Sermons

This leper’s sin-ravaged body, covered in bandaged sores, agrees with St. Paul, who later confessed—that all our works are nothing but filthy garments. Jesus had broken this Samaritan out of the prison house of doom, where death had royal scope and room. He healed the leper as a free gift, without any merit or worthiness in him. Jesus healed him because that’s what Jesus does. He has mercy on those whom He has mercy. Why would he go anywhere or to anyone else?

Jesus is working by command and parable to utterly humble you into confession. He is not setting up for you another example of pious living that will save you. Instead, He is pointing you away from yourself, your own boasting, and your mistaken righteousness. He’s returning you to faith in Him, who justifies and saves freely out His gracious giving. For Christ alone is your righteousness, your redemption, and your salvation. Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the Gate, the Ladder, and Step by which you are brought to the Father.

Jesus recognizes this man’s bodily need and heals him. The man and his friends have exhausted every possible remedy. There is no technology, no medicine, and no miracle worker that has unshackled him from this burden. He gives the man what neither the man nor anyone else could give him. Jesus doesn’t free him from his body but restores his body in part to the Creator’s original intent. “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.” This kind of healing is never beyond our Creator; thus, we pray daily for the sick, the infirm, and those with any mental or physical disability. We trust that Jesus can and does heal according to His good and gracious pleasure.

And you, even if you have your five senses, must remember that the Holy Spirit inspired the prophets to speak of our whole condition as rebels as a kind of deafness. Jesus today is teaching us that not only does He heal mental and physical disability, but He comes to set us free from our spiritual disability. The broader context of Jesus restoring senses is that He is about restoring your fear, love, and trust in Him above all things. He is opening your ears, implanting His Word in your hearts, and loosening your tongue to confess faith in Him.

It is only the tax collector in the story who understands his real position. The tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ He recognizes that all the categories, classes, and divisions we see in the world in the final estimation don’t mean a thing before God. The stories you tell about yourself—whether ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, or economic success—don’t mean anything when you’re brought before the judgment seat of God on the last day. On that day, the only thing that matters is whether the Father sees in you the reflection of His Son Jesus.

Your identity before God is clear and simple. You are a child of God through Holy Baptism. You have been clothed with Christ, washed in His saving blood, branded as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. You might be a worker or employer, long-time American or immigrant, male or female (or some other imaginary gender). According to your baptism, you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This why we read terrifying accounts of history and prophecy. We’re understandably reluctant because God’s wrath revealed is often frightening, gory, and horrific. They are meant to tear down the proud in the imaginations of the heart and keep the godly in the fear of God. And in the midst of every terrible event like the destruction of Jerusalem, we hear of God mercifully preserving the faithful, like Noah or Lot. God the Holy Spirit directs your heart by means of the Word and confession to repent and believe again.

The Gospel is wise and right before God but looks like foolishness to the world. Now, in faith, you forgive even those who don’t deserve it. In faith, you care for those who don’t want it. In faith, you love those who are unloving. You live to serve. You know you are a steward of what you have, not its ultimate owner. You risk discomfort, persecution, and ridicule for your ridiculous faith. You dare to trust God in danger. You would rather suffer martyrdom than be unfaithful to God.

Jesus tells you, “You will know them by their fruits.” A true prophet preaches repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s shed blood. A false prophet tells you to justify, rationalize, or overlook sin. A true prophet preaches justification by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. A false prophet tells you to live a holy life by following rules and regulations, to be a good person in order to be saved. A true prophet only preaches what he has been given to speak from the Word of God. Without your intentional study of God’s Word, you’ll never know if everything this preacher preached and this congregation confesses is good, right, and true. The solid rock upon which the Church is built are the words of Jesus. Let us all commit to the diligent and patient study of God’s Word. Everything else is sinking sand. 

Jesus will never stop putting up with you. He will keep calling you to join Him in the sea, mountain, or desert places. He will keep gathering you together with other poor sinners in need of mercy. He will keep speaking to you His Word that gives faith, life, salvation, and peace. And He will keep shepherding His flock, even those who wander and find themselves outside His fold. 

Every relationship—from home to the congregation, work, school, or society—is full of sinners sinning. You ask yourself why there is so much chaos, disorder, hatred, envy, greed, slander, libel, philandering, home-wrecking, and worse. You think that if there are more rules, more laws, more policies, and more enforcement of other people’s rebellion that everything will get better. But you neglect to listen to what God has spoken and where He has directed that Word. Yes, He reveals the lies of the deceiver and the temptations of the world. But Jesus tells you those are nothing compared to your own heart. A reconciled relationship begins with and requires reconciliation between you and God. 

For you to be a disciple like those of the Scriptures, therefore, is to live daily under the influence of the Word of Jesus. Your heart and mind consciously want to do just that and seek every opportunity to be with Jesus in preaching, teaching, and Sacrament. Jesus himself said to the disciples who had chosen to follow him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31ff). To be a disciple is to have your priorities adjusted so that work, play, and even family are governed by and focused on hearing Jesus and receiving His gifts.