”, what these days is popularly called the “G‑O‑A‑T”, or “GOAT”. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus’s disciples were discussing which of them was essentially the “GOAT”, and, we might say, that Jesus makes clear that instead He is the “GOAT”. And, most importantly, “Jesus is the GOAT for you!”
Today’s Gospel Reading picks up right where last Sunday’s Gospel Reading left off (Mark 9:14-29). Earlier in St. Mark’s Divinely-inspired Gospel account, on the way to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus both had elicited Peter’s confession that Jesus was the Christ and had begun to teach His disciples that He must suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise, but, as you may remember, Peter then rebuked Jesus, and so Jesus rebuked Peter and taught about the need for His followers to take up their cross and follow Him (Mark 8:27‑9:1). Six days after that, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain and was transfigured before them (Mark 9:2‑13), while the other nine disciples, as you heard last Sunday, tried unsuccessfully to cast out an unclean spirit from a man’s son, which Jesus eventually did. Then, as we heard today, they went on from there and passed through Galilee, and Jesus did not want anyone to know, for He was teaching His disciples about His deliverance into the hands of men, His death, and His resurrection, but the disciples did not understand what He was saying (compare Luke 9:43), and they were afraid to ask, maybe in part because of how Jesus previously had responded to Peter (Marcus, ad loc Mark 9:30-32, pp.669-670). Perhaps ironically, Jesus did not want the people of Galilee to know that He was there, and His disciples did not know what He was saying. So little did the disciples understand, that at that very moment they argued about who was essentially the “GOAT” (Nocent, 4:255-258). Although we are not told on what basis each disciple might have argued in his own favor and against the others, we might imagine, for example, Peter, James, and John’s mentioning both Jesus’s taking them with Him privately (confer Mark 14:33) and the other disciples’ not being able to cast out the unclean spirit. When they all came to Capernaum and were in the house, Jesus began to ask them, or repeatedly asked them, about their discussion, and, notably not condemning their wanting to be first, Jesus taught them that the way to be first was to be last of all and servant of all, as He Himself was doing.
You and I are like Jesus’s disciples. By nature, we cannot understand God’s Word and are afraid to ask, or maybe we do not even care enough to ask. We think too highly of ourselves; if not thinking of ourselves as the “GOAT” in something, then almost certainly we think of ourselves in some way as better than others, maybe even discussing and arguing the matter with others. We do not, as we always should, think of ourselves as last of all and servant of all. Those are just a few examples of our sin, and they lead to more. As James described in today’s Epistle Reading (James 3:13‑4:10), we may have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, and so there is disorder and every vile practice. As Jesus’s disciples were embarrassed or ashamed and so silent in today’s Gospel Reading, so God’s law stops our mouths and holds us accountable to God (Romans 3:19). For our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment. Yet, as James also said, quoting the Old Testament (Proverbs 3:34), God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, so, through men like both Jesus with His disciples in today’s Gospel Reading and James in today’s Epistle Reading, God calls and enables us to humble ourselves before Him, and He in turn exalts us, forgiving our sinful nature and all of our actual sin by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
“Jesus is the GOAT for you!” In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus’s prophecy about His death and resurrection is closely connected to Jesus’s teaching about true greatness. Jesus said that whoever wanted to be first must be last of all and servant of all, and that is what Jesus did. Sent by God the Father out of His great love for even the fallen world, God the Son took on human flesh and came in order to serve by giving His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45), which is rightly understood as a ransom for “all”. So, we repeatedly sang in the Hymn of the Day that Jesus bought us with His lifeblood as the price (Lutheran Service Book 851:1, 4). Like Jeremiah in today’s Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 11:18-20), Jesus was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. Delivered by Judas into the hands of sinful men in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:41, 46), Jesus gave His life even for every little child, who is also a sinner by nature and is held accountable for its sin. All the Old Testament sacrifices of animals, including literal goats, in some sense pointed forward to Jesus’s death on the cross for the sins of the world, including your sins and my sins. And, Jesus’s resurrection in part shows that God the Father accepted His sacrifice on our behalf. Now, we receive God the Father’s forgiveness for Jesus’s sake, as the Holy Spirit leads us to repent and to seek God’s forgiveness through His Word and Sacraments.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus took a little child and put it in their midst and then took it in His arms. The little child might have been as young as a newborn, and Jesus’s embracing the child is understood as a symbolic adoption of the child and connected with His blessing the child (confer Mark 10:16). And, Jesus called His followers to likewise receive such children in His Name. In Holy Baptism, as His Triune Name is put upon us, God adopts us as His children and blesses us with the forgiveness of sins, as we believe His words and promises about Holy Baptism. In individual Holy Absolution, those who confess the sins that they know and feel in their hearts to their pastors are in that same Triune Name forgiven of those sins by those pastors as by Christ Himself. And, on the basis of the same Divine revelation and authority, in the Holy Supper we receive bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
So forgiven by God through His Word and Sacraments, we are transformed. Like the disciples after Jesus’s resurrection, our minds are opened to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45). We gladly hear and learn His Word. We do not think of ourselves more highly than we ought (Romans 12:3), and we receive others and so receive Jesus and so also the Father Who sent Him. Even transformed, we will not do those things or anything else perfectly, just as Jesus’s disciples later had to be told again about true greatness (Mark 10:35-45), so, with daily repentance, we live in the forgiveness of sins that we receive from God and then, in turn, extend to one another.
Shohei Ohtani may be M-L-B’s “GOAT”, and the Dodger’s General Manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani could not be more humble—apparently Ohtani is a GOAT in that, too! But, “Jesus is the GOAT for you!”, and so, as we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 54:1-7; antiphon: v.4), with a freewill offering we sacrifice to God, and we give thanks to His Name for it is good!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +