+ + + 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.
Most of you know that this
past week was a busy one for many of us here at Pilgrim Lutheran Church! In
addition to God serving us last Sunday in the Divine Service and in a new
Sunday Adult Bible Class and a new midweek Bible Study, there was the ongoing remodeling;
website updates; a trip to the Dallas‑Fort Worth airport; Betty Miller’s
surgery; the L‑W‑M‑L’s birthday party at Gregg Home; Sarah
Lowery’s arrangements, visitation, service, and lunch; preparations for this
morning’s service; and intensifying preparations for next week’s 60th
Anniversary service and meal, including work on the service folder, banner, and
other decorations, as well as the clean‑up day yesterday in which many of
you participated. There may even have been other things I failed to mention, perhaps
some things of which I was not even aware. Regardless, in the more than ten
months that I have been here, I continue to be impressed by how people here at
Pilgrim serve the congregation and thus both one another and the Lord, although
I am also aware that some people are nearly, if not already, maxed out. Given
the busy past week for many of us here at Pilgrim Lutheran Church, this
morning’s Gospel Reading seems particularly timely. In the Gospel
Reading, Jesus says that if anyone would be first, he or she must be last of
all and servant of all. This morning we reflect on that Gospel Reading, and
we do so under the theme “Last of all and Servant of all”.
You may recall from last
week’s Gospel Reading that Jesus had come down from His Transfiguration with
Peter, James, and John and had cast out a mute and deaf spirit the other nine
disciples had not been able to cast out. In this week’s Gospel Reading,
Jesus is at first passing through Galilee on His way from Caesarea-Philippi,
and then He is in Capernaum briefly before continuing on to Jerusalem.
Important and related things take place in both of those locales. First, while
secretly passing through Galilee, Jesus was repeatedly teaching His disciples
about His upcoming betrayal, death, and resurrection, although His disciples did
not understand what He was saying and were afraid to ask Him. And second,
at home in Capernaum, Jesus confronted His disciples about their repeatedly
arguing on the way about who was the greatest (an argument perhaps prompted
by Jesus’s selecting three disciples to accompany Him for the Transfiguration
or maybe by the others’ inability to cast out that demon), and so, there, at
home in Capernaum, Jesus sat down and gave the Twelve an object lesson of a
sort about being last of all and servant of all.
Surely you and I can
relate to the disciples in a number of ways in light of today’s Gospel Reading.
Like the disciples, we at times do not understand what Jesus is saying, even
now after He has been betrayed, killed, and resurrected; in fact, by nature, we
are unable to understand God’s Word at all without the aid of His Holy Spirit. Even
though we do not know whether the disciples were more terrified or awestruck, like
the disciples, we at times are afraid to ask things; we are afraid to ask
things, both about His teaching and in prayer. Like the disciples, we at times
have the wrong understanding about greatness in His Kingdom; as envy, jealousy,
pride, and hatred threatened the Twelve, so they also have the potential to
disrupt our congregation. Even if envy, jealousy, pride, and hatred do not manifest
themselves outwardly in our midst, we may harbor such feelings and emotions
inwardly in our sinful hearts, perhaps thinking ourselves better than
others because of all the service we do for the congregation and thus both for
one another and for the Lord.
To be sure, today’s
Epistle Reading well indicts us of those and of other sins. Bitter jealousy and
selfish ambition in our hearts are earthly, unspiritual, and demónic. They
indeed can lead to disorder and every vile practice, including quarrels and
fights among us. So it is that through St. James God calls us to humble
ourselves before Him, to submit ourselves to Him. God calls us sinners to
cleanse our hands and us double-minded to purify our hearts. He calls us to be
wretched, to mourn, to weep, to turn our laughter to mourning and our joy to
gloom. As St. James says, quoting the Old Testament book of Proverbs, God
opposes the proud with His law but gives grace to the humble by His Gospel. As
we draw near to Him in repentance over all our sin, He draws near to us to
forgive all our sin. When we humble ourselves in repentance, then
He exalts us with forgiveness. He exalts us with the forgiveness won for us by
His Son, Jesus Christ.
In the Gospel Reading,
Jesus was repeatedly telling His disciples that He was being delivered or
betrayed into the hands of men, would be killed, and, when killed, after three
days would rise. Jesus knew full-well what was going to happen to Him; Jesus
knew full-well what, in fact, He was permitting to happen to Him. In the Old
Testament Reading, the prophet Jeremiah, speaking both about himself and
prophetically about Jesus, likewise knew what schemes were being devised
against him (in Jeremiah’s case, he knew after God told him that his own
countrymen were plotting his downfall). For us and for our salvation,
Jesus, like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter, was cut off from the land of
the living by being crucified on the cross, and, also for us, Jesus, Who
committed His cause to God the Father, saw vengeance upon His enemies, that is,
He was vindicated by God the Father, in being raised from the dead. For us,
Jesus made Himself last of all and servant of all. On account of what
Jesus did for us, God forgives us all of our sins, whatever our sins
might be, when we each as an individual believe that Jesus died and rose
again for us as an individual. And, God gives us that faith and that forgiveness
in ways we receive both as individuals and as a group.
In the Gospel Reading,
Jesus’s object lesson of sorts for His disciples was taking a child and putting
it in the midst of them. Jesus took the child in His arms and spoke of
receiving the child in His Name. In Holy Baptism you and I are not only individually
received into the church in the Triune Name, but in Holy Baptism we also are forgiven
of our sins and thereby rescued from death and from the devil. Just as we do
not know how old the child Jesus used was—the Greek word can be used to refer
even to newborns—so we do not limit the blessings God works in Holy Baptism
only to children of a certain age. All are sinners in need of forgiveness, and,
in Holy Baptism, God can and does make anyone His child, whether eight days
old, eight years old, or eight decades old. When one so made His child is
troubled by specific sins known and felt in one’s heart, that one seeks out his
or her pastor for private confession in order to receive Holy Absolution as an
individual. So absolved, the one also comes with the church as a group to the
rail, an extension of the altar, to feast on bread that is Jesus’s body and
wine that is His blood, receiving with them forgiveness and so also life and
salvation. So great is God’s love for you and for me that He gives us these
three concrete ways to receive the forgiveness of sins Jesus won for us with
His death and resurrection: Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion.
Being forgiven in these
ways brings about changes in our lives. Instead of not understanding, being
afraid, and arguing about who is the greatest, we are led to understand,
properly revere God, and seek to be first by being, like our Lord, last of
all and servant of all. Yet, Jesus is much more than an example for us in
being last of all and servant of all. By grace through faith in Him, we
are enabled to serve all according to the vocations in life He gives us,
and we live each day with repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins our
Lord won for us. May God for Jesus’s sake continue to so enable such
service here at Pilgrim in the days, years, and decades to come.
Amen.
The peace of God, which
passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
