The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Kings 5:1-15
In Christ Jesus, who through His own flesh delivered the eternal cure for our sin and death, dear fellow redeemed:
If you think of the stories of King Arthur’s brave knights or perhaps of the courageous heroes in modern war movies, you can get a sense of Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Syria. He is described as “a great man with his master and in high favor” and as “a mighty man of valor.” He was a man’s man, bold, and strong. We can suppose that he wasn’t afraid of anyone, that he never backed down from a fight. Wherever the danger was greatest or the odds were most against him, Naaman went forward.
And Naaman won. He was held in high esteem by his master because he was so successful. A ruler cannot be effective without loyal and capable men around him ready to carry out his orders. But neither the king nor Naaman realized where their success came from. We learn in today’s reading that “the LORD had given victory to Syria.” Syria’s strength was part of the LORD’s plan. And so was Naaman’s leprosy. Leprosy was a serious and debilitating skin disease. Naaman had probably prayed to his own gods for relief and healing, but none came. It bothered him enough that even his servants were aware of his struggle.
We don’t expect to see weakness in our heroes. We’re surprised when our nation’s leaders get sidelined by the cold or flu, or when elite athletes pull a muscle and have to take time off. These instances are good reminders that the people we look up to are human also. Because of sin in the world, hardships come on the strong and the weak, the wealthy and the poor, the famous and the obscure. This also teaches us that the people who seem to have it all probably have troubles and pains that we wouldn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole.
So Naaman, who knew military strategy, who knew his way around a battlefield, had been outflanked by a skin disease. He had no answer for it; he couldn’t beat it. It was going to kill him. And now we see the LORD’s strategy in play. Through a little girl who was carried away from Israel and made a slave in Naaman’s house, the LORD made Naaman aware of a prophet in Israel. The little girl confidently told Naaman’s wife that this prophet “would cure him of his leprosy.”
If Naaman’s skin disease did not bother him very much, he would have ignored what the little girl said. What would a Syrian commander want with an Israelite prophet! But that was not his response. He took the message to his king—as farfetched as it sounded—, and the king sent Naaman to Israel with a letter and a load of gifts. Naaman was willing to try even this if it meant he could be healed.
When he was sent to the house of the prophet Elisha, what Naaman expected was that he would have the opportunity to make the case for why he should be healed. Or perhaps he thought he would flatter the prophet and impress him with the gifts he had brought. Certainly it wasn’t every day that Elisha had such esteemed visitors come to his door with all their horses and chariots.
But Elisha was not impressed by these things. He was nobody’s tool but the LORD’s. When Naaman arrived, Elisha didn’t even come out of his house to greet him. He sent a messenger with simple instructions: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.” This is not at all what Naaman expected. In fact, he found it very offensive. The prophet wouldn’t even speak to him directly?!? He was supposed to wash himself in the dirty waters of the Jordan River?!? No thanks.
Many people make the same judgment about the Christian Church. “If Christianity were true,” they think, “and if the Christian God is supposedly a God of love, then why wouldn’t He come and make the problems in the world go away? Or if He truly cares about His people, why wouldn’t He at least make their troubles go away?” When told about the basics of the Christian faith, they say, “How can regular water make me a child of God? How can eating bread and drinking wine be a Communion with the body and blood of Jesus? How can these simple things bring salvation?”
Looked at from the unbeliever’s perspective, we can see how strange this all seems. We don’t have anything like Naaman expected—someone waving his hands and saying the magic words and all our troubles disappear. How could washing in the Jordan River seven times do anything good? People expect that salvation should be harder to come by. Shouldn’t we have to do something to be saved? “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Initially, Naaman rejected the Word. He drove away in his chariot angry, perhaps thinking thoughts of war against Israel for treating him like this. Then his servants meekly approached and said, “Did you not hear what the prophet said? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So Naaman consented. He went down to the Jordan and dipped himself “according to the word of the man of God” once, twice, up to seven times—the number for perfection, holiness. And what happened? The flesh that was infected with leprosy “was restored like the flesh of a little child.” He was clean.
Now bold Naaman, mighty Naaman, Naaman the conqueror returned to Elisha’s house and said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” What had changed him? Was it the water? Did it have some special quality that when applied resulted in healing? No, it was the Word of the Most High God. The Word attached to the water brought healing to Naaman. The Word brought faith to his heart.
Naaman had been conquered by the LORD’s Word, and he didn’t even see it coming! Many other enemies of the LORD have also been conquered by Him and brought into His kingdom in the same way. You were one of them. Like Naaman, you had something like a disease clinging to and afflicting you, a disease for which you had no cure. It was worse than leprosy; it was sin.
People try all sorts of remedies for this: trying to do enough good to cancel out their bad, pointing to the worse failures of others to make themselves look better, even arguing that what used to be considered sinful isn’t really sinful anymore. But we can’t escape it. The sin of Adam has been passed along to us, and this sin has captured our hearts. Ignoring this infection doesn’t make it go away; it only makes our condition worse. So what can we do to make our condition better?
Jesus says, “There is nothing that you can do. But there is something that I can do.” The Son of God took on our weak human flesh, so that He could reverse the fortunes of Adam’s line. He came to bring salvation to us who were sick, and life to us who were dying. For the official beginning of His public work, Jesus stepped down into that same dirty river as Naaman had some eight hundred years before, and He was baptized by John “to fulfill all righteousness” (Mat. 3:15).
At His Baptism, your sin was poured over Him, and He carried that sin all the way to His death on the cross. His death on the cross was the cure for your sinful condition. It was the remedy for the Fall of all mankind. The perfect Son of God made full satisfaction for all your sins against the holy God. By His death and resurrection, He declares you righteous and pure in God’s sight.
To make sure that you know this righteousness is for you, He has sent messengers to tell you. Your parents brought you to the baptismal font, where you received “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Ti. 3:5), so that like Naaman, you were made new, “like the flesh of a little child”—born again by water and the Word. It was a perfect cleansing, removing all your sin from you, and placing Jesus’ righteousness over you. At your Baptism, God gave you a tremendous gift. And since that time, your parents and sponsors and fellow believers and pastors have reminded you about this gift.
The humble appearance of Baptism makes some think it is powerless. It’s like Naaman stating that there must be better options for bathing than the Jordan River. But where Jesus’ Word is spoken according to His promise, there is power—life-giving, heart-changing power, the power to heal and save. Today’s Holy Gospel presents an excellent example of the power of His Word (Mar. 7:31-37). Jesus said, “Ephphatha—Be opened,” and the deaf and mute man was healed.
The Word attached to the water of Baptism is what brought you healing and salvation from the LORD. You return to these waters every time you repent of your sins and cast off the things that hinder your faith in Him. Like mighty Naaman humbly obeying the Word and dipping his leprous skin in the water, you and I bring our sins to God, but not only our sins. We bring our weaknesses and strengths, our past and our present, our worries, struggles, and pain, our abilities, our dreams, and our plans, our imperfect hearts and minds. We bring them all to the cleansing waters of Christ and drown them all in faith.
We want everything we do to be washed in Him, to flow from Him, to be sanctified through Him. We need Him to guide our thoughts, words, and actions. We need Him to carry us and keep us true to Him, so that we are not misled by other gods that cannot save. His method for keeping us faithful is not what we expect—the proclamation of His Word and the administration of water, bread, and wine with His promise. These are the powerful means that bring us His forgiveness and salvation, that conquer and cleanse our sinful hearts.
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 Saude Lutheran Church stained glass)
The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Mark 7:31-37
In Christ Jesus, who came to bring healing not just for bodies but also for souls, not just for this life but for the life to come, dear fellow redeemed:
If you could change one thing about your body, one thing that would make you happier and more content, what would it be? For some of us (maybe many of us), it would be our weight—“I wish I could trim off a few pounds.” Others of us might say, “I wish I were a little bit taller.” “I wish I were stronger.” “I wish I were prettier.” Most of these wishes have to do with how other people see us. We want them to think we look good, because that helps us feel better about ourselves.
Or maybe what you would like to change is not so much your appearance, but your health. “I wish this pain in my joints or my back would go away.” “I wish I could get back the energy and mobility I used to have.” “I wish my heart were more reliable.” “I wish this cancer were gone.” And there is no question that being healed of these things would be a great relief. But how far would it take you? Would you actually be happier and more content if you received exactly what you wanted?
Today we hear about a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Those two things often go together. If you grow up being unable to hear, or unable to hear correctly, you won’t know how to control the sounds that you make with your mouth. Communication for this man was certainly difficult, but he had gotten along so far. He did not have a life-threatening illness or demon-possession like other people Jesus had healed. But the people figured that if Jesus could help with those things, He could “lay His hand on” this man and heal him too.
While the people had confidence in Jesus, it isn’t exactly the case that they believed in Him. They believed that He had special powers, and they were really hoping to see Him use them. But they did not believe He was the promised Savior of the world. What they were hoping for was a miracle of physical healing and not much more.
Jesus of course knew this about them. We see how He took the deaf man away from the crowd, because He wasn’t interested in making a spectacle of it. He sighed deeply—even groaned—as He looked toward heaven, saddened by the whole situation. And then after the miracle had been performed, He charged the people not to tell anyone what He had done—an order which they totally ignored.
But why would Jesus order them not to tell? Well what kind of message do you think they shared? Would you guess that they talked more about who He was, or about what He was able to do? “He has done all things well!” they cried. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!” The message was that Jesus mattered because of the physical healing He could perform.
This message could have led some to wonder, “Who is Jesus anyway? How is He able to do the things He does?” Those are the questions all the people should have been asking. But many just looked at Him as a means to get what they wanted. “If Jesus could take away this problem, or this problem, I would be so free. Then I could do whatever I wanted again.”
You can see how getting healed by Jesus did not guarantee that people would follow Him. We see the same thing today. Our merciful Lord regularly blesses the medical treatment people receive, so that their life is extended. Or He preserves people from greater harm when they could have easily died. Many who have been through these things will even express that they have “a new lease on life.” But their attitude toward God doesn’t change. They don’t give thanks to the One who gives them their daily bread, who gives them everything they have and everything they need for this life.
And the same often goes for us. We might fervently pray for one thing, one physical gift, whether it be healing from an infection or disease, or for improved health. We say that we will dedicate our whole life to God if only He will fix this one thing. But how much changes for us if that healing comes? It usually doesn’t take long before we forget what God has done for us. And then we take up a new petition, a new concern, that would make our lives so much better if only God would help.
There is always another problem. This makes me think of the animated movie Aladdin by Disney. When dirt-poor Aladdin learned he had three wishes to ask for whatever he wanted, he figured he really only needed one and said he would happily use one of the wishes to free the genie. But that first wish didn’t accomplish everything Aladdin wanted. More issues and needs kept coming up. That’s how life is in this sinful world. We cannot have a perfect existence here.
Instead of looking for happiness and contentment through the relief of our physical problems, Jesus wants us to look to Him. That was the message for Paul, who pleaded for the Lord to remove his “thorn in the flesh.” Surely God would grant this request to His loyal servant, who endured tremendous affliction for preaching the Gospel! Paul prayed specifically for this three times, and this was the Lord’s answer, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2Co. 12:9).
The question is not whether God has the power to heal us. Of course He does. The question is whether that healing is the best thing for us. God’s response to Paul was that his thorn in the flesh would be a reminder to Paul of His grace toward him. Paul would have to rely on the Lord’s strength instead of his own, which is what he realized and confessed. Paul said, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me…. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (vv. 9, 10).
What Jesus does for us—that is what matters. Today’s Epistle lesson is about the change brought by our Savior’s coming. It contrasts the ministry of condemnation and death with the ministry of righteousness and life (2Co. 3:4-11). The ministry of condemnation is the work of God’s Law on our hearts which convicts us of our sin, sins like worry and impatience in our suffering, and sins like forgetting the mercy of God toward us. The ministry of righteousness is the Holy Spirit applying the gracious work of Jesus to us sinners.
God sent His Son to infuse life into this world of death. We see this so vividly in Jesus’ healing touch. The man’s ears and tongue which were “broken” because of sin in this world, Jesus touched with His holy hands. Then He spoke His powerful Word. The man didn’t have the physical ability to hear this Word, but Jesus’ Word made its way through the damaged parts of his outer ear, middle ear, or inner ear and into his brain and set all those mechanisms right again.
That’s what Jesus’ Word does, it sets everything right. His Word sets our hearts right and our minds right. His Word sets our homes right and the teaching of our churches right. His Word sets our priorities and our plans and our hopes right. When the man’s tongue was released, we are told that he was now able to speak rightly (Greek: orthos).
The people said, “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak,” as though that were the most he could do or the height of what He could do. But He came to do something much bigger and much better than physical healing. Putting His fingers into the man’s ears was just a small sign of who He is and what He came to do. The Son of God put His whole divine self into our human flesh. “For in [Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9).
He came to be the Minister of Righteousness, to serve us in His righteousness and to distribute His righteous acts to us. All the good He accomplished according to the holy Law, fulfilling its demands in full, He gives to us. He credits us with His perfect listening which covers over all the times we used our hearing to listen to what is false and wrong. He credits us with His perfect speaking which covers over all the times we used our mouths to speak what is untrue and unkind. The life we have lived in our sin has been wrong in so many ways, and Jesus set us right again with the Father by His perfect life. And the debt we owed to God for breaking all His commands, Jesus paid it by shedding His holy blood on the cross.
So whether or not everything is all right for you or for me in our bodies and in the world, we are right with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our confidence and this is our comfort when we suffer. Our suffering might not quickly go away, and it may be God’s will that it does not go away as long as we live here. But He promises to keep touching us with His mercy and grace in both the good days and the bad ones.
He does not tire of coming to minister to us and serve us with His healing presence in the means of grace. He does not tire of encouraging us in our weakness. He does not tire of speaking His promises to us again and again, opening our ears and filling us with His righteousness and with His enduring peace. The people were right that Jesus “has done all things well,” but they didn’t fully appreciate what “all things” meant.
Jesus “has done all things well,” all things right, because He is Righteousness. He is the Righteousness of God sent down from heaven to free us from our bondage to sin and death, and free us to hear His Word rightly and confess His truth clearly. In Him, we can be happy and content, even if not everything is right with our bodies on the outside or the inside. Jesus, the Minister of Righteousness is the one blessing we truly need.
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 the morning of the annual outdoor service)
The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Vicar Cody Anderson sermon
Text: St. Mark 7:31-37
In Christ Jesus, who has done all things well, making the deaf hear and the mute speak, dear fellow redeemed:
As a student, you probably remember the days when people came to test your vision and hearing. For the hearing test, you have to put on headphones. Once they were on, they gave you a buzzer that you would push when you heard the tone that they played, or maybe they had you raise your hand when you heard a sound in each ear. Now this tone would start out loud, but as it got softer and softer, and as you were concentrating, it would come to a point that you didn’t know if you could hear it at all. I had to take this text before starting my factory job. When the test was over, the lady who was administering the test told me that I had perfect hearing. I responded, “I can’t wait to get home and tell my mother that.” To which she responded, “I can’t control when you decide to listen.” The problem that we have isn’t that we choose when we want to listen. Spiritually the problem is much worse than that. Our sins have made it so that we can’t hear and are not able to speak. The text makes it clear that Jesus is the one who opens ears and loosens tongues.
Jesus shows that he did not only come to save the Jews but the Gentiles as well. The Jews were hoping that the Messiah would liberate them from the Roman government. But that is not what he came to do. Throughout the Old Testament God made it known that he would send a Savior for the whole world. That is who Jesus is. He didn’t come to save one race, or one group. He came to save the entire world. In Jesus ministry, we see that he continues to travel. He moves from Galilee, goes down to Jerusalem for the feasts and festivals, and then he goes back north. We see in our text that Jesus had left the area that was home, and he traveled with his disciples in the lands of the Gentiles. Jesus has come into the Decapolis which is an area of 10 gentile cities.
Now he performed a miracle in this area already. One of the well-known one is when he drove the demons out of the men and he sent them into a heard of pigs. This miracle created quite a stir in this area. Right before our text Jesus encounters the woman who had great faith. As Jesus told her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and feed it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet; even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mark 7:27-28). The news of Jesus is starting to gain traction since more know about him. Now here in our text yet another man has come to receive help from Jesus.
The people are beginning to have a wrong idea about what Jesus is doing. The people upon watching Jesus perform his miracles have had other thoughts about the Messiah. They want Jesus to be their king. It’s recorded in John, “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (John 6:15). The people are not really paying attention to Jesus’ message any more. They see the miracles that he is performing and they are starting to only see his power. What is Jesus to do? He wants people to hear and listen to the message of the kingdom of God. As Jesus has a man brought to him and he can’t hear or speak, Jesus continues to have compassion. He has a plan.
Jesus takes the man away, not to show off his powers. When Jesus performs his miracles in front of the crowds, he has a message that he wants the people to know. With this miracle Jesus doesn’t want the crowd to see. So, he pulls the man away from the crowd. The people want to tell all about the signs and wonders they are seeing; they are in awe. But Jesus tells them not to say anything. As Jesus is trying to get them to stop, they continue to tell others about it. The crowd isn’t looking for a message anymore.
Like the crowd that Jesus is trying to hush, like the man who was healed, our ears and tongues are also out of function. Jesus is telling us a message of repentance, that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We as Christians, we know his message and we want to hear it. But the world is so noisy. We want to listen to what the world has to offer. It’s like our favorite music drowning our cares away. When we are living in our sins, we are deaf to God’s Word. Our sinful nature sees how hard it is to follow God’s commands. Why should we listen to them? They are so hard to follow and the sins are so easy to commit. The sin that we most want to commit is like the crowd. We don’t want to listen to Jesus’ message and we want Jesus to listen to us and to do what we tell him to. Jesus is still trying to communicate to us yet often we don’t want to listen. We want our tongues to stay mute at times. That is our bodies wanting to stay in our sins. But as the crowds continue to not listen, as we fall into our weaknesses, Jesus continues to heal and he did not give up on his mission.
Jesus restores the man of his ailments, showing that he is the one who hears and speaks what his Father wants. Ephphatha, be opened. Jesus shows how powerful his Word is. He is able to restore the man to full health. Adam was created knowing language and hearing God, but then he closed his ears to God’s Word. Jesus restores what was lost in the fall. This major reversal reveals how much mercy God has. He wants the world to hear the precious message of the gospel. His son lived a perfect life, listening to everything that the Father had told him. Only listening and doing his will. He then fulfilled God’s Word to the letter. Jesus continued to listen to his Father, and he took his cup and drank it, going to the cross. How awesome that we have a Savior who willingly listened to his Father and died for us. Jesus removes our deafness and loosens our tongues by perfectly hearing and speaking for us and forgiving us our sins.
Isaiah foretold that Jesus would come and do this. Jesus would come and cause a stir. Isaiah’s prophecy is our Old Testament lesson for today, “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see. The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD, and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 29:18-19). The people of Jesus day were in great need of help. We also are in great need of help. The Holy One of Israel continues to come to open our ears and loosen our tongues. He brings us out of the darkness and into his marvelous light.
We see how God’s Word continues to perform miracles when the gospel is spread. The gospel is alive and active. It does not stay silent. It is meant for human ears to hear and Jesus commands us to go and share it. The gospel heals souls as it tells people about how God kept his promise and sent a Savior. When sinners hear the comfort of the gospel, they will exult the Holy One also. This is not a message for only some to hear. This is a message for everyone. Jesus says “Ephphatha, be opened”, so that all ears can hear the wonderful news that he has done. Fulfilling God’s promise of dying for our sins and taking them all away.
Jesus gives us comfort daily that our ears are opened, and our tongues are loosened. There may come a time where we have given into temptation and we think, “How can I share God’s Word with others?” We think that we should give up because we failed God and closed our ears to his Word in weakness. But the power to change hearts and reach souls is not ours. The power is in the Word, God calls sinners to speak it. God knows that we are sinful. He sees us here in this world. That is why he sent his son. It is Jesus who says “Ephphatha, be opened.” It’s not us saying those words. The Holy Spirit uses us as messengers to bring the sweet gospel to people’s ears. We can have confidence that is not our actions, and when we fail, Jesus still tells our ears to be opened. He knows the weaknesses that we go through. He is there with us in our temptations. He knows that we need to hear the word “Ephphatha” more than once in our lives. It is that comfort that allows us to continue to carry on and tell others about Jesus because we know how sweet it is to hear the gospel words of comfort.
This is how awesome our God is. As we used our selective hearing ever since the time of the fall, this has now been restored. God shows His power. He sent his Son to heal the deaf ears of the human race, all of us who were lost in our sins and deaf to God’s Word. The Holy Spirit opens our ears so that we can know that saving gospel. Our tongues are loosed so we can share it. We hear Christ loud and clear as he says, “Ephphatha,” “Be Opened.” So now that we have had our hearing tested and see that on our own it doesn’t exist, Jesus did have perfect hearing. That perfect hearing is now ours. Jesus makes it possible to hear and share his Word. To God be the glory that we hear “Ephphatha, be opened.” Amen.
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 stained-glass window at Saude)