Part 1: Jesus before Pilate and the Death of Judas (Matthew 27:1–14)
Already at this point in the lesson, Jesus has endured some week. It began with what looked like a coronation. People meet Jesus as he comes into town and are throwing palm branches onto the ground before him. They are shouting, “Hosanna!” Shouting essentially, “Save me!” And those who witnessed Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead were still bearing witness to what Jesus had done. Could things get any better? Then again, do you remember how the Triumphant Entry reading ended? Listen again to what the Pharisees were saying to one another: “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him”
There is also the fact that the One coming in on the donkey has repeatedly said he must die. And the Pharisees are happy to help that happen, if only they could find someone to help them. And find someone they did with Judas. For a measly 30 pieces of silver, Judas agrees to hand Jesus over to those who hate him and want him dead. And on Thursday night, he does just that. But by Friday morning, he regrets what he has done. He has changed his mind. But the Scripture doesn’t say he repented. Nonetheless, feeling the weight of what he has done, he goes to the chief priests and elders, silver in hand, and confesses his sin. And while Judas may have been looking for absolution, he finds none. These men, whose duty it was to care for the people of Israel, have no compassion for Judas. In their hatred of Christ, they dismiss this remorseful disciple. They tell him to go and deal with this himself. Judas throws the money at their feet and leaves.
Judas, in his despair, does not seek his Lord. Perhaps he feared what would happen if he did. He sought those who hated Jesus and was treated with contempt by them. And now, instead of looking to Jesus for absolution, he takes their advice. And to make matters worse, he decides that he must be the one to pay for the curse he has put himself under by betraying innocent blood. He judges himself guilty, sentenced himself to death, put himself on a tree, and hangs himself. He knows the Law. He knows the penalty. And so, he takes it all upon himself. He condemns himself and dies for his own sin.
In his actions, Judas committed treason against his King. But his King, who through His parables and His actions so often demonstrated the vastness of His mercy and would certainly have forgiven him of even this, is not who Judas turns to. He decided it was better to suffer himself for what he had done instead of casting his burden of guilt on the One he betrayed. The very One who had come to take the sin of all the people, even Judas’, upon his own shoulders to forgive it.
Yet our King’s journey has a long way to go. He is carted before Pilate where He confirms his identity but refuses to defend Himself against all the accusations. Soon, his sentence if pronounced.
Rev. Brent Keller Peace Lutheran Church Alcester, SD
Most, and perhaps all of you, heard at least a portion of our Lord’s Passion account today. Beginning tomorrow, I will begin a five-part series of devotionals based on Matthew 27. Each day will provide a link to the Scripture and the devotional. Each day will focus on the portion of the narrative for that day, but I hope that you will see how they all fit together.
May God bless you this Holy Week. May you be gathered with your fellow saints often this week and hear of what your Lord has done for you. May you recognize and repent of your sin. And may you be comforted with the absolution given to you by our gracious God.
It is perhaps the darkest week of the Church Year. But do not fear: Sunday is coming.
Rev. Brent Keller Peace Lutheran Church Alcester, SD
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
When we think of Palm Sunday there is a lot going just with the reading from John that began our service. But then throw in the other lessons and the entire reading of our Lord’s Passion and it’s a whole different animal. But what we see when we hear the words of our Lord’s passion is the fulfillment of the word of hope that Zechariah that obscure post exilic prophet spoke of in our Old Testament lesson for the day.
The people who first heard Zechariah preach this had a very hard question before them. Would God do what He promised and give them a king from the line of David who would sit on the throne forever? They had no king; the line of David already then was in shambles and near obscurity. Had God gone back on his promise? Are you also questioning God about something? Does God really love me? Has God forgotten about me and my pains in this life? Am I going to receive relief in my time of languishing?
But rejoice! Yes, shout aloud! Rejoice for the Lord has not forgotten you but brings you this word of hope. Your king comes! He is righteous. And has salvation for you. A word of great hope. God has not forgotten you, but He is working in his time to bring about your salvation. And the son of David, Jesus Christ would come fulfilling the prophesy proclaimed.
But the king would not be like the kings anyone was used to. This king would not come in riding on a war horse but rather a donkey, a beast of burden. He is not wearing armor for war, nor is war what he is about. But rather its all about removing the weapons of war, the chariot, the war horse and bow. Peace and reconciliation is His Word to His people. He does not coerce submission and obedience by force, but rather He showers you with mercy and love. He comes with salvation. He comes to fix the broken relationship between His Father and us. He comes also to fix our broken relationships on earth. Christ’s Forgiveness and mercy rule the day. What a great promise of hope!
And this word of the Lord spoken by the prophet captivated the hearts of his hearers. Just like Jesus captivated those whom He healed and cared for during his earthly ministry. There was hope, and this hope held their listeners captive.
What about you? As we enter into Holy Week, we as Christians celebrate and revel in the Lord’s grace, mercy, and love for us. May the proclamation of hope in Christ Jesus be made your own! We hear again the passion accounts of our Lord. We recall the words of our Lord at the cross, “Forgive them Father”. We remember his crown of thorns. We recall his title: “King of the Jews“. We know why He does it all. He does it all out of love. He does it so that we would have forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. He has come to you and grants you salvation, having received salvation from Him in Holy Baptism. You have everlasting life for the sake of your Lord Christ Jesus who died in your place on that cross and rose again on the third day.
But what now? Are we not like the people of Zechariah’s day? Are we not waiting for the return of the King? Are we not all wondering why He hasn’t come already? When everything will be made right? When the relationships on this earth will be reconciled, when the spears will be beaten into plowshares? When His peace shall reign from the river to the ends of the earth. It has been a long time. But we, like the Israelites of Zechariah’s day, have been granted a word of peace and hope to trust in. Christ our Lord and King who has come now promises to be with us and give us his peace. He is with us always even to the end of the age. And we have his signs and tokens of love in the means of Grace: Baptism and His Supper. They are the ways by which His love, mercy, and grace shown at the cross are delivered and made yours. Your hope is anchored in the one who has come, and He has promised to come again to take us to where He is.
We know the end of the story. We know how this week of our Lord’s passion ends. We see the King of Glory, the King of Peace go to a cross for the sin of the world. Christ the King, battles against Satan, He sizes him up, and beats him at his own game. He rises from the grace on the third day, defeating death once and for all. He swallows up death forever so that you are brought out of the waterless pit and be given new life in Him.
You are living the new life promised to you by Christ now by your baptism. You are a child of the kingdom of peace. Do not forget that, hold on to the promise of your Lord who has bled out for you and gave up his life for you. Be at peace and hope in him. Look to the covenant which he spoke and now gives to you, “the new covenant in my blood,” He says. That is a token and pledge of the forgiveness won as well as the reconciliation between God and us in a vertical direction, and that same meal also promises and reconciles us to one another. Be forgiven by the Lord and forgive one another for the sins committed against each other.
Return to your stronghold. The stronghold is your Lord and Your God, who goes to his throne of the cross to win for you salvation over sin, death, and devil. Be held captive by His Word of Hope and Peace.
Rejoice and Hope in the one who has come, who brings righteousness and salvation to you, now and always, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Sermon on Philippians 2:5—11 Palm Sunday 28 March 2021 Our Hope Lutheran Church
Text: “Think the way Jesus thinks. Even though he was fully God, he did not think to assert his equality with God, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a slave, being born fully human. Being human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Yahweh, to the glory of God the Father.” (translation by Robert E. Smith)
Intro: Ride on, ride on, in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die. O Christ, Thy triumphs now begin O’er captive death and conquered sin.
The Ministry of Jesus is full of contrasts. Jesus, as both God and Man at the same time has a right to use all his power as God, yet he performed no miracle for thirty years. When he first performed miracles, he did just enough to create faith in him — and then told those who saw them to keep quiet. He lived in every way like we do and performed most of his ministry the way we do. Then there was the Palm Sunday – and its lead up.
“It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish,” prophesied Joseph Caiaphas, the High Priest. (John 11:50) On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus had healed a blind man, performing a sign of the Messiah. A week before the first Palm Sunday, Jesus was at the Bethany home of his friends Mary and Martha. In this bedroom community, he raised their brother Lazarus, who had been in the grave four days. On Palm Sunday, he did not calm the fears of his opponents, but intensified them. Like Solomon had done one thousand years earlier, he rides a donkey into Jerusalem along the road from Bethlehem. The people spread their coats and palm branches on the road before him, sung praises to God and shouted, “Save now! Son of David” Jesus not only did not discourage them, he accepted their praises. The leaders of the people united in their plans to kill Jesus. He was in their minds a blasphemer and a threat to them and to the nation. What they missed was that Jesus the Messiah was not intent on earthly revolution, but to die for their sins and the sins of the world and rise again to open the tombs of all believers. He agreed with Caiaphas. He must suffer and die —and rise again.
A few decades or so, everyone was encouraged to think, “What would Jesus do?” Jesus answered that. Die … that is what he would do. We heard last week Jesus ask James and John if they would do same. Are we ready to die with Jesus?
Paul urges us to think like Jesus thinks.
a. Serve God above all things.
b. Put the welfare of others first.
c.Set aside personal glory.
The world prizes glory, fame, honor above all else.
a.We celebrate the rich, glorify entertainers and athletes.
b. We dream of being like them, work hard at it, and sometimes try to take shortcuts.
c. We think that people are troubled because they lack self—esteem.
d. Some preachers play to this culture, insisting God wants to make Christians rich.
e. Self—service ends in conflict, quarrels and discord.
Jesus thinks differently.
a. He set aside all His glory and was born to Mary.
b. He took our nature and went to the cross.
c. He died so that we might live and rose that we might live forever.
d. He is with us to strengthen us for our journey.
e. So… Think like Jesus thinks.
Ride on, ride on in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die; bow your meek head to mortal pain, then take, O God, your pow’r and reign.
As you know, I have three fellow pastors writing posts for our modest site. That has been a great blessing, for it has made it possible to have enough material to share something each day — either new or from the post series we’ve run in the past. The embarrassment of riches overflows this week. Between us all, we will be running from two to four posts a day and sometimes written forms of at least two sermons. Typically, I keep people up on this activities by posting links on multiple forums on multiple social media platforms. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that for all of the posts this week.
If you want to keep up, we invite you to visit the blog’s main feed each day this week: http://whatdoesthismean.blog. There is also a subscribe feature available in the left column of all our posts. I’m not sure how well it works, since no one who uses it has told me yet. 😉 In theory, it should email you the title and a link to it each time we post. It could be intense this week. Let me know what you think.
May God bless your meditation on the sufferings, death and resurrection of our Lord — this week and always!
A day of hope is what we need as we have been walking in the world. Isaiah’s prophesy was spoken as a rebuke against Ahaz’s unbelief in the Lord. But for you who have been called to faith in the true God, it is a word of hope, which holds you captive. It is the sign we all long for, the word which first came Eve and Adam on the day of their fall into sin. That God would become Man. And this Man would defeat sin and death for us by offering his body and blood up for the sin all the world at the cross.
Mary is rightly called the Godbearer (Theotokos) because in the moment of the preaching Gabriel, God assumed human flesh, and the flesh of Word of God Himself was conceived in the incarnation. This is the sign of God working to bring about our salvation. This is confirmation of the Lord’s promise coming true. God had not forgotten.
But the incarnation and Christmas are just half of the story. This Son of the Most High, has to do the work of salvation in His flesh. He is to serve in humanity’s stead, standing in our place, taking upon himself our pains and our sufferings, our sin. He is to suffer what all men suffer, death. But the Lord Jesus does this because it is the will of his Father, whom sent Him.
Christ will lift up the lowly. He will fill the hungry with good things, he will bring down the mighty from their thrones. He will bring the word of love and hope to you who have been sitting and waiting in the darkness of this sin filled and broken world. Be at peace in the word announced to you by the Lord’s messenger. Christ loves you, and He became flesh in order to save you from everlasting death. He has remembered his mercy and now shows you that mercy by his death on the cross, taking the place that all humanity deserves for their sins of unbelief and abandonment of His Word.
God has promised, so He has done. We are very close to Holy Week in the Church year. We will be gathering together to hear the passion accounts as written for us by the Evangelists. We will see our Lord do His Father’s will, offering himself for us at the cross. This is how sin is taken away, the body and blood of God is broken and poured out for you.
May this word of our Lord Jesus Christ, The God – Man for us and for our salvation, give you hope in the midst of the darkness. He has come and He has died and He has risen again. And He remains in His flesh even upon His ascension to the right hand of God the Father. Forevermore is Jesus the God–Man, who serves you as your great high priest having offered himself for your salvation, that you might have everlasting life with God forever. And He now comes to you to give you tangible hope, a sign. He gives you the means by which you are given His forgiveness. He gives you Baptism and His Supper. Look to the promises contained therein. You are made a child of God, receiving everlasting salvation. Then you receive the very body and blood of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. You receive the very body of God in His Supper and it is life giving. What hope and what peace we now have in promises of God. Hope in the One Who has Come Born of the Virgin to offer himself up for us all. And let us now hope in the promise of His return that He might take us to be with Him forever.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Dear saints, this morning we enter the third and final stage of Lent: Passiontide. On the Gesima Sundays, we introduced a period of penitence. With the first four Sundays in Lent, we intensified that penitence and began examining ourselves. This brings us to this morning. We explore and begin to commemorate the suffering, the Passion, of our Lord. The lessons from today through Good Friday highlight the enormity of our sin and iniquity. They show us the tremendous Sacrifice for the ugliness of our sin in light of the holiness of that Sacrifice. Thus, as we rightly tremble under the gravity of our sinfulness, we should still have a quiet joy in our redemption as we gather and worship. Even on Good Friday.
The lessons from Genesis and the Epistle to the Hebrews build to the Gospel. In the Old Testament, Abraham, the man who was reckoned righteous before God because he believed what God had promised him, is told to sacrifice his son on a mountain. Isaac, who would also know what had been promised through him, was to be the sacrifice.
On the third day of their journey, Abraham tells the young men with him, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” Let me be clear here: Abraham is not lying to them. He is confident that he will return with Isaac. When they come to the appointed place of sacrifice, the altar is built. The wood is laid out, Isaac is bound to it, and the knife is raised to fulfill what was commanded of Abraham.
Realize this also: Abraham is an old man. Isaac is a young man. If he wanted to, Isaac could have easily kept himself off the altar. But he did not. He feared, loved, and trusted God. He honored his father. He was willingly laid on the altar as a sacrifice. Sounds familiar, does it not?
But before the knife could strike, the angel of the Lord halts everything. “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know thatyou fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” The angel of the Lord here is none other than the Second Person of the Trinity. It is Christ before His incarnation. He says, “I know,” and, “from Me.”
Abraham then lifts his eyes and sees what had been hidden from both him and Isaac until that moment: A ram caught in a thicket by his horns. Three days of anguish is now relieved. Willing to sacrifice his only son, a substitute is given. The ram was the sacrifice offered on the mountain and, just as he said, he and Isaac returned to the young men. He names the place, “The Lord will provide,”for on that mountain it shall be provided.
That it that shall be provided is none other than Christ our Lord. He is the perfect Lamb that all the blood of bulls and goats sacrificed in the sacrificial system pointed to. He is the substitute that atones for our sins and suffers the just penalty that we deserve. And as He does this, He enters the Holy of Holies not made with hands as our Great High Priest. He carries in His hands His perfect blood as our Sacrifice. Christ Jesus, as both Priest and Victim, purifies our consciences from their dead works and enables us to serve the living God. And as we heard in the Epistle, He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgression committed under the first covenant.
This brings us to the Gospel for this morning. It is the final half of a conversation between Jesus and the Jews. He again wrangles with the Pharisees and just before our lesson, it is reported that some of the Jews believed in Him. But the confrontation ends as stones are picked up to stone our Lord.
Jesus uses strong rhetoric here. He says these genetic children of Abraham are, in fact, no children of Abraham at all. He tells them their father is the devil, the father of lies. Our Lord says that they do not love Him because they do not love His Father. That they do not understand what He says because they cannot bear to hear what He has to say.
The Jews respond with blasphemy. They slander Jesus, saying that He is a Samaritan and has a demon. He denies having a demon and tells them that all who keep His word, that is, guard it in faith and obey what it bids, will never see death. Demonstrating that the Jews do not understand Jesus, they charge that He must have a demon because Abraham and all the prophets died. They do not understand that all the saints live eternally even though they die. Even if their bodies have returned to dust and they await the bodily resurrection on the Last Day. Finally, they ask if Jesus thinks Himself greater than Abraham.
Jesus answers them saying, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
The Jews are incredulous at this. “You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?” Of all the things Jesus does and says that they do not understand or comprehend, they do understand Jesus’ response: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”They understand that Jesus is claiming to be their God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of the living and not of the dead. And because they do not believe Jesus is the I AM, they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
He leaves the Temple because His hour has not yet come. But the hour for Jesus is coming soon. He will soon be delivered over to the Pharisees and run through a sham trial. He will be brought before Pilate and the crowds will coerce Pilate into turning Jesus over to be crucified. Just as our Father intended.
Jesus is the Pure and Holy and Patient One. Pure in that He was sinless. Holy in that He is God Incarnate. Patient in that He does not condemn or smite the people of His day, or ours, for hardheartedness, faithlessness, or ignorance. Rather He suffers and is rejected. That suffering and rejection is not confined to the cross but is throughout His earthly ministry.
The Latin name for this Sunday is Judica. It means ‘judge’ or ‘vindicate.’ It is what we hear in the Introit: Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me! For you are the God in whom I take refuge.
Our Lord will soon be vindicated. He will be judged as pure and righteous. And He will be condemned and crucified on the cross. Beginning today, many congregations with crucifixes and small to medium-sized crosses have them veiled with a black veil. The cross is the place where our Lord sorrows and suffers. Ultimately, it is where he gives His life for us. Why cover that? Because the cross also reveals our Lord’s divinity. It is where we see Him winning our salvation. It is where He bestows to us His Body and Blood in the Sacrament. At the cross are beauty and joy. And we are unworthy to look directly at it. So, in humility, these congregations deny themselves those depictions so that their attention would be drawn to it and remember that we currently see dimly in a mirror. But also rejoice that one day we will see Him face to face.
The next two weeks are the most solemn days in the Church Year. In them, you will see just how much and in what way your Lord loves you. Indeed, the God of heaven and earth submits Himself to death that you might be delivered from your wilderness exile and go into the Promised Land He has prepared for you in heaven. May God bless you as you traverse Passiontide and approach our Lord’s death and burial, rejoicing in His Resurrection. Amen.
Rev. Brent Keller Peace Lutheran Church Alcester, SD
In January of 1521, Pope Leo X, formalized the excommunication of Martin Luther in his bull Decet Romanum Pontificam. The decree removed, as far as the Pope and the structure of the church were concerned Luther’s right to teach the faith, exercise the pastoral office and receive the sacraments. It was not published until October of 1521, since it also excommunicated most of Germany’s princes and city-state governments. Emperor Charles V needed their financial and military support, especially against Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, then rising in power. His armies were marching towards Belgrade through Serbia and Hungary as these events were happening.
To address these challenges, and the threat to religious unity Martin Luther and his friends represented, Emperor Charles convened a diet (a cross between a parliament and a diplomatic conference) at the city of Worms in Southwest Germany. In January of 1521, negotiations began between the Emperor and his advisors and Elector Frederick the Wise and his advisors to summon Luther to the Diet to defend himself. The Emperor favored the papacy and the institution of the Church, but he knew to move too strongly against Luther would at best deprive him of badly needed support. Frederick was the key prince in the empire and Luther’s protector. So he agreed to give Luther the hearing that the reformer requested and a safe conduct pledge to go to Worms and return to Saxony.
The imperial summons was worded very graciously, addressing Luther with all the titles due to him as a priest and professor of theology. It was vaguely worded, stated as a request for Luther to answer questions about his books. It could be viewed as allowing everything from a full hearing to a simple demand to renounce them all. The safe conduct was generously worded and issued also by Frederick the Wise and Duke George of Saxony. In the back of everyone’s mind was a similar safe conduct given to Jan Hus one hundred years before, which was violated by the then Emperor. Hus was burned at the stake shortly thereafter. Luther and his prince would be relying on the young emperor’s sense of chivalry and his desire to keep peace in Germany.
To placate the Pope and his supporters, the Emperor also issued a mandate to sequester all of Luther’s books. The Emperor’s officials conveyed to Georg Spalatin that this was for show, that the intent was to give Luther a fair hearing. The Elector, his advisors and Luther’s friends were not entirely sure what the truth was, but advised Luther it was likely safe to attend, given the support of the princes and the estates. Luther was determined to confess the truth before the empire, even if it cost his life. He agreed to go.
When the Church celebrates the Lord’s Supper in the Divine Service, the congregation will likely confess their faith using the words of the Nicene Creed. You might be thinking, “We don’t learn that one by heart in Confirmation.” This series will dive into the Creed we commonly call the Nicene Creed.
With this post I am merely introducing the Nicene Creed and a little bit of its history. The Nicene Creed, or at least the first two articles, come out of the events that transpired at the Council of Nicea, 325AD. Unfortunately, the Church was not immune to controversy, and the Council that convened at Nicea had to deal specifically with the question of who Jesus is. Is Jesus of the same substance of God the Father? Or is He something other and then less than God?
The major controversy arose over the saying of Arius, “There was a time when the Son was not” implying that Jesus was not begotten of the Father from all eternity. The great orthodox theologian Athanasius strongly opposed Arius and his teachings. The story also goes that St. Nicholas slapped Arius for his heretical teaching at the Council of Nicea. This had to be dealt with, and unfortunately, the Apostles’ Creed could be recited by both the orthodox Christian as well as a follower of Arius. It did not address the issues at hand. The Roman Emperor Constantine who had allowed Christianity to stand as a recognized religion in the Empire wanted to keep the peace between the factions. He called for a Council, the first of its kind since Acts 15. The Nicea formulation would take pains to articulate the biblical and orthodox view of Jesus in relationship to the Father. We will talk more about that as we get into the articles in later posts.
I said the first articles come from the Council of Nicea, the third article cae out of the controversies dealt with at the later council held at Constantinople, 381AD. There the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Father and Son was taken up. So the Nicene Creed is shorthand for the fuller name: The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Historically speaking, this creed was the second ecumenical creed to be written down for all orthodox Christians to confess with one voice, and this creed is likely the most commonly confessed creed of the 3 creeds inside the Divine Service. Next time we will look at the First Article of the Creed and how it expands on the words of the Apostles’ Creed.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Dear saints, on this Sunday last year (the Third Sunday of Lent), I began the sermon by saying:
[W]e all know the news of our day. There is quite a bit of panic over the virus that has swept the world. Runs on supplies. Stocks tanking. Schools, sports, and even countries have shut down. People on Facebook and Twitter are afraid. I get it. It’s a bit of a scary time. Even if you’re healthy and at no real risk, you could unwittingly be a carrier and expose someone who is vulnerable. It’s why I don’t blame businesses for telling people to work from home and sports leagues from shutting down. Or even staying home this morning instead of being here with us. Closer to home, some schools and even churches have closed. And while I don’t like it, I understand and am not going to complain about hospitals and nursing homes closing their doors to everyone except the patients, residents, and staff. They are rightly protecting their patients and residents. Let us hope and pray that this does not get to the point that they force everything, including churches, to close their doors as happened with the 1918 flu epidemic.
I went on to say that we did not yet know what the impact would be or how severely we would be affected. Well, we now know. The impact was and is widespread. Fear is still prevalent in our world. There are still worldwide shortages on certain supplies. While the stock market has rebounded, there are millions out of work even today. Schools, states, and countries are still shut down even if sports have resumed with empty to partially filled stadiums. In some places, churches are still closed because the state or country says they must be, labeling churches as ‘nonessential.’ Even as casinos and strip clubs are open and deemed essential.
In just over a year, our nation has reported over 500,000 deaths and there has been more than 2.5 million die worldwide. Compare this to the estimated 75-200 million who died over eight years of plague in the Late Middle Ages. This is a bad virus. But it is no bubonic plague. Especially when you consider the population of Europe then and the world now.
You might be asking yourself, “Why is pastor rehashing all this?” I do for a couple of reasons. First, because we see through the Old Testament, as we do in our lesson from Exodus, that plague can be brought by the finger of God. When the Egyptian magicians, by their dark arts, could not replicate the plagues brought upon Egypt, they recognized that it was the Lord who was behind it. The plagues were judgments upon Egypt and her false gods. They were used to deliver Israel from slavery and, eventually, into the Promised Land.
But there is a second reason I decided to revisit the topic of plague and pestilence this morning. And that is to point out another reason God brings things such as pandemics upon creation: to show humanity their false gods, that they would turn and believe in the true God. This is another constant theme of the Old Testament. Calamity was prophesied upon the wicked and a call to repentance was issued. Sometimes the people repented and were spared. Other times they persisted and were destroyed, and even those who did repent and trust in the Lord were sometimes caught up in the destruction.
I am not saying that God sent this virus. I have no “Thus saith the Lord” to say one way or the other. I am, however, saying that we should see what has happened and continues to happen as a call to repentance. Every man, woman, and child should recognize that it is our sin that brings such calamities upon the world. We turn our fear of our mortality into our god and abstain from gathering before the Lord our God. We look to government for our respite and rescue rather than Christ as the Redeemer of our souls. We hope for a shot when we have the Medicine of Immortality right here before us. We deserve all this and more.
In fact, our sin is the reason that the figurative finger of God mentioned by the Egyptian magicians is now a real and physical finger of God. This morning’s Gospel lesson tells us about the voice of God casting out a demon who had made a man mute. Having been cleansed, the man begins to speak. It causes the crowds who witnessed this miracle to marvel.
But some saw what Jesus did and decided to blaspheme. They said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” and others sought another sign beyond the miracle they had just witnessed. The first responded to the love and compassion Jesus had on the man with hatred in their hearts; others respond with unfaithfulness, as they would not accept any sign from our Lord.
But what Jesus did for that man is what He has done for you. He has had mercy upon you and cleansed you from your uncleanness. We have three enemies in this world: the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. These are enemies that we cannot conquer. And in fact, the devil is even the strong man Jesus mentions in the lesson and parable. Like Israel in Egypt, we are captive to these enemies as we are by nature captive to sin and enemies of God.
This is why Jesus took on our flesh in His incarnation. Jesus is the Stronger Man who binds the strong man. Jesus is the One who liberates you from your bondage to sin, death, and the devil and frees you from your uncleanness. In the second parable of our text, we hear that a demon cast out of a person wonders the waterless places seeking rest. When it finds none, it decides to return to the person it was cast out of. It finds a body, compared to a house, swept up and put in order. It then finds other spirits more evil than itself and takes up residence there once again. The state of that person is worse than before.
But this is not so with you, dear Christian. Yes, Jesus cleanses you of all uncleanness. He sweeps up the house of your body. But He does not leave it vacant. In place of the evil spirit (whether that was a demon or simply that you are born with a sinful nature), God sends the Holy Spirit. In doing so, He makes your body more than a simple house. He makes it His holy temple. So, when the spirit returns to you, it finds no place for solace or rest. Your state is not worse than before. It is eternally better.
All this He does for you in your Baptism. Because Jesus walked on earth, because He was baptized in the Jordan, because He was tempted in all the ways we are and did not sin, because He kept the Law perfectly, He was a worthy sacrifice to atone for the sins of the world. For your sins and mine.
I began to wrap up last year’s sermon by saying:
We don’t know how long or how bad this pandemic will be. We don’t know if we will contract it. If a friend or loved one will. And if we or they do, how severe the case will be. We don’t know what restrictions will be placed on us by the authorities, which, I remind you, that God himself has put in place.
Well, here we are a year later. We can see the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel,” but we do not know how far away from the exit we are. All of us know someone who has contracted the virus. Some of us have had close calls. Some of us have had it, and a few suffered greatly. We have been allowed to live mostly restriction-free here but see where others have been curbed greatly. Even if we grant the premise that all decisions and restrictions were put in place without malice, we also know some of those decisions were more harmful than helpful.
But, dear Christian, remember also what we know:
We know that our Lord Jesus Christ took upon our flesh to free us from the strong man. We know he paid for our sins on the cross, bleeding and dying to win victory over the strong man. We know that he has cleansed our bodies from all evil and sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and sanctify us. We know that we are always able to cry out to God in all situations and tell him whatever is on our mind. And when we do, we know that He will hear us and answer our prayer in the way that benefits our eternal good. O my God, in you I trust…Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!…for I take refuge in you. Amen.
Rev. Brent Keller Peace Lutheran Church Alcester, SD
