Sabbath Day Demon

Jesu Juva

St. Mark 1:21-28                                                           

January 31, 2021

Epiphany 4B                                   

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          If you attend church regularly, then you know the routine.  There’s certain predictability whenever God’s people gather for worship.  There is an order of worship because the God we worship—the God who is present here to serve us—is not a God of confusion and disorder, but of peace.  St. Paul stressed to the Corinthians that when it comes to worship, “all things should be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40).

          But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t disruptions and distractions during worship.  All sorts of disorderly things can happen during the divine service.  Toddlers throw temper tantrums.  People pass out.  Cell phones go off.  It happens.  But I’ve never encountered a disruption quite as spectacular as the one Jesus had to deal with when He was teaching at the synagogue one Sabbath in Capernaum.  More on that in a moment.

          St. Mark tells us that it was the Sabbath Day.  And if you wanted to find Jesus on the Sabbath Day, the synagogue was the place to look.  The Sabbath

Day was a holy day in the Old Testament—“Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.”  At its heart, the Sabbath Day was a day designed for rest.  But rest didn’t mean sleeping late and going out for brunch.  No, the rest mandated by God was for the purpose of hearing God’s Word. 

          Rest meant rest from work, in order to worship.  And this main point of the Third Commandment still applies today:  “We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”  Coming to church to hear God’s Word takes some effort (especially on a morning like this), but worship is not work—it’s rest.  It’s rest from all the hassles and cares of life in this world to be refreshed and renewed by the Savior Himself.  Jesus summarized Sunday mornings in one sentence:  Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

          And so it’s no surprise that Jesus and His four new friends (Peter and Andrew, James and John) all made their way to the synagogue that Sabbath Day.  Jesus began to teach, and all were astonished at His teaching, for He taught with authority.  That means that Jesus didn’t just quote what other famous rabbis had written.  He didn’t give His hearers footnotes and a bibliography.  He gave them divine doctrine directly from the mouth of the Lord.  To hear Jesus preach was to hear God speaking.  Jesus’ words were God’s words.  And His hearers were delighted and amazed.

          What Jesus gave His hearers that day was doctrine.  That’s what “teaching” refers to here.  I mention that here because there are some Christians who don’t much care for doctrine.  “It’s boring,” they complain.  Or, “Doctrine divides,” you sometimes hear them say.  The truth is that doctrine unites; error divides.  The truth unites us and sets us free.  Division in the church doesn’t come about because doctrine is being taught and confessed.  Division in the church happens when doctrine is ignored or challenged or denied all together.

          It was right about at this time—as Jesus was dishing out His doctrine to the delight of His hearers—that the mother of all church service disruptions suddenly erupted.  A man with an unclean spirit began shouting right there in the synagogue: What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are—the holy one of God.  That kind of bellicose behavior in church might lead some people to suspect that perhaps mental illness was to blame.   After all, that tends to be the assumption whenever we read about unclean spirits or demon possession in the New Testament.  We just assume those superstitious first-century rubes didn’t know what we know about mental health and proper brain function.

          But it would be a mistake to assume that the disruptive man in the synagogue was suffering from mental illness.  It was something far worse.  It wasn’t a mental problem, but a spiritual affliction.  For as surely as there are angels, there are also evil angels, demons, unclean spirits.  They desire to inflict harm in the worst possible way.  Oh, they’re not looking to scare you or go bump in the night, but to strip you of your faith in Jesus the Christ.  Write them off as a silly superstition at your own peril.  A far safer course of action is to take the Word of God at face value.  Believe what it says.

          Jesus would encounter many such evil spirits during His earthly ministry; but I’ve always been intrigued at how this very first public encounter with the forces of evil happened in the synagogue—happened in church—in worship.  Why then and there?  Because the doctrine of Jesus Christ was being taught, preached and proclaimed—and the devil can’t stand that.  There is nothing more disruptive to the work of devils and demons than for people to be hearing and learning the Word of God—for you to know what you believe about Jesus Christ and why.  It’s often assumed that the devil does his best work in crack houses and strip clubs, in bars and brothels.  But just the opposite is true:  the devil works to do his worst in the sacred space between pulpit and pews.  He saves his most sinister assaults for where the truth is preached, where sin is condemned and grace is proclaimed, where Christ is present with His people giving forgiveness, faith and life.  Right there—right here!—is where the devil tries hardest.

          Jesus called the devil a liar and the father of lies.  Notice how in the devil’s mouth even the truth becomes a lie.  The unclean spirit said to Jesus, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”  That was an accurate statement, right?  That’s a phrase lifted right from the pages of Old Testament prophecy.  But in reality it was a devilish distraction.  Jesus was indeed the Holy One of God.  But the Holy One of God had a destiny to suffer and die on the cross for the sins of the world.  That unclean spirit spoke-up not to praise Jesus, but to short-circuit His trip to Calvary—to prematurely proclaim the secret of Jesus’ identity and why He had come.  The devil was desperate to keep the Christ from the cross.

          Still today the devil uses the truth to promote his lies.  He loves to whisper into your ears the truth that you are a holy child of God . . . so that means that God will forgive you, right?  So therefore, why not pursue a little pleasure?  Go ahead and sin boldly because, after all, doesn’t God delight to forgive sinners?  It’s a very clever, demonic logic.  It’s using the truth to promote a lie.  Or have you ever heard this:  You’re supposed to be a holy child of God, so what’s wrong with you?  Your life is a mess.   You’re not holy.  You’re no Christian.  What you’ve done and said is unforgiveable.  It’s a demonic doorway to shame and despair.  It takes the truth that we are sinners and then uses it to snuff out faith and hope.

          When you hear that demonic voice accusing you and misleading you—twisting the truth to trip you up—remember how Jesus dispatched the devil and his minions.  Remember how—with a word—Jesus silenced the unclean spirit in the synagogue.  And that word, by the way, translated into modern English is . . . “SHUT UP!”  It’s almost never appropriate to say “shut up.”  It’s disrespectful and impolite.  But the devil deserves neither our respect nor our politeness . . . so feel free to talk to him the way Jesus did, and tell him to simply shut up.  It’s actually the same word Jesus used to silence and wind and the waves which threatened to sink the disciples’ boat.  Shut up.  Be silent.  When that unclean spirit disrupted the synagogue services Jesus didn’t look to the ushers for guidance.  He wasn’t flustered, flabbergasted or surprised.  Jesus just spoke His Word.  And that was enough.  That did the trick.

          Jesus “commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”  And if even the demons obey His Word, then what is there that Jesus cannot do with His Word?  Change water into wine.  Calm the wind and waves.  Cleanse lepers.  Forgive sins.  Raise the dead.  Declare sinners to be saints.  The sky’s the limit.

          His Word comes backed by His cross.  On several occasions Jesus predicted both His crucifixion and His resurrection.  He told His disciples that He would lay down His life only to take it up again.  And that’s exactly what He did.  He shed His blood to earn your forgiveness.  For all of the times when we have willingly and readily bought into the lies of demons, Jesus set His sights on the cross.  Nothing could deter Him from saving you.  When He says, “I will never leave you or forsake you,” He’s got the scars to back up those words.  When He says, “I am the resurrection and the life and whoever believes in me will never die,” His own empty tomb is proof enough for us.  The devil could not distract the Christ from His cross; and nothing can distract the Christ from saving you.  If Jesus is for you, who can be against you?

          So the next time you are troubled by the devil or by your own sinful nature, and you begin to doubt your identity as a loved and forgiven child of God, you just tell them all to “shut up” in the name of Jesus and go away.  Jesus Christ is Lord, the Holy One of God, and He declares that you are forgiven and holy and justified.  That’s a word you can count on.  That’s a word by which you can depart in peace.  That’s a word with divine authority. 

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

The Good Confession

 

Jesu Juva

1 Timothy 6:11-16                                                        

January 24, 2021

St. Timothy, Pastor and Confessor           

 Dear saints of our Savior,

          Today the holy church throughout the world remembers and gives thanks for Saint Timothy, pastor and confessor.  Timothy’s upbringing was a little different from most pastors I know.  It’s a unique fact of Timothy’s childhood that his mother and his grandmother were the ones who catechized him and taught him the Christian faith.  Fathers ordinarily have a crucial role to play in teaching the faith, but Timothy was the offspring of a mixed marriage.  His father was not a believer.  Timothy is the proof of the power that mothers and grandmothers have to pass along the faith.  It’s a great day for all of us to

remember the special ways that our own mothers and grandmothers nurtured us in the faith.  And, if you happen to be a mother or a grandmother—well, take a lesson from Lois and Eunice.

          Timothy grew up to be a pastor.  He’s officially remembered today as “Pastor and Confessor.”  Pastors we know about; but confessors, perhaps, not so much.  A “confessor” is someone who confesses the faith—someone who speaks God’s truth.  The Greek verb literally means “to say the same thing.”  God speaks first; and then we confess what God has said to us.  It’s strange how “to confess” something these days usually has a bad connotation.  People tend to “confess” only the bad things they have done.  But to be a Christian “confessor” is to tell of the wonderful things that God has done and said.

          In today’s epistle, Saint Paul specifically recalls that time when Timothy became a confessor of the faith:  Fight the good fight of the faith.  Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you make the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.  We can’t say for sure whether this is a reference to Timothy’s baptism or to his ordination (or to both).  But what we can be sure of is that young Timothy confessed the faith.  He spoke what God had spoken.  He spoke what was sure and certain and true.  And you follow in Timothy’s footsteps every time you confess the creed—as you did just minutes ago.

          Today’s epistle also tells of how Jesus made the “good confession,” in his testimony before Pontius Pilate.  You can’t read about Jesus’ earthly ministry in the gospels without being struck by all the times Jesus told people to keep quiet—how often He told people who had experienced His divine power to tell no one—commanding people not to confess that He was the Christ.  Only on the day of His execution, as he stood before the one man with authority to execute Him, only then did Jesus make the good confession that He was the Christ—with a kingdom that is not of this world.  That confession is certainly what sealed the deal on His death.  For Timothy, too, his “good confession” ultimately led to a martyr’s death.

          Beloved in the Lord, this is a serious and solemn reminder to all of us who dare to make the good confession—to all who echo God’s truth before friend and foe alike:  Things might just get messy.  Someone will take offense.  Someone will disagree.  Someone will get angry.  Someone is working to silence your confession of God’s truth.  For it’s one thing to confess the faith as we do here, surrounded by a supportive family of fellow believers.  But it’s something far different to confess God’s truth before a world that is in love with lies.

          So why speak up when it’s easier to stay silent?  Why confess God’s truth when it will only earn you the disapproval of men?  I read something last week that reminded me of why we dare to make the good confession.  The example comes from family life—from when members of the family feud with one another.  It happens all the time—between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between brothers and sisters.  Family feuds often happen when someone speaks up—when someone confesses an inconvenient truth that others would rather not hear. 

          These kinds of family feuds happen, ultimately, because you love the members of your family.  You hardly ever get into a feud with someone you don’t care about.  We can politely “smile and wave” our way right past people we don’t care about.  But when it comes to the people you love and care about, then we speak up and say the unpopular thing.  Not because we want to be “right,” and not because we want to impose our will on others.  But because we want the best for those we love—because we care.

          And if that’s true in the family, then it’s also true elsewhere.  We are all called to care—to love our neighbors and our world.  And because we care, we speak.  We confess like Timothy . . . and like our Lord.  We are called to confess God’s truth before a world that won’t tolerate the truth much longer—that human life in the womb is precious and sacred, that children need a mother and a father, that God makes us male and female right down to our DNA, that we should flee all forms of sexual immorality, and, instead, pursue purity, righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness.

          Why speak up?  Why confess God’s truth when the resulting “feud” might be painful to endure?  Why?  Because we care.  But, more than that, because God cares—because God wants the best for all those He has created—because He desires not the death of sinners—because God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.  Because God has spoken, we speak.  Because God loves, we love.  If we don’t confess—if we don’t speak God’s truth as the light of the world and the salt of the earth—then who will?

          The world tells us to clam-up and shut-up—or else be censored, be canceled, or worse.  But we have a promise concerning confessing—a promise from the Christ Himself:  Whoever confesses me before men, I will confess before my Father who is in heaven.  That means your confession counts.  It matters for all eternity.  Christians confess Christ!  That’s what we do.  To our children, to our neighbors, to colleagues and friends—we are called to confess Christ.  And this confessing we do joyfully, faithfully, and willingly.  Why?  Because we want others to share in this same confession.  We want other people to know and receive the blessings that come to all who confess Christ.

          Jesus Christ is the content of our confession.  He Himself made the good confession before Pontius Pilate.  And Jesus confessed not only by what He said before Pilate, but also by what He did.  And what did He do?  He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried.  And on the third day rose again.  Jesus has earned the forgiveness of your sins.  He has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

          And so that you might believe this—so that you might take hold of the eternal life to which you have been called—God gives pastors.  God gives pastors like Timothy—calls them and sends them out to places like this around the world.  Their job is both simple and difficult:  to absolve us of our sins, to preach the Word in season and out of season, to feed us with the body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ—which God the Father will display at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.  To him be honor and eternal dominion.  Amen.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Nazareth Way

 

Jesu Juva

St. John1:43-51                                                            

 January 17, 2021

Epiphany 2B                                      

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          I make it back to my hometown about once a year.  And every time I return, I’m astounded to discover that the entire town has shrunk.  No joke.  The streets are narrower.  The buildings aren’t nearly as big as they used to be.  Even the people are smaller.  The old neighborhood where I played “kick the can,” the creek where I caught crawdads, the hallowed halls of Lincoln Elementary School—a scourge of shrinkage has been unleashed upon the entire city.

          The only other possible explanation—rather far-fetched if you ask me—is that Iola, Kansas was never really that big to begin with.  I personally don’t buy into that theory; but it is true that Iola never made it onto any top ten lists.  No famous civil war battles were waged there.  There was a crazy prohibitionist who blew up several saloons one night.  The boyhood home of General Frederick Funston is there; and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you who General Frederick Funston was.

          But unlike my incredible, shrinking hometown, the hometown of Jesus was known for next to nothing.  Nazareth in Galilee was barely a blip on a map.  No one famous was ever born there.  No battles were fought there.  No famous bank robbers or serial killers to boast about.  Nazareth didn’t even merit a single mention in the entire Old Testament.  Nazareth was a one-donkey nothing of a town. 

          It turns out Nazareth was something of a joke back when Jesus was just beginning His ministry.  Today’s Holy Gospel gives us a glimpse of that.  Jesus had just called His first disciples.  “Follow me,” He said to Philip, Andrew, and Peter.  Those boys were from Bethsaida; and Bethsaida was a town to be reckoned with—right on the Sea of Galilee.  Philip, in turn, rushed off to find his friend Nathanael—told Nathanael that he’d found the Messiah, the one about whom all the Law and all the prophets testified—and that His name was Jesus—Jesus of . . . Nazareth.

          “Nazareth!?” harrumphed Nathanael, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?!”  Now, what Nathanael meant was that Nazareth was no place for God to be doing anything—let alone to be the hometown of the Messiah.  There were far more proper places for God to be doing His thing.  “Jesus of Jerusalem” certainly had much more gravitas than Jesus of Nazareth.  Nathanael had certain ideas about how God was supposed to be God, and those ideas didn’t include any one-donkey towns—especially one-donkey towns that don’t even get mentioned in the Old Testament.

          But God likes to do things in the Nazareth way.  The Nazareth way is usually His way of doing things.

           Nathanael needed to learn that God’s way was usually the unexpected way—the humble way—the way you never would have guessed.  Now, there’s every reason to think that Nathanael was a good man.  In fact, Jesus called him “a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit.”  We also learn that Nathanael had been sitting under a fig tree when Jesus first saw him.  It just so happens that the shade of a fig tree was the perfect place for reading the Bible.  And maybe that’s what Nathanael was up to.  But Nathanael teaches us that it’s possible to read the Bible twice a day, under a dozen fig trees, and still miss the main point.

          I know, I know, you thought reading the Bible was a good thing—and it is.  But it’s possible to read the Bible in such a way that you prevent yourself from getting the real message.  For instance, you could just read the Bible as a manual on how to be a good person because it contains lots of rules to keep and examples to follow.  Read the Bible; be a better person.  That sounds perfectly reasonable; but it leaves out the most crucial part—namely the Jesus part, the Savior part, the Nazareth part.  Read the Bible only as a manual on how to be a good person—and you will die in your sins.

          Or, even worse, you can read the Bible in the “Corinthian way.”  The Corinthians mistakenly thought that the Bible really only applied to a person’s soul or spirit, and not to one’s body.  Read the Bible in the “Corinthian way” and see that God is only concerned about your spirit; while your body, on the other hand, is yours to do with as you please:  prostitutes, pornography, immorality, adultery—everything is lawful when your body belongs to you.  But read the Bible only in the “Corinthian way,” and you will die in your sins. 

          Nathanael wasn’t a bad person; he just had a bad theology.  He had all the wrong ideas about how God liked to do things.  Nathanael needed to learn about the Nazareth way—that the God-man who hailed from no-place Nazareth would one day have to die in utter weakness.  Nathanael needed to let go of his homemade theology—and get a new theology and a new God—namely, Jesus of Nazareth.  This, of course, would lead to a new Nathanael—Nathanael the devout disciple of Jesus of Nazareth.

          What about the Whitefish Bay way?  Is there a North Shore way?  Well, education is very important according to the North Shore way.  A good education and good grades help you to come up with good ideas and good opinions which then can become your truth.  But with this self-chosen “truth,” bad things happen:  marriage gets massacred.  You’ve got single people pretending to be married; and married people pretending they’re single.  You’ve got girls imagining they’re boys; and boys imagining they’re girls.  But in the North Shore way, god is good with all of that.  He’s just glad to have a few folks show up at church for a few hours each week—and He totally understands if sports or a late night out on Saturday prevent you from showing up.  Yes, there’s a place for “god” according to the North Shore way; but that tame, impotent god is not the living God.  And the North Shore way is nothing like the Nazareth way.

          To really understand the Nazareth way requires someone like Philip.  Philip didn’t try to argue Nathanael into submission when he started throwing shade on Nazareth.  Philip knew that nobody could sell the Nazareth way like Jesus . . . of Nazareth.  So with just a wave of invitation he said, “Come and see.”  Philip then brought Nathanael to Jesus (that’s what friends are for, after all). 

          But here’s the surprise: It turns out that before Nathanael ever laid eyes on Jesus, Jesus had laid eyes on him.  Jesus told him so:  When you were under the fig tree I saw you.  Nathanael had no idea!  Way before Nathanael saw Jesus—or knew Him or loved Him or believed in Him—Jesus knew Nathanael, and loved Nathanael, and believed in Nathanael.  The first question of a good theology is not whether you believe in God.  The primary question is:  Does God believe in you?

          Nathanael teaches us that God does believe in you.  God in Christ knows you and loves you—even when you’re stuck under your own private fig tree, operating with a wretched theology, enamored by every which way . . . except the Nazareth way.  Way back when you were too little to “get it,” God the Holy Trinity saw you, knew you, and loved you in the waters of Holy Baptism.  Baptism is part of the Nazareth way.  Only the God who hails from a hometown like Nazareth could give a splash of water with the Word and declare that by it your sins are forgiven, you are rescued from death and the devil, and eternal salvation belongs to you, and to all who believe.

          Jesus even told Nathanael, His newly-minted disciple:  You will see greater things than these.  But, of course, Jesus meant “greater” in the Nazareth way.  If a Messiah from Nazareth was a tough pill to swallow, then so would be a Messiah whose crown was of thorns and whose throne was a cross, whose power was made perfect in weakness.  Those thorns and that cross and that weakness are at the heart of the Nazareth way—Jesus humbling Himself entirely, taking the punishment for your sin.  That’s how it is with our sins—either Jesus takes them for us, or they stick to us.  I say the Jesus way is far better.

          And if Jesus can do things using the Nazareth way and the Calvary way, then I fully suspect that He can do His thing by way of the North Shore too.  Every week the Lord Jesus would have us “come” here and “see” here, where Jesus has promised to meet us.  Here we can taste and see His goodness and forgiveness.  Here we come to know that our bodies are so important—destined for resurrection.

          And even when we aren’t here in the Divine Service, well, Jesus sees us under our fig trees—sees us, knows us, loves us, and forgives us.  Can anything good come out of the North Shore—out of you, out of me?  Yes, because the Nazareth way runs right through your heart in whatever town or village you happen to find yourself—whether you are “oohing” and “aahing” at the sights of Iola, Kansas, or taking in some other metropolis.  Our Savior is Jesus—the Nazareth Jesus who died and rose to save you.  And He is not ashamed to believe in you.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.