"Faith: The Christian's Empty Hand" Quinquagesima March 2, 2014 Luke 18:31-43
Faith is difficult, isn't it? The struggle as a Christian in this life; the difficulty of trusting in God when you are experiencing trials. That's our perception anyway. God's is very different. Today's Gospel reading shows that in fact faith is not difficult. That we think it's difficult shows just how much we don't know what true faith is. That we think it's difficult shows that we believe that we're the ones who need to do the work of faith. If this were the case, faith wouldn't be difficult, it would be impossible. And the truth is, of ourselves, faith is impossible. That's why we think it's difficult. We think faith is of us when really it's not. So could it be? Could it be that it's far easier than we think it is? Not only could it be, it is. Faith is produced by God, not by our inner spiritual workings. Faith is born from what is heard, and what is heard is the Word of Christ. Faith is not the Christian's powerful spirituality but rather the Christian's empty hand. We have nothing to offer God. God demands of you faith. Complete, utter trust in Him for all that is good in your life. He demands this of you and brings the gauntlet down on you if you do not comply. Sound difficult? It's not difficult at all. It's impossible. You stand before Him not in trust but in denial of His sheer holiness and goodness. You do not truly believe He is the only Lord because you hold on to yourself as your god. He is the only true God and you stand before Him condemned. But that God is holy and therefore condemns you doesn't mean He doesn't love you. The very God who is holy is the very God who has made a way to save you and invites you to a living faith. A faith in Him that fully and completely trusts in Him. The God who is holy and cannot allow sinners in His presence is the very God who is merciful and boundless in grace and favor. You know the God who demands faith of you? He is this God. He is the God who gives you the very faith He demands of you. You know how you know this of Him? He is the one who gives you His Son. That's how you know who God is. You look to how He has revealed Himself to you. In His Son. His Son who says in the Gospel reading "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise." This is how you know. You know because He has revealed it to you. You have faith because He has given it to you. Because He has given you His Son. Because He desires not to strike you down but to lift you up. Because He desires for you to be in His presence, because His presence is where life truly is, where grace and favor reign supreme. He gives you His Son, He gives you faith, He assures you it is all His work and not dependent on you. But what about when you in your sinful flesh still try to do it on your own? After Jesus told His disciples that they were going up to Jerusalem and He would suffer, Luke says, "But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said." That shows you that faith is not of yourself. It's completely of God, by Him, by His grace. That you have faith, that you believe in Jesus as your Lord, is not by difficulty. It's by God's giving it to you. I have to think that those disciples of Jesus often felt really foolish. I have to think that those disciples often felt like they just weren't getting it. But you know who those disciples were? They were the ones whom Jesus called. That's right, Jesus is the one who called them. He's the one who gave them faith. And the fact that they so often didn't get it; so often recoiled against Jesus' insistence that the reason He came--the reason!--was to go to the cross, shows us exactly what faith is all about. It is all about Jesus giving you the faith to believe, not you coming up with the trust you need to hold on to Him. And that brings us to that other person in the Gospel reading. Yes, the blind man. Here Jesus shows us that faith is most certainly not by sight. It's not by our ability to comprehend, to understand, to reason it out. The guy couldn't see! But he could hear. And this how God works. He speaks. We listen. Faith comes by hearing, not by sight. We live by faith, not by sight. We hear and it's the Word of Christ that is the powerful, active agent in producing faith in us. The guy couldn't see, so people spoke to him. The man's cry was the cry of faith. It is the cry of the Church here on earth, of all times and all places, as She awaits the day Her holy Bridegroom will come to take Her to His eternal Feast. It is the cry of mercy. "They told him, 'Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.' And he cried out, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!'" Some tried to squelch him, but he cried out all the more, "Have mercy on me!" The cry of faith. The Christian's empty hand. He has nothing to give. Nothing to offer. The Christian simply cries out for mercy. Confronted by God's almighty power and holiness and the demand for faith, he cries out, "This I do not have. Just the opposite: I have bitterness and envy and doubt and wretchedness in my heart. There's one thing I have and that is what I give, my plea for mercy." And God's response is, "As you plead so shall you receive. I give you My Son. Your bitterness and envy and doubt and wretchedness is now His. His holiness, His righteousness, is now yours. I give you the very faith I have demanded of you, go in Peace." When Jesus gave the man his sight, "[He] said to him, 'Recover your sight; your faith has saved you.'" It has restored you. You are free from the darkness you were in. You now see with new eyes, the eyes of faith. What was it about this man's faith that restored him? It was the object of the faith. The man was before Jesus with empty hands. There was nothing he could offer Jesus. Therefore his cry to Him was the cry of faith. Lord, have mercy on me. It's all I can ask for and it's all I need. Faith is only as good as its object. If your faith is in something false then your faith is false. If your faith is in something that cannot give you what you truly need then your faith is not true faith. Faith God demands of you is faith He gives you. It is faith in His Son, for He is what God has given you. Faith might be the most misused and abused thing there is in the Christian life. People don't understand it because they try to understand it. They don't get it because they don't realize that they can't get it. The answer to having the faith God demands of you is not trying to drum up the faith. It's the cry for mercy! It's, Lord, I can't see you and you're all I need to see! It's, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief! It's simply, Lord, have mercy on me. When the blind man recovered his sight, Luke says that he "followed [Jesus], glorifying God." Faith does not focus on faith. It focuses on Christ. It follows not the sinful desires of the flesh, but Christ and His death and resurrection. It glorifies not itself but God alone. It rejoices not in how strong of faith it is but in how empty and weak it is; the perfect position to be filled up by God Himself in His Son Jesus Christ. Faith is abused when faith becomes the focus. Faith is rightly exercised when our trust is not in our faith but when all trust and joy is in Christ alone and His salvation given in the drowning of the Old Adam in Baptism. Faith seeks not faith but rather Christ. Therefore, faith looks to Christ. It offers to Him nothing but an empty hand, seeking to be filled with all the riches of His blessings, all His eternal grace and mercy, all His boundless forgiveness and love. The sinful flesh violently opposes this faith, wishing instead for us to look within ourselves and tempting us to consider how great our faith is or perhaps how we need to get more and more faith or greater and greater faith. True faith scoffs at this trick of the devil and your sinful nature. It says, "I'm nothing, and that's exactly what I need to be. It's only then that I can receive what I need, and that's mercy. That's why I daily live in my Baptism. I daily die to sin, confessing it, recognizing that I am nothing but a wretched, miserable sinner--but one who has been Baptized into the cleansing and refreshing waters of Baptism where I have been united not with faith but my Lord Jesus Christ who has died for me and risen for me. It's why I hunger and thirst for the food He gives me, which is His very self, His Body and Blood, His life-giving and strengthening Food for my soul and my body." And finally, faith doesn't seek to offer anything new, but simply says to the promises of God in Christ Jesus, "Amen." It is so. You said it, I believe it. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net 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] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
