"Being With Christ" Third Sunday in Lent Oculi March 23, 2014 Luke 11:14-28
Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters. The one who can't hear receives. The one who can't speak is given a new voice. It is the ones whose ears work and whose mouths are too busy talking who are deaf and stand mute before God. Pray that you have no ability of your own to hear or to speak before God. Only then can you receive. You are of the devil and that is why you have been Baptized. You convict God of doing evil work and place before Him your own works as good and worthy of honor. You are possessed of this thing called the sinful nature and you feed its hungry flesh daily by giving in to its temptations and by carrying out the sins it wants of you. You need the devil to be cast out of you and that is why you were Baptized. You are not with Christ, you are against Him. That is why you have been crucified in your sinful flesh in Baptism and having died with Christ you have been raised to new life in Christ's resurrection in your Baptism. The man in the Gospel reading was mute. He was also deaf. How can one who is deaf hear? How is one who cannot speak now able to? Those who witnessed Jesus bring this about in the man marveled. Jesus cast the demon out of the man and the man was now able to hear and now able to speak. Perhaps we marvel because we do not know the true power of God. The one who can't hear is the one who receives because the Holy Spirit gives the ability to hear by faith. The one who can't speak is given a mouth to confess Jesus as Lord, as we confess in the Catechism: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. This is what it means to be with Christ. Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters. If you are not with Christ, you are against Him. If you are in your sinful flesh, you are not with Him. The striking example of the man who was possessed by a demon shows us just how crucial this is. You are of the devil and you don't even realize it. You are against Christ and you don't even see it. That is why so many accuse Jesus of being of the devil. It is why some of them asked Jesus to give them a sign, as if casting a demon out of man and giving him once again hearing and speech wasn't sign enough. We're either accusing God or asking Him for some sort of sign, which is nothing other to say than we are not with Him. We are against Him. He who does not gather with Me scatters. You are of the devil. You are bound up in your sinful flesh. Society will tell you that you should have self-esteem. Science will tell you that you are made up of a bunch cells no different from the ones that make up the pews you are sitting on and in the end you have no ultimate greater value than those very pews. The cycle of life will just recycle more people to live and die and they will build more pews to replace these when they wear out. All religions but Christianity will tell you that there is good in you and God or whatever Supreme Being there is looks for you to bring about that good. And your own sinful nature? Your own sinful nature is so curved in on itself that it would have you believe that you are your own god. It is Christianity alone that will tell you that you are of the devil. It is Christianity alone that will take the risk of saying to you what your sinful flesh will violently oppose. You are of the one who is forever cast in hell and forever the enemy of God. Satan has you in his realm and will do anything to destroy you. But he will not cast himself out. He works against Christ but not himself. If demons are cast out it is because God is doing the work. If your sinful flesh is put to death it is because Christ is stronger than the strong man that is the devil. Satan's power and kingdom are mighty but they are no match for the humble act of Jesus of making His way to the cross. Satan rages and wars against you but all it takes is for God to lift His finger and Satan is defeated. The suffering and death of Christ on the cross was the hour of the powers of darkness and yet in that suffering and death God snatched victory from Satan's grasp. This is why you were Baptized. Satan knew he was defeated in that moment. He knew he would have to go all out, using any means to tempt you and to entice you to fall. So God snatched you out of his clutches. He Baptized you. He said, Okay, if I have stricken down My own Son then I will do the same for My sons and daughters. I will put them to death also. Since they are in the realm of Satan, I will destroy them so that he can no longer have them. And in Baptism He struck you down, your sinful flesh drowning and being crucified, joined with Christ in His death. It was the only way. And because His little finger is more powerful than all the power in the world, and all the power of Satan, God raised you to life. In Baptism He raised you to life by joining you to Christ's resurrection. God struck Jesus down. But He raised Him to life. He crucified you in Baptism, but raised you to life in those very same waters. You are with Christ. This is how Luther says it: "To be 'with Christ' means to have the same mind and view as Christ, that is, to believe that Christ's works and not our works help us, for this is what Christ holds and teaches." I'll admit that if I had seen Jesus cast out a demon I would have marveled. But what I truly marvel at is that Jesus wasn't all talk and no show. He walked the talk He talked. He talked humility and serving and that's exactly what He did. He didn't entrust Himself to Himself but rather to His Father. He walked the path to the cross because He believed it was the Father's will and what His Father willed was Jesus' own joy. Whatever would happen, He would endure it. The kind of faith Jesus had in His Heavenly Father was the kind of faith that led Him to say that the Son of Man not only will be betrayed and delivered over and beaten and mocked and suffer and die and be buried, but also to rise. Entrusting Himself to His Father, He believed this and He walked that path. To be with Christ is to walk this path. To entrust yourself to God who has given you His Son. To be with Christ is to be against your sinful flesh and to be united with Christ in your Baptism. It is the very reason He gives you His body and blood in His Holy Supper, to unite you to Himself in order to forgive you and strengthen you. This is how you have the same mind as Christ and the same view as Christ. If you are not with Him you are of yourself and you can't save yourself. He saves you and brings you into Himself, His life and His righteousness, in Baptism. Luther talks also of what it means to gather with Christ: To "gather with Christ" means to do good through love and to become rich in good works. Whoever does not believe is by himself through his own works; he is not with Christ but against Christ, for he denies Christ by building on his own works. So also, whoever does not love does not gather with Christ, but does useless works through which he only becomes worse and goes further away from faith. Remember what Jesus is teaching us here: if you can hear and speak on your own you are of the devil. When you stand before God He will cast you out. The Holy Spirit gives you ears to hear. The Holy Spirit gives you a mouth to speak. The Holy Spirit works faith in you and faith is never exercised apart from works. The good works you do are works that flow from the work of the Holy Spirit in giving you ears to hear and a mouth to speak. The Holy Spirit imparts forgiveness, life, and salvation to you. The Holy Spirit produces in you good works, in which you love others, and you serve them, you forgive them, and you show mercy to them. When the Gospel is proclaimed the Holy Spirit casts out the devil. That is why in Baptism it's not just water that is applied. The word of God is spoken. Here the Holy Spirit works through this Gospel and drives out Satan and creates faith and new life in the person. It's why the Gospel continues to be preached. When the Gospel is preached the Holy Spirit is giving you ears to hear and driving out Satan from you and your sinful flesh. The Holy Spirit is giving you forgiveness and producing in you fruit in which to serve others. It's the reason that in the Lord's Supper it's not just bread and wine you receive but the body and blood of Christ in and with that bread. You are truly with Christ because you are participating in the very body of Christ in eating the bread and participating in the very blood of Christ when you drink the wine. The Holy Spirit is giving you strength against the devil in giving you Christ Himself into your mouth and into your heart and mind and soul. Being with Christ is receiving. It's hearing with the ears He has given you to hear with, given you by the Gospel. Being with Christ is speaking with the mouth He has given you to speak with, given you when the Holy Spirit gives you the one who is stronger than Satan and who in fact has defeated Satan. He is Christ, and you are with Him now and forever. Amen. 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
