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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. (Amen.)
You may know that I am a bit of a fan of the Irish—and sometimes religious—rock‑band U‑2. This past week, while I was reflecting on today’s Gospel Reading, in which Gospel Reading Jesus talks about a camel’s going through the eye of a needle, I happened to hear the U‑2 song “Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World”. In that song I for the first time noticed that the lyrics mention the singer, who wants to do something seemingly “impossible”, dreaming about presumably the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali’s taking an open‑convertible Volkswagen‑Beetle through the eye of a needle. The lyric is another example of how some degree of Biblical literacy is necessary to understand popular culture, but, more to our point this morning, as the surrealist Dali might be necessary to do the otherwise impossible taking a V‑W Beetle through the eye of a needle, so the Almighty God is necessary to do the otherwise impossible making a camel go through the eye of a needle, and the “more‑difficult”, or “less‑easy”, making a rich person—or anyone else, for that matter—enter the Kingdom of God. For, as Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading says, “All things are possible with God”.
At the time of the New Testament, a camel would have been the largest animal in the land, and an eye of a needle would have been the smallest opening. We may know larger animals and smaller openings today, but, if you have ever tried to sew, you may know how difficult putting even thread through the eye of needle can be—even if you wet the thread or use something like one of those aluminum needle‑threaders. Pilgrim‑member Rev. Robert Shockley led those pastors present at our September Circuit Meeting through a study of today’s Gospel Reading, and, despite what some commentators do with the camel‑needle figure of speech, such as making the eye of a needle into a camel‑size gate in city wall, we rightly determined not to lessen the impossibility of what Jesus says. For, Jesus’s disciples seem to understand the figure of speech as something that is impossible, and Jesus Himself speaks of the figure of speech as something that is impossible, at least with people.
The man who had great possessions, whom we heard about in last Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Mark 10:17-22), went away from Jesus sorrowful, disheartened by Jesus’s telling the man to go, sell all that he had, give to the poor, and come, follow Jesus. That man would not do what Jesus, as we heard in the Sunday before’s Gospel Reading (Mark 10:2-16), calls all of His followers to do, namely, receive the Kingdom of God like a little child in order to enter it. That man had great possessions but wanted to inherit eternal life, and so he in some sense illustrated what today’s Old Testament Reading says, that he who loves money or wealth will not be satisfied with money or income (Ecclesiastes 5:10-20). We do not have to have many possessions in order to have one especially‑problematic possession occupy first place in our lives and so keep us from obeying the First Commandment, from having no other gods, from fearing, loving, and trusting the Almighty God above all things. In fact, we do not have to have any possessions at all, as Jesus makes clear, in order for our entering the Kingdom of God to be difficult, if not impossible, at least with people. Jesus’s disciples had left at least some things and were following Him, but they were still amazed and exceedingly astonished at what He said, and they could be taken as wrongly thinking that they somehow merited something by doing so and risked being “last”. You and I have the same sinful nature that they had, and we have our own actual sins, sins of com‑mission and o‑mission: thoughts, words, and deeds and their absence, which actually merit temporal and eternal punishment, apart from the Almighty God out of His great love and mercy’s leading us to be sorry for our sin and to trust Him to forgive us for Jesus’s sake. For, as Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading says, “All things are possible with God”.
The patriarch Job came to understand that the Lord could do all things and that nothing was impossible with Him (Job 42:2 LXX). After Sarah laughed at the Lord’s promise that she would have a child in her old age, the Lord asked Abraham if anything was too hard, or “impossible”, for the Lord (Genesis 18:14). The Lord Almighty, through the prophet Zechariah, in one textual tradition, asked whether just because His people saw something as impossible whether that would be impossible in His sight (Zechariah 8:6 LXX). The Virgin Mary, who asked how she could conceive Jesus since she was a virgin, was told by the angel Gabriel that nothing would be impossible with God (Luke 1:37). And, her Son Jesus, praying to be spared His suffering for the sins of the world, confessed that all things were possible for His Father (Mark 14:36). Whether we call God “Almighty”, “All-Powerful”, or “Omnipotent”, the meaning is the same: God can do all things, no matter how easy, difficult, or impossible that they might seem to us. Creation from nothing. Conception and delivery without violating virginity. Incarnation of only one Blessed Person of the Holy Trinity. Divine healings at human hands (Mark 2:9). Death on the cross of only one Blessed Person of the Holy Trinity. Resurrection from the dead. Forgiveness of sins (Mark 2:9). So, also the salvation that is impossible with people is possible with God. When we are sorry for our sins and trust God to forgive us, then we are saved by grace for Christ’s sake.
In today’s Psalm we sang that we delight in the way of the Lord’s testimonies as much as in all riches (Psalm 119:9-16; antiphon: v.14). We especially delight in His Word read and preached to us as a group and in His Gospel applied to us as individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine in the Holy Supper that are the Body and Blood of Christ given and shed for us for the forgiveness of our sins. “All things are possible with God.” Holy Baptism can save us (1 Peter 3:21). In Holy Absolution a pastor can speak with God’s authority (Matthew 9:8). And, bread and wine can be the Body and Blood of Christ, Who, with both His Divine and human natures, is uniquely present on the Altar, distributed by the pastor, and received by the communicants, either for their blessing or harm, depending on whether or not they repent and believe (1 Corinthians 11:27-32).
We who repent and believe and so are forgiven by God through His Word and Sacraments also are transformed by those same Means of Grace. As the fruits of our repentance and faith, we at least want to keep God’s Commandments, especially His First Commandment, to have no other gods. With Jesus’s disciples, we leave behind whatever is necessary to follow Him, including making sacrificial offerings to His Church, and we receive back temporal and eternal, what rightly can be called, “rewards”, not that we in any sense “earn” them. And, we note that Jesus in the Gospel Reading says that, now in this time, we also receive persecutions for His and the Gospel’s sake. We pray that such persecution and tribulation do not lead us to fall into sin or from faith (Mark 4:17). Yes, “All things are possible with God,” so God is capable of doing whatever we might ask for Him to do in prayer, and God certainly hears and answers our prayers, but He answers our prayers both in the time and in the way that He knows to be best, which can and often does mean that we will not get the kind of healing that we want until the resurrection and glorification of our bodies on the Last Day, though even already now we still have peace and joy.
In the U‑2 song that I mentioned, the singer dreamt that Dali got the open‑top Beetle through the eye of the needle, but we do not know whether or not the singer ended up getting the seemingly “impossible” thing that he wanted. “All things are possible with God,” who has done the truly impossible for us: He has saved us from our sins through His Son Jesus Christ. As described in today’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 4:1-13), ultimately we do enter the kingdom of God, receiving the eternal life that the man in the previous Gospel Reading wanted, the Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God, and all that comes with it.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +