The Finger of God – What Does This Mean?

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