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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.)
In today’s Gospel Reading, a lawyer—that is, a teacher and interpreter of the Old Testament law—put Jesus to the test by asking Jesus what the man might do in order to inherit— that is, to acquire, obtain, come into possession of—eternal life. But, Jesus in some sense turned the tables on the man, testing the man by asking him what was written in the Old Testament law and how the man interpreted it. The man answered essentially both complete love of God and love of neighbor as self, and Jesus told him that he answered correctly and to do that and he would live. Then the man, wishing to justify himself— that is, to show himself to be righteous—asked Jesus who the man’s neighbor was, and Jesus answered with what is commonly called “The Parable of the Good Samaritan”, unique to St. Luke’s Gospel account, although the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke explicitly calls neither the illustration a “parable” nor the Samaritan “good”. Regardless, at the possibly‑true illustration’s end, Jesus asked the man who proved to be a neighbor to the victim of the robbers. The man answered essentially the Samaritan, and Jesus told the man to go and likewise to show mercy. Jesus not only turned the tables on the man, but Jesus also at least tried to turn the man’s focus from the man’s loving someone defined as a neighbor to someone else’s proving to be a neighbor. Considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, with the help of the Holy Spirit, this morning we realize that “Jesus proves to be a neighbor to us”.
From last Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Luke 10:1-20), we have skipped over a few closely‑connected and so relevant verses in order to get to today’s Gospel Reading. In those skipped verses (Luke 10:21-24), Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and thanked His Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, that He had hidden things related to salvation from the wise and understanding but revealed those things to little children. Jesus said that the things related to salvation were handed over to Him by His Father and that no one knows Who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. And, Jesus privately said to the disciples that their eyes were blessed for seeing the things that they saw, for many prophets and kings desired to see the things that they saw but did not see them. Thus, in today’s Gospel Reading, the man who stood up to put Jesus to the test might be considered an example of the wise and understanding from whom God the Father had hidden the things of salvation, even as Jesus was trying to open the man’s eyes, as it were, as even today God is trying to open our eyes, in order to lead us to repent and so to be saved through faith.
Other religious traditions around us in society, especially those that we might find on television, falsely teach salvation by works, and, in support of their false teaching, they even might cite the verses from today’s Gospel Reading in which Jesus tells the man, “Do this, and you will live” and “You go, and do likewise”. Such false teachers may have great crowds in their congregations and great ratings on television, because such false teaching appeals to all people, corrupted as we all are by original sin. As the proverb goes, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25). We might add that that death is both now and for eternity! Like the man in today’s Gospel Reading, we might try to show ourselves to be righteous by wrongly limiting the application of God’s law, wrongly thinking that if we make the law easy enough then we can keep it and live. For example, we might wrongly ask, are those affected by the Central‑Texas flash‑floods, or are other people whom God places in our paths, really our neighbors? Or, we might wrongly ask, do they have a legitimate need? Or, we might wrongly ask, can we really help them without negatively impacting our own congregation or our own families? The Samaritan in the Gospel Reading did for the victim of the robbers what had to be done and what he could do—for example, he did not miraculously instantly heal him completely—but, all too often, we, as it were, pass by on the other side. We do not love our neighbors as ourselves with our deeds, much less with our words and thoughts, and that is not even to mention how we fail to love God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. We forget how bad off we are! By nature, we are more than half‑dead in our trespasses and sins, but, because of the great love with which God loved us, even when we were fully‑dead in our trespasses and sins, St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, God showed us mercy in Jesus (Ephesians 2:1, 4‑5). “Jesus proves to be a neighbor to us”!
In the illustration in today’s Gospel Reading, neither the clergyman nor the layman helps the victim of the robbers but the hated Samaritan, the foreigner whom the law in today’s Old Testament Reading seemingly did not require the Jews to love as themselves (Leviticus 18:1-5; 19:9-18) but whom the law a few verses later in Leviticus arguably did require them to love (Leviticus 19:33‑34; confer and compare Matthew 5:43). Thus, the compassion attributed only to God stands out all the more! More than a simple teacher, Jesus is the Son of God in human flesh. Yet, Jesus was arrested as if He was a robber, with swords and clubs (Luke 22:52); Jesus’s life was substituted for that of a robber (John 18:40); and Jesus was hung on the cross with robbers (Matthew 27:38). Jesus was stripped (Matthew 27:28), “beaten” (confer, for example, John 19:1), and left not half‑dead but fully-dead (confer John 19:33). Jesus suffered all of that for us and for our salvation. Jesus died on the cross in our place, so that we can live eternally, and then Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus perfectly loved both God completely and His neighbor as Himself. When we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive us, then God forgives us. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake. God forgives us through His Word and Sacraments.
We read and correctly interpret God’s Word, both His law that shows us our sin and His Gospel that forgives our sin. As the Samaritan in today’s Gospel Reading used oil and wine in binding up the victim of the robbers’ wounds, so our Lord applies His Gospel to us individually with water in Holy Baptism, touch in Holy Absolution, and bread and wine that are the Body of Christ given for you and the Blood of Christ shed for you in the Holy Supper. Brought to the inn of the Church and taken care of by the innkeepers of the pastors, we are healed miraculously and instantly, both completely according to our redeemed nature and incompletely according to our sinful human nature that still remains. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Colossians 1:1‑14), God qualifies us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. Especially in Holy Baptism we are both made sons of God through faith and put on Christ, and as those who are His, St. Paul writes to the Galatians and to us, we are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the Gospel promise (Galatians 3:26-29).
Notably, God delivered His people from their slavery in Egypt before He described how they would live as a result of that deliverance (for example, Exodus 20:1-17), and God’s delivering us from our slavery to sin ideally results in our living our lives as He described. Not that the Samaritan in the illustration in today’s Gospel Reading necessarily was a believer, but we who do believe are transformed by God’s forgiveness. We do not know what became of the lawyer, but God’s justifying us leads to our loving both Him completely and our neighbors as ourselves, good works that give evidence of our faith. God shows us mercy, and we go and do likewise. For example, we might give money or material goods to help those affected by the Central‑Texas flash‑floods—including brother pastors and sister congregations—or other people whom God places in our paths. In the case of the flood victims, we can work through relief organizations such as the Texas District, and, in the case of the hungry in our community, we can work through Helping Hands. We do what has to be done, and we do what we can do. And, with daily contrition and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins for all the ways that we fail to do those things and otherwise fail to live as we should live, until our sinful nature is healed completely in the glorification of eternal life.
“Jesus proves to be a neighbor to us”. Jesus has compassion on us and shows us mercy, dying on the cross for our forgiveness and so giving us peace and joy. Jesus is the “good Samaritan”, as it were, and, in Him, so are we “good Samaritans” (confer Scaer, CLD VIII:54). As we sang in today’s Introit (Psalm 136:23-26; antiphon: v.1), give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His “steadfast love”, that “mercy”, endures forever!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +