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A Sermon on Mark 9:30-37

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We all know the story of Jesus. Born in Bethlehem. Grew up in Nazareth. Got some disciples together. Died on a cross. Rose from the dead on the third day. And nothing in that summary surprises us in the least bit. We’ve heard the story enough times that it’s totally normal. But is it? Is it normal? 

Jesus told His disciples three times what was coming up. Today’s text is the second one. “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. And who can blame them? The first time Jesus said this, Peter took him aside, and had a discussion about it. And it ended with Jesus saying to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God but on the things of man.” Nobody wanted that. So they didn’t ask Jesus about it.

But I think they probably asked Peter, James, and John. After all, they had just come down off the Mountain of Transfiguration. Everyone else knew something amazing had happened. They probably got some exclusive explanation of what all is going on, right? So I imagine that they asked Peter, “Do you know what Jesus meant by saying He’s going to die and rise again?” 

Now there was a rivalry between Peter and the brothers, James and John. It’s subtle in Scripture, because later, they’re going to realize how foolish it was. But at that time, it existed. They could have totally egged Peter on by saying something like, “Yeah, Peter, tell us what Jesus meant. We’ll tell you if you’re right.” Back and forth they’d go.

Two sides trying to show how much better one was than the other. So when they get to Capernaum, Jesus goes ahead and asked them what they talked about, knowing full well neither wants to admit the truth to Jesus. 

But not asking Jesus questions nor answering Him when He asks questions is not a great road to be going down. After all, Jesus came to teach them. And how can they learn, if they will not ask? How will they learn if they do not answer? We can see it’s not a good thing for the disciples. But can we also see that’s exactly what we do as well? 

We have questions about God’s Word. But will we ask them? Or are we afraid that we’ll look like bad Christians because we don’t know the answers? Are we worried about looking like we don’t know something? Are we afraid that we might ask a stupid question, and be ridiculed for even asking it? Have we used phrases like, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it,” but still don’t really know what Scripture even says? Are we concerned that if we ask questions, that it might all fall apart and not really be true? Or do we want to just keep up the illusion that we’ve got it all together just a little longer? Is that the reason we remain silent? Is that why we don’t ask?

What Jesus says to the disciples, He says to us as well. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

The reasons we will not ask, nor will we speak has everything to do with not wanting to rank last. I don’t want to be the one who looks like he knows the least about Jesus. I don’t want to be the one who makes a mess of the faith in front of everyone. I don’t want to look bad. I don’t want to be the little child. I don’t want to be the last of all. So why open my mouth and put myself in that situation? 

However, when has any child let that stop them? Children never stop asking questions. And while sinful parents can get frustrated at that fact, our Lord never does. He’s a perfect Father. And He’s ready to hear your questions. And He has answers. But be ready, those answers might not be short. Those answers might take learning about something else first. Those answers might not be what you want to hear. And we don’t like those kinds of answers. We want easy ones that tell us what we want to hear. But children? They’re usually up for those kinds of answers. Even when we’re not.

The secular wisdom on this is still true. You don’t really understand something yourself until you can explain it to a child. However, Jesus reminds us of something. You have to lower your standing in order to explain it to a child. You don’t look like a genius explaining things to a child. You don’t appear to be the very best there is when you explain things to a child. In fact, you look foolish. You look like you don’t know it all. And the questions of a child will prove that you don’t. But these are the ones we’re to receive. These are the ones we put ourselves below. And that is actually a very difficult thing to do. 

But the child is not afraid to ask what Jesus means when He says that The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” Because that’s not normal. That really weird. Because even though people die all the time, it’s not every day that someone simply stops being dead after a few days. And to make it even weirder, Jesus told everyone that it was going to happen before He did it. So why did Jesus die? Why did Jesus rise on the third day? Don’t be afraid to ask those questions every single time you hear that it happened. Because Jesus answers that question with every Word in Scripture. It is as simple as that He died and rose for you. And as deep that all eternity can be filled explaining why. 

At the cross, Jesus did the very thing He has told us to do. He became last of all. Servant of all. And He told us before it happened. Not only through His Word in our Gospel lesson, but also through Isaiah, who wrote of Him: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” That’s what it means that Jesus died and rose again. He became last of all in order to bear our every sin. And He has paid for us completely by His blood. We are forgiven. We are raised. We live with our Lord forever. Thanks be to God.

Opening Heaven

A Sermon on Mark 7:31-37 for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, Series B, for September 9th 2018.

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And they brought to [Jesus] a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed…. 

Jesus sighed. We could get even more detailed about it if we wanted to. The Greek word, στεναζω, means ‘to express oneself involuntarily in the face of an undesirable circumstance.’ That’s really specific. But we know exactly what it is. Jesus is frustrated. Whether it’s at the man, or at the man’s illness, or the man’s friends who brought him, or the reaction when people found out, or the effects of sin in our world, the text doesn’t say. But that sigh says it all. Day in, day out. This man wasn’t the first, nor the last. This was not the condition Christ Jesus created the world in. And this was not the condition He was going to leave it in forever. He knew exactly what needed done. And He was on His way to do it. 

But this isn’t the first time Jesus reacts in ways that we do not expect Him to in Mark’s Gospel. Nor is it the last. When the demons themselves start proclaiming Jesus to be the Christ, He shuts them up. When the people flock around him because of His miracles, He leaves town. He commands the people He heals from the beginning of His ministry not to tell anyone what happened to them. He forgives the paralytic instead of healing the man first. He calls the traitorous tax collectors to follow Him. He and His disciples do not follow the traditions. He compares Himself to a thief who binds and robs a strong man. He spoke in parables that no one understood. He sleeps when his disciples are in fear of drowning. His own family though He was crazy. 

Jesus has not done anything the way anyone expected Him to. Not even us. And we don’t realize how big a problem that is. We all still assume that He thinks the same way we do about things. That He would share my opinions. That He would approve of what I think, what I do. If it makes me comfortable, it must be alright, right?  But is that Jesus? Or is that our hearts? The same heart that believes that the real god is me. 

Oh, we don’t put it in those words. We would never say it out loud. But we live it. You and I both. The reason we think God approves of what we do, is because we have the our own self imagined god in mind. That’s why it shares my opinions. That’s why it thinks the same way I do. We confuse the true God with our god all the time. And we don’t even notice it. Why do you think the old question of ‘what would Jesus do?’ was as popular as it was back then? Because we were really asking ‘what would the me I believe in do?’. 

We ignore the parts of the Lord we don’t identify with. We keep the part we do like. And add in the parts we think are missing. One popular kind of god is a true American, who wants everyone to pull their own weight. Another is a true champion of fairness, who equalizes all. And another is my big grandfather in the sky, who is just happy with anything I do. We pick and choose a god we like, because it’s just like us. We create a god in our own image. We change the emphasis of the First Commandment: – I – shall have no other gods before – ME -. No wonder the god of my choice is so interested in making me comfortable. No wonder my god approves of so much of what I do. No wonder everyone likes at least one kind of Jesus. The kind that fits most with them.

But the Jesus of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, makes everyone uncomfortable. Especially those closest to Him. And He doesn’t share my opinions. He nothing at all like anything I would’ve imagined up. Because He’s not me. This Jesus has every reason in the world to express Himself involuntarily in the face of this undesirable circumstance. Because He looks up to heaven and sighs about me. After all, my ears are stopped up and will not listen to the parts I dislike. My tongue will not speak of anyone other than myself.I will not risk my comfort to keep His commands. I’d sooner give up my life than my comfort. My sinful, corrupted heart would sacrifice everything in order to achieve that happiness. But Jesus doesn’t give the kind of comfort our hearts desire. Rather, Jesus puts His fingers in our ears. He spits, and snatches up our tongue. He looks up to heaven and sighs.

Now what happens next in our Gospel lesson are the words, “and Jesus says to him”. And in English, we assume that ‘him’ is the man. However, most languages, including Greek, use masculine and feminine nouns. We don’t, but English is weird. The noun for tongue is feminine, the noun for ear is neither, but the noun for heaven is masculine. And so translators must make a choice. Does Jesus speak to the man or to heaven when He says to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”?

Both make sense. And the man’s ears were opened. Which is why referring to the man is a solid choice for our translators to make. But Jesus is looking up to heaven when He speaks. It makes sense both ways. So, what would it mean if that’s what happened? What would it mean if Jesus tells heaven itself to be opened for this man? Opened the same way it was in Jesus’ baptism when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him, and the Father said, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” 

How good is that news for us whose ears will not hear? How good is that news for us whose tongues will not speak? How good of news is that for us whose hearts have set me up as a god in place of the Lord? The opening of heaven for you and me means that even though the Lord knows how sinful and corrupt our hearts are. Even though He knows how we constantly replace Him with gods of our own making. Even though we cannot keep even the First Commandment on our own, we have not been forsaken. In fact, we have been forgiven. 

Because Jesus is taking away the sin against the First Commandment. Jesus is taking away our self-made gods. Taking away the sin that caused the world to fall. That same sin which makes us deaf and mute. That same sin which drives us to do the opposite of what Jesus says. That same sin which kills each and every one of us. Jesus carries on His own shoulders to the cross. And there He more than sighs. That much sin causes God Himself to cry out. Because the total price for all sin is extracted from Christ alone. All the pain. All the suffering. All the death. Jesus endured it all. And He paid for it by His blood. He paid for it with His life. 

And on the third ay, it’s not just the grave that is opened. Heaven itself is opened for you. Because you’re forgiven. Because you have Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection given to you. Because no grave can hold anyone for long. Heaven is opened, and so are our ears. We can now hear the good news of the Gospel. Heaven is opened, and so are our mouths. We can now speak, not of ourselves, but of the One who is not me, but is God. We can now see that the comfort we seek is not the same comfort that Jesus gives. For our comfort has no assurance. Our comfort has an end. But Jesus’ does not. Because there is an end. And Jesus is at it, with a place ready for you.

Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” And that’s exactly what Jesus has done. Your God is no longer the self made idol made in your image. Your God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as revealed in Scripture. And He has already saved you by His mighty vengeance. Vengeance poured out on your sin. But endured by Jesus for you. 

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; And at those waters, the water of your baptism, Jesus has given you the undoing of all sin. He has given you forgiveness. He has given you Himself. Because even though our old sinful hearts still give Him reason to sign, nevertheless, Jesus is here. And Jesus makes our hearts new, makes our hearts clean. Because the crowds were right. He has done all things well. And it has all been done on your behalf. Thanks be to God.