Never Count Him Out
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 1, 2009
Mark 1:21-28
Maybe he was getting a little too big for his britches. A little too
full of himself. Who did he think he was, anyway? Why was it that
everything he says goes? Why shouldn't others also have a say in how
things would go?
There were some who actually stood up to him. Some who told him what
they thought of him. You don't have a corner on God wants. We also
want to have a say. So they told him. They would bring him down a
notch. Maybe then he would see that it wasn't all about him, but about
them as well.
Moses had actually tried to get out of this gig when God first called
him to it. If only Aaron and Miriam would have thought things through
they would have realized that Moses had never wanted it to be about
him. He wanted God to call somebody else. But when God calls a man God
is the one calling the shots. You're free to reject the call, of
course. But, then, you're rejecting God as well. He will find somebody
else. He always does. And that's really the reason why it's never
about the person He calls. He can always find somebody else. But when
He calls you He's the one at work. He's the one doing the thing that's
being done.
Something Aaron and Miriam had forgotten. They accused Moses of it
being about himself when really they were the ones wanting it to be
about themselves. It's hard to see who it's really about when you're
concerned with it being about you. Moses finally got it. He tried to
get out of God's call at the beginning not because he didn't want it
to be about himself but because he did. He didn't want to follow God's
call but go his own path.
Today's Old Testament reading shows us that the greatest prophet of
the Old Testament—Moses—has no greatness in and of himself but his
greatness lies in pointing us to the Prophet par excellence, Jesus
Christ. Why did God point to the greatness of Moses in the Old
Testament? Because in looking at Moses you were seeing the
representative of God—of, in fact, Jesus Christ. You weren't supposed
to listen to what Moses had to say, but what God was saying through
Moses. When God called Moses to speak then you were to listen. That's
what God does, He calls people to speak so that you may hear Him, that
is, God. You discount Moses, you discount God. Never count Him out,
though. God will find a way to speak to you, even through a stammering
Israelite like Moses.
Never count Him out. Even when He comes into a small town like
Capernaum. Even when He makes His grand entrance to earth in a little
town, and there, in a stable. Even when He's then incognito for thirty
years. Even when His grand Ministry is often carried out in small
towns like Capernaum. Never count Him out, because He is the Prophet
par excellence, the one God promised in the Old Testament reading. The
one God Himself sent.
Moses showed up and told the people of God what God had to say. Jesus
showed up, too. He went into that synagogue and spoke the Word of God.
What did Satan think of all this? Well, he doesn't like it when God is
constantly getting His Word out. Through people, of all things. So
Satan attacks those people. Moses was doing his job, bringing the Word
of God to the people of God, and he was attacked by those people, his
own brother and sister, no less. This is what Satan does. He tempts
us. He gets us thinking that God wouldn't work in the way He does. He
should work in a way that conforms with our sensibilities.
This is what God does, though. He gets His Word out. Through people.
Through His own Son, in fact. He is the the very Word itself. The Word
made flesh. Never discount God. Even when He comes Himself. Even when
He comes in His own way. As a man. Coming with His very own Word to
give. The people were astonished at His words. How could a man from
these parts have this kind of authority? How could He be speaking
authoritatively, unlike the scribes who were professional teachers of
the Word of God?
In fact, it seems that we're often the ones who count Him out. Satan
never does. That's why he went after Moses. That's why he went after
Jesus in the wilderness. Failing there, he kept after Him, in this
case a demon trying to put a stop to Jesus' bringing God's Word to the
people of the synagogue. The demon even clearly says he knows who
Jesus is. And then he even says it! There's no discounting who Jesus
is by Satan.
But there's no returning the favor, either. Jesus not only counts out
Satan, He brings him to his knees. If God will not allow His people to
go against His chosen vessel, whether Moses or His Son, neither will
Jesus allow Satan to be the one telling the world who Jesus is. Be
silent! Come out of him! There is no way Satan could count out Jesus.
No way. The demon came out of the man even as he was commanded to.
The people? They were still kind of dazed. What was going on? How did
this man come to be able to do this stuff? In other words, they were
still counting God out. Not quite sure what to make of Jesus; not
quite sure if God really could work through an ordinary man. His fame
spread, though. And no wonder. The things Jesus was doing were
amazing. But His fame should not be confused with seeing that Jesus
was indeed very God of very God and the Word made flesh. Crowds that
thronged to Him during His Ministry were nowhere to be found in His
suffering and death. Even here God was at work in Jesus and even then
should not have been counted out, because it was in that very
suffering and death the Word of God was most clearly brought to
mankind.
If you wonder what to make of the Church that sends regular men to
pastor congregations; what to think of the Church that Baptizes babies
as well as those who haven't long to live; what to make of the Church
that centers its life around a meal that doesn't offer much to eat but
trusts that what is being partaken of is food of nothing less than
immortality; what to make of God doing His work that He does through
ordinary words—written on the pages of the Bible, proclaimed by those
He calls, spoken to His people to forgive their sins… then take a look
at Jesus. Don't count Him out. If He wants to come to you in water and
bread and wine and ordinary words, marvel if you will, but especially
rejoice! Rejoice that as He sauntered into that synagogue in
Capernaum, so He comes into this House here today, to do the very same
thing: forgive you and bring you life. Amen.
SDG
--
Pastor Paul L. Willweber
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS]
San Diego, California
princeofpeacesd.net
three-taverns.blogspot.com
It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything
except where the marks of the Church are concerned.
[Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian]
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