Quinquagesima Sunday – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 18:31-43
In Christ Jesus, who is patient and kind, ever ready to show mercy in our suffering and helplessness, dear fellow redeemed:
How can you tell if you love someone, and how can you tell if they love you? Is it by how they look? This might be the reason for an initial attraction. A girl thinks a boy is handsome, or a boy thinks a girl is pretty. That could be the beginning of a crush—what is sometimes called “love at first sight”—, but that’s not exactly love. Love is much deeper than physical appearance or a feeling of attraction. And love is more than romantic or flattering words.
Today’s Epistle Lesson from 1 Corinthians 13 describes love as selfless action: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (vv. 4-6). “Love at first sight” is more about what you could do for me. Love that flows from Jesus is about what I can do for you.
And what did Jesus say He would do for others? He said, “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.” The disciples did not hear this as love. They heard it as suffering and especially as loss—their loss. They had big plans for Jesus and for themselves as His closest associates. Those plans did not include Jesus’ suffering and death.
Instead of letting Jesus’ plan and promise “sink into [their] ears” (Luk. 9:44), they insisted on their own way. And if they had gotten their way, they might have enjoyed more earthly glory, but neither they nor we would have a Savior. Jesus’ love for sinners compelled Him toward suffering and the cross. Nobody forced Him to go to Jerusalem; He went willingly.
That’s another quality of godly love—it can’t be forced. When love is a “have to,” it is motivated by the Law. When love is a “get to,” it is motivated by the Gospel. The Law says, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, and mind… and your neighbor as yourself” (Mat. 22:37,39). But only the Gospel can move our hearts to show this love gladly and freely. Only when we have been brought to faith by the Holy Spirit, can we bear the fruit of love toward others.
Jesus was acting out of love when He explained what He would do in Jerusalem. He was going there to pay for the sins of all people of all time, even though He had never done any wrong. This was the ultimate act of love, accepting the eternal punishment that everyone else deserved. The disciples in their selfishness would have stopped Him from going to do this, but His love for them and us compelled Him forward.
As He made His way toward Jerusalem, a large crowd went with Him. It was shortly before this that Jesus had raised His friend Lazarus from the dead, and He continued to do other miracles besides. The reports of His miraculous power traveled in every direction, and they also reached the ears of a blind man who lived in or near the town of Jericho in Judea. He was begging by the road outside of town when the crowd passed by with Jesus. As soon as he learned that Jesus was near, he began to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
The members of the crowd had referred to Him as “Jesus of Nazareth,” but the blind man called him “Jesus, Son of David.” This tells us that from the reports he heard about Jesus, he was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, the Savior long-promised to Israel. Though he could not see physically, the blind man “saw” Jesus by faith. He believed what He had heard about Him. He is a wonderful example of what Jesus later said to His disciple Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (Joh. 20:29).
This man’s faith shines the more brightly when we think about his situation. He was blind and probably had been his whole life. He had no source of income, so he was forced to beg on the side of the road. If you were in his shoes (assuming he had any), would you be more likely to complain about what God wasn’t doing for you or cling to His promises? Trust Him to provide for you or turn away from Him?
Jesus heard the blind man’s cry for mercy, just as He hears yours. Psalm 34 says, “The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry” (v. 15, NKJV). Perhaps no one else knows your particular struggle, your pain, how helpless you sometimes feel. But He does. For you, He was “mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.” He was treated like the blind beggar on the side of the road that no one wanted to look at or listen to. “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).
He endured all this trouble and suffering, so you would have hope in your trouble and suffering. Maybe you have been hurt or harmed by those who were supposed to love you. Maybe you feel like your efforts to love have been thrown back in your face. That is a lonely place to be in, like being stuck by yourself in the darkness.
Jesus does not leave you alone. He does not withhold His mercy from you. Look how personally He dealt with the blind man. “Bring him here to Me,” He said. Then He asked the blind man this grace-filled question: “What do you want Me to do for you?” This is how Jesus invites you to pray. He says, “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luk. 11:9). No problem is too big or too small for Him. No request is too hard. You don’t always know what is best for yourself, but He does, and He wants you to bring your petitions to Him.
The blind man said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” He said this about his physical sight, but we say the same about our faith. The less we hear Jesus’ Word, the less clear His love for us is. The more we hear His Word, the clearer He is to our faith. Our sinful flesh and the temptations of the world and the devil cloud our faith. We get to thinking too much about human glory like the disciples did. We become bitter dwelling on what we should have received but didn’t. But getting exactly what we want when we want it is not the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is.
That’s another lesson the blind man teaches us. If you had been blind your whole life and could suddenly see, what would you do? Where would you go? This is what the formerly blind man did: he “followed [Jesus], glorifying God.” Whether physically blind or seeing, what mattered most was that this man believed in Jesus. Jesus said as much, “your faith has made you well.”
When we come to church, one of the first things we do is confess our sins. We acknowledge that our spiritual vision is not as sharp as it should be. Our love is lacking. Our faith is weak. As we confess, we say with the blind man, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” “Let Your mercy be upon me. Let me see Your love. Forgive me all my sins. Show me the light of Your grace.” And Jesus says through the mouth of the pastor, “I forgive you all your sins. Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.”
The faith that you have, that the Holy Spirit worked in you through the powerful Word, is what connects you to the love of God in Christ Jesus. Faith sees Jesus “mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon,” flogged, and nailed to a cross and says, “Jesus did that to redeem me.” Faith hears Jesus cry, “It is finished!” and says, “He finished the work for me to win my salvation.” Faith sees the empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning and declares, “Jesus conquered death for me.”
Jesus did more than tell you He loves you. He showed it. And He keeps showing it by calling you back to the grace of your Baptism by which He joined you to Him, by filling you with comfort through His Word of absolution, and by strengthening you through the Supper of His holy body and blood. He is not about to pass you by, especially in your times of greatest suffering and need. Whether you are in Jerico, Iowa, or Jericho in the Middle East, He comes to you in love through His Holy Word.
We won’t fully understand the extent of His love in this life. Our sinful flesh keeps us from seeing it in all its “breadth and length and height and depth” (Eph. 3:18). But the day will come when we will see Jesus as He is. Like the blind man who had the shadows lifted from his sight, we will look upon Jesus in His glory and see perfect love embodied in Him. 1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter, describes how this will be: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (v. 12).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Jesus Healing the Blind in Jericho,” Netherlands 1470s)
The First Sunday in Advent/St. Andrew, Apostle – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 4:18-22
In Christ Jesus, our King who sits on His throne dispensing the gifts of His grace, dear fellow redeemed:
If someone placed an ad in the paper before local elections, and all that the ad contained was their name, their picture, and the message, “Vote for me!” it would be fair to ask the question “Why?” “Why should I vote for you? What are your qualifications? What are your goals? How will you represent me and work for me? What makes you a better candidate than the others?” Without this information, it’s hard to imagine saying, “Yes, I will vote for you. I will follow your lead.”
The same question can be asked of Jesus: “Why should I follow Him? Why should I trust Him?” The unbelievers of the world don’t see enough in Jesus to want to follow Him. Some of them believe He was a good person who unfortunately met an untimely end, which makes Him no different than any other significant figure in history. Some say He is just a legend, made up by people who wanted to gain influence. Others say that if Jesus is who He said He was, the Son of God, then why didn’t He do more to address injustice and suffering in the world?
They would be surprised to read the account before us today of Jesus calling Peter, Andrew, James, and John away from their fishing nets to follow Him. And immediately, without hesitation, they left their nets and boats—and in James and John’s case, their father—and followed Him. What convinced them that Jesus was worth following?
Well this wasn’t the first time that Peter and Andrew, James and John, had seen or heard of Jesus. John tells us in his Holy Gospel that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptizer. He had been attracted to John the Baptizer’s preaching of repentance and must have been baptized by him. He believed John’s message, that the Savior was coming and was even now present. So when Andrew saw the Baptizer point to Jesus and say, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (Joh. 1:36), he and another disciple followed Jesus and spent the day with Him. Then Andrew went and got his brother Peter, telling him, “We have found the Messiah!” (v. 41).
So the brothers Andrew and Peter had met Jesus and listened to Him before He walked along the sea and called them away from their nets to follow Him. They believed that He was the great Prophet, Priest, and King foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures. They believed that He was God in the flesh, the promised Savior from sin, death, and the devil. Or did they? Sometimes they were unsure. Jesus did not say and do what they expected. They expected Him to set up an earthly kingdom. They could not imagine how His death could accomplish anything good.
An earthly kingdom with earthly glory is probably what was on their minds when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He was surrounded by adoring crowds who shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mat. 21:9). The people welcomed Him as their King. He would heal all their sicknesses! He would feed them! He could even keep them from dying or at least raise them from the dead—Lazarus from Bethany was proof of that! Who could stand against Jesus? His time to reign had come!
They were seeing what they wanted to see. But they were not looking at Jesus in the right way. Really they were thinking too small. He wanted them to see the big picture. Their most pressing problem was not sickness, food, or the rule of the Romans. Their most pressing problem was sin, death, and the rule of the devil. Jesus came to rescue them from these big things—and not just them, but the whole world, all people of all time.
You are not looking for Jesus to free you from the Romans. That kingdom collapsed long ago. But you might be looking for Him to work things so that the right leaders get elected who can fix all or most of the problems that trouble our society. You might be looking for Him to make your life more prosperous, your relationships more fulfilling, and your body more healthy. It is not wrong to want these things, but it is wrong to view these things as the most important things.
Jesus did not come especially to make your life better on earth. He does not promise that you will have a happy or carefree life, that everything you pray for will become yours, or that you will die with more wealth and honor than you were born with. Think of His closest disciples. After His resurrection, the chosen Twelve told the truth about what Jesus had done and said, that they themselves had witnessed. They took this message all over the known world. And for their hard labors, their preaching of salvation by grace, they suffered, were persecuted, and if tradition is accurate, they died violent, painful deaths, including Andrew who is said to have been crucified on an X-shaped cross.
Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (Joh. 18:36). We should not expect it to be established here. His kingdom is greater than this world. You are a member of it, a citizen in it, but you cannot see it yet. Now you “walk by faith, not by sight” (2Co. 5:7). “Walking by faith” means trusting that Jesus is who He says He is, and that He has done what He said He would. “Walking by faith” is what Andrew, Peter, James, and John did when they left behind the family business on the Sea of Galilee and followed Jesus.
When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” the word translated “follow” is literally, “Come! Come after Me!” He used the same word to call His disciples to rest with Him after He sent them out to preach His powerful Word. He said, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while” (Mar. 6:31). He called them to rest with Him again by the seashore following His resurrection, “Come and have breakfast” (Joh. 21:12).
He calls us to the same rest with Him using the same word, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mat. 11:28). “Come away from your fruitless labor to get ahead in this world. Come away from the burden of trying to be the best, of trying to prove your worth, of always having to win. Come away from the sin and guilt that weigh you down. Come away from the devil and the darkness of this world. Come to Me and have rest.”
You come to Him when you open your ears to hear His Word, when you gladly hear and learn what He tells you. You come to Him when you repent of your sins and humbly listen to the absolution He speaks, “I forgive you all your sins.” You come to Him when you kneel at His table and receive His holy body and blood given and shed for you for the remission of your sins. You come to Him when you trust in Him, confidently pray to Him, and confess His saving name.
This is not so much an act of your will as it is an action of His grace. Yes, the disciples followed Him, but it was His Word that drew them away from their nets, “Come after Me!” So it is His call that brings you to Him. He takes the initiative. He says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (Joh. 10:27). And again, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit” (15:16).
His Word comforts us and compels us. His Word opens our eyes, so that we see Him. We see who He is, the eternal Son of God who took on flesh to save us. We see why He came, to keep God’s holy law for us and to suffer and die to save our souls. We see that He finished the work He set out to do in perfect obedience to the will of His Father. We see that He rose in victory over our sin, our death, and the devil.
Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Mat. 16:13). He is not, as the unbelievers say, just a good person who lived and died and stayed dead. He is not some made up legend concocted from people’s imagination to gain worldly influence. He is not some flawed deity who failed to do anything significant for the world. Andrew’s brother, Simon Peter, had learned the right answer, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16).
That is who Jesus is, for the whole world and for you. He is the Christ, God in the flesh. He came to save you. He came to shed His blood to cleanse you from your sins. He came to share His heavenly inheritance with you. That is what He rode into Jerusalem to do, as the prophet had foretold, “Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey” (Mat. 21:5).
This King, your King, still comes through His Word and Sacraments calling you to lay aside the sins that ensnare you and weigh you down, calling you to come and follow Him, calling you to find rest in Him. He never stops calling you to be and remain in His kingdom of grace.
And when He returns in glory on the last day, He will speak that word again, “Come.” He will say to you and all believers in Him, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mat. 25:34). Then like Andrew and Peter leaving their nets, immediately you will leave your labors and burdens here and will joyfully follow Him, singing with all the saints: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Entry of Christ into Jerusalem” by Pietro Lorenzetti, 1320)
The First Sunday after Michaelmas (Trinity 19) – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Jeremiah 1:1-10
In Christ Jesus, who has given authority to men to proclaim His powerful Law and Gospel to lead sinners to repentance and faith, dear fellow redeemed:
Imagine that someone offers you a job, and the primary requirement for the job is that you tell the truth. But if you tell the truth, your colleagues will hate you, the authorities will hate you, and the people you most want to help will think you are crazy. A number of people will threaten you with death. You will be thrown into prison for a while. You will warn everyone about what will happen if they don’t change course. But no one will listen, and everything you predict will come true. Would you take that job?
What I described is similar to what happened to Jeremiah, a prophet of the LORD. But the LORD did not exactly offer him his job; He told him what he would do. The LORD had prepared Jeremiah’s work for him even before he existed. The LORD said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah immediately questioned his qualifications: “I do not know how to speak,” he said, “for I am only a youth.” To assure Jeremiah of His presence and power, the LORD engaged several of Jeremiah’s senses. The Word of the LORD came to him, so we assume he was able to hear the voice of God. Then “the LORD put out His hand,” which Jeremiah was presumably able to see. And then the LORD “touched [his] mouth,” which he was able to feel. All of it was to assure Jeremiah that he would not have to come up with the words to speak; the LORD would give him the words.
“Behold, I have put My words in your mouth,” He said. He also told Jeremiah what those words would accomplish. Jeremiah would be placed “over nations and over kingdoms.” But the words he spoke would not be welcome. These words from God would have power “to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” Four of the effects in the list are destructive—pluck up, break down, destroy, overthrow, and only two are constructive—build and plant.
The task for Jeremiah would certainly be difficult. The consequences for his faithful work were outcomes he would want to avoid. He grieved for his people who had gone after foreign gods (Jer. 8:18-21). And he grieved that he was attacked for telling the truth. He cried out bitterly: “Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me” (15:10).
So why did the LORD put him through such trials and troubles? It seems unfair that Jeremiah would have to experience these things. But let’s look at it from a different perspective. The people of Israel had forsaken the LORD. They worshiped false gods from the king down to the common people. The prophets and priests told everyone what they wanted to hear and were especially greedy for goods and money. The people were doing everything God said they should not do and what He warned would lead to their destruction.
But instead of sending enemies to smash down their gates and destroy the people of Israel, the merciful LORD sent them prophets. He sent the prophets to expose their sins through His Law and call them to repent of their wrongs. He also delivered a message of promise through the prophets, that if the people turned back to the LORD, He would bless them and give them peace and prosperity.
So the work was difficult for Jeremiah, but it was done out of God’s love for His people. He did not take pleasure in Jeremiah’s suffering. He took pleasure in seeking and saving His lost sheep. Jeremiah was right—he did not have the strength inside himself to do this work. But the LORD promised, “I am with you to deliver you.”
We do not face the same intense trials that Jeremiah did, where it is basically us against the whole world. But we certainly experience challenges to our faith and the pressure to go along with what we know is wrong. It is always difficult to tell the truth when we know the truth is not welcome.
And there have certainly been times that we kept our mouths shut when we should have spoken up and confessed the name of Jesus. We took the easy path that did not risk our popularity or our position instead of standing for what is right. Like Jeremiah, we have hidden behind our weaknesses and essentially told the Almighty God to find someone else who is more qualified.
But the task to speak God’s Word faithfully is given to each one of us. 1 Peter 3 says, “Have no fear of [those who oppose you], nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (vv. 14-15). But how can we stay prepared to do this? How can we make sure we are ready to speak when challenges and questions come our way?
We are prepared in the same way that Jeremiah was—through the powerful Word of God. The LORD has not visibly reached out and touched our mouth, but He did call us to the waters of Holy Baptism, where a pastor touched us with the sign of the cross and with water joined to His Word. That Baptism showed that before He formed us in the womb He knew us. He chose us to be saved and brought us the salvation Jesus won by baptizing us into His death and resurrection (Rom. 6:4).
In our Lord’s institution of the Sacraments and His calling of men to be pastors, it is clear that He wants to fill all our senses with His Word. Besides the touch of the Sacraments, He wants us to see those visible Sacraments in the Divine Service and read the Word of God in worship and through regular devotions at home. He wants us to hear the Word preached and join in confessing and singing His truth. He wants us to taste the gifts of His Supper as He gives His true body and blood along with the bread and wine for the remission of our sins.
Our sense of smell is perhaps the least engaged of our senses in the Divine Service, though some Christians are used to the smell of incense lifting heavenward with their prayers. We might smell the candles or fresh flowers, but we might especially think of breathing in the Word like we do oxygen and then breathing out our prayers and praises to God.
The Word of God does not dull our senses like a drug or some kind of anesthetic. The Word of God wakes us up; it keeps us alert. The world sees it the opposite way. It says that the teaching of the Bible holds us back from true happiness, from reaching our full potential, from being who we were meant to be. The world agrees with the people of Israel who at times ignored Jeremiah and at times hoped for and worked toward his death.
Though Jeremiah often felt despair and wondered if his preaching was doing any good, the Word of God never returns to Him empty. It accomplishes His purpose and succeeds in the thing for which He sent it (Isa. 55:11). His Word is living and active (Heb. 4:12), and it produces a living and active faith in His people.
The Lord still calls men like Jeremiah—pastors who also struggle with doubts and weaknesses—to preach His holy Word. He calls you to gladly hear and learn this Word. The Lord speaks it for your life and salvation. He wants you to turn from your sin in repentance and to believe that all your sins are forgiven through the blood of Jesus.
By your inherited sinful nature, you were like the paralyzed man brought before Jesus—unable to do anything to help yourself. But Jesus looked with compassion on you and said, “Take heart, My child; your sins are forgiven” (Mat. 9:1-8). That is a delightful Word. It is like music to the ears, like light for the eyes, like honey to the taste, like a sweet-smelling aroma, like a gentle and comforting touch. No matter how often you have ignored the Word of God, taken the easy path, or hidden behind your weaknesses, Jesus says to you: “Your sins are forgiven!”
This is a message for the whole world, for all sinners. This is what the LORD calls pastors to preach publicly in the congregation. This is the message the LORD calls every Christian to proclaim privately in their day-to-day lives, announcing the forgiveness of sins to your family members, friends, co-workers, and other neighbors. This Word of God’s grace is not always met with joy. Some take offense at the suggestion that they have sins that need forgiving. Others question whether sinners like you and me have any business speaking forgiveness to others.
But despite the criticisms, we know that it is not our Word we speak, but the LORD’s. He has put His Word in our mouths, and not just in our mouths—in our ears and eyes and noses and hands. The Lord Fills Our Senses with His Word, so that we are ready to speak His Word faithfully.
This is no job to run away from, and we do not need to be afraid to do it, “for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” Through His Word that we speak, our gracious Lord will continue to carry out His soul-saving work for others just as He has for us—the work of plucking up and breaking down, destroying and overthrowing, building and planting.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)