I asked my dear Lord Jesus to help me with this Sunday’s difficult Gospel.
The Lord heard my voice and listened to my pleas for mercy. The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost With the Baptism of Adaline Elaine Marriott and the Confirmation of the Faith by her Mother, Heather Nicole *Big Jesus* Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen! In last week’s Gospel, Jesus performed a miracle for the physical body, healing a deaf and mute man so that the man’s “*ears were opened, his tongue released, and he spoke plainly*” (Mark 7:35). In today’s Gospel, Jesus performs a spiritual miracle, casting out a demon. “*You mute and deaf spirit,*” said the Lord, “*I command you, come out of him and never enter him again*.” Dear Christian friends, Our Lord’s miracles of healing the physical body might be somewhat easier to believe than His spiritual miracles of casting out demons (if I may speak so crassly). The healing miracles might be easier because we all have seen or experienced problems in the physical body. We have met people who are unable to hear, unable to see, unable to speak or to walk or to use their hands. Because such physical limitations are known among us, it might be somewhat easier for us to connect to our Lord’s miracles of physical healing. In today’s Gospel Jesus performs a spiritual miracle of casting out a demon. This miracle might seem more distant because we never see people who behave in a manner that cannot be explained. We certainly see strange behaviors, but these are always traceable to some sort of illness such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, or whatever. Never do we see someone behave like the boy in today’s Gospel and then hear it seriously explained, “The boy has a demon.” Spiritual miracles require great faith because we have only the Scriptures of God to rely upon. We know of demons because God’s Word speaks of demons. We know that grave spiritual dangers surround us because God’s Word warns us that our enemies are not flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). Even if a person should have some strange, “otherworldly” experience that cannot be explained, we still would not be able to say for certain whether that experience was demonic. The Scriptures only take us so far and the Scriptures forbid that we venture further on our own. What should we learn from today’s Gospel? First, we should learn that there are forces in the creation that are much greater and more powerful than we can possibly imagine. That is not the sort of thing we like to hear, we who imagine ourselves to be sophisticated and enlightened and technologically advanced. Hear it, Christian! Learn it. Believe it. Teacher, I brought my son to You, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. It has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But IF YOU CAN do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” “*If you can*!” repeats Jesus, and you can almost hear our Lord chuckle at the Words. That is the second thing we must learn and believe from today’s Gospel: Our human Lord Jesus is so thoroughly and completely divine that not even the most mysterious and indescribable forces can stand against Him. It is written, “*The One enthroned in heaven laughs*” (Psalm 2:4); and again, “*The innocent one mocks at them*” (Job 22:19); and yet again, “*having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross*” (Colossians 2:15). BIG JESUS. Little demon. “*If you can*,” said Jesus with chuckle. “*I command you, you deaf and mute spirit, come out of him.*” 1. What Jesus says goes. That is the first thing each of us Christians can put into our pocket and take home from today’s Gospel. When Jesus speaks, the things He speaks happen. “*I command you, come out from him*.” With that, after crying like a baby and taking one last, impudent shot at the boy, “*the demon came out*.” Ask yourself this: If the Word of Jesus is so powerful against demonic forces, as in this Gospel, how much more powerful is that Word which Jesus speaks concerning your little ole’ sins? Your sins probably feel as if they crush you and afflict you and dog your memory—my sins do the same sorts of things to me. Nevertheless, as large and as insurmountable as we might think our sins to be, Jesus is not really all that bothered by their weight. Jesus put all of them—the sins of the entire world—onto His back at once. Plus, it seems a lot easier to say, “I forgive you,” than to say, “Be gone, foul spirit!” (Cf. Mark 2:9-10). So that is the first take-home value of today’s Gospel: listen to Jesus manhandle this demon by the power of His Words and know that He has handled your sins in the same way: “*Come out from him*.” BIG JESUS. 2. Big Jesus has also come this day to a dear little girl. Adaline Elaine’s Baptism included the words—and you might have been surprised to hear them—“depart, you unclean spirit, and make room for the Holy Spirit.” Those Words are called “the exorcism.” About 500 years ago, those words were added to our baptismal liturgy. Not everyone has always appreciated the exorcism at Baptism. A controversy arose over the exorcism that was so terrible that it is now an option, or an alternate form, for our Baptisms today. I have included the exorcism in Adaline’s Baptism because of today’s Gospel. I want Adaline to know the gift she has just received from God is a powerful gift. Like your struggle and my struggle, Ada’s struggle is not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). Jesus is bigger than every enemy, and Jesus has this day come to His servant Ada through Water and the Spirit. Encompassing this child within and without, there is now no room within Ada for what the Scriptures call “*the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places*” (Ephesians 6:12). By Baptism there is now for Ada—as for you and for all the baptized of Christ—only purity and cleanliness and life and health and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is a spiritual miracle, comparable to the spiritual miracle of exorcism in today’s Gospel. 3. We should also take note that the exorcism is not the only spiritual miracle in today’s Gospel, and this is where Ada’s mother Heather comes in. The other spiritual miracle in this Gospel is the gift of faith expressed by the boy’s father. “*I believe. Help my unbelief!*” The Words, “*Help my unbelief*” clearly show that faith is a divine miracle and a gift that only God can give: the man asks Jesus to give him the thing that he cannot produce for himself. Today Heather Nicole Marriott has confirmed the Christian faith that was given to her in baptism. Stated another way, Heather has publically added her “I believe” to your “I believe” and to my “I believe.” Today’s Gospel puts us on the alert and warns us that we cannot stand in this faith by strength of our own. The Words “Help my unbelief” indicate that doubt and distrust and distain are constant temptations for all Christians. We might even wonder whether doubt and unbelief are more serious enemies to us than the devil and all his demons. After all, the demon in this Gospel permanently departed with a single command: “*You mute and deaf spirit,*” said the Lord, “*I command you, come out of him and never enter him again*.” Doubt and unbelief are more subtle, more crafty, and more persistent. The demon only needs one command. Doubt and unbelief need the constant help of our God’s almighty Word. Make this your daily prayer: “*I believe. Help my unbelief!*” Your Lord Jesus WILL answer the prayer. Last week’s Gospel was a miracle for the physical body. Our Lord healed a deaf and mute man so that the man’s “*ears were opened, his tongue released, and he spoke plainly*” (Mark 7:35). In today’s Gospel, Jesus performs a spiritual miracle that followed the same lines as last week’s miracle, casting out a demon that caused muteness and deafness. “*You mute and deaf spirit,*” said the Lord, “*I command you, come out of him and never enter him again*.” · Physical or spiritual, the limitation is one and the same. · Physical or spiritual, Jesus Christ is One Lord over all. · Physical or spiritual, everything gets put back into place, cleaned out, and made right again by the Word that Jesus speaks. · Physical or spiritual, your Lord has done it all for you, He continually does it all for you, and He shall do it all yet again for you on the Last Day, when you shall rise to live eternally before Him in body and in spirit. Thus it is written, “*Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose*.”
_______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
