Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is written in the 6th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark: Verses 1 – 13:
He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 And Jesus said to them “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives andin his own household.” 5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And he marvelled because of their unbelief.
And he went about among the villages teaching.
7 And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts— 9 but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. 10 And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 11 And if any place willnot receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feetas a testimony against them.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. 13 And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.
One of Christianity’s most basic confessions about God is the fact that He is omnipotent. This is just a fancy word that means that God is all-powerful. For a Christian, this is one of the most basic, elementary confessions of the faith. Every Christians knows and believes this about God. If you don’t believe that God is almighty and all-powerful, then you don’t believe in the one true God and you can’t rightly call yourself a Christian! Even the littlest of children make this confession when they sing, “My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.” Basic stuff that no faithful Christian would ever question or doubt.
And yet…as we turn our attention to the Gospel lesson this morning, we’re faced with a rather glaring contradiction. (Mark 6:5)“ [Jesus] could do no mighty work” among his hometown people, except maybe lay His hands on a couple of sick people and heal them. Jesus could do no mighty work…that’s a dilemma! According to St. Mark the omnipotent was essentially rendered impotent. The almighty and all-powerful was not. What does this mean?!
This is certainly challenging and thought provoking, but, the Word of God is very clear in stating that Jesus could do no mighty work in the presence of His hometown folks who doubted Him. In fact, the original Greek tells us that “… He did not have the power to make anything powerful happen.” Does this mean that Jesus truly didn’t possess the skills, the abilities, the resources—the power—to work powerful things in their midst, or could it mean that Jesus wasn’t allowed to work these powerful things in their midst? You see, there is a difference—a HUGE difference! You can have all the skills, abilities, and resources in the world, but if you’re not permitted to use them; if you’re prevented from working, all those skills, abilities, and resources won’t do anybody any good. Basically, you can be rendered truly powerless despite all the power you truly possess and are so willing to share.
Yes—Jesus could do no mighty works in His hometown…because the people there doubted and rejected Him. (Rom 1:16) “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the POWER of God for salvation to all who believe.” These are the mighty, resurrecting, lifesaving, life-giving works Jesus was unable to perform. The people heard His Word; His Law and His Gospel, proclaimed with His authority, and they rejected it. They were offended by it. “Who does this man think He is? This is the carpenter’s son. Here are His mother, His brothers, and His sisters. He has no right to say these things to us!” They prevented Jesus from working His powerful lifesaving, life-giving gifts of repentance, forgiveness, and salvation.
Now, could Jesus, as almighty and all-powerful God, have simply snapped a finger or spoken a mere word and over-rode their decision by doing His work against their will, making them submit? Of course He could! However, if He would do this then He would no longer be a loving and gracious God. He would no longer be the God of Scripture; the God He has revealed Himself to us to be. He would instead be a forceful, tyrannical God. - “You will serve, honour, love, and obey Me, whether you like it or not!”
You know, it truly saddens me that this same faithless prevention exhibited by the hometown crowd still goes on today. People still deny and prevent Christ from working all the time. Scores of people this day will lament about how much trial and tribulation and fear and sorrow they have in their lives, and yet they will, in the same breath, denounce Christ’s means of grace. The free gift of salvation through the Word and Sacraments which He gives out through His Church, denouncing all of this as a big waste of time; a burden that trespasses into their sleep time, their leisure time, their “me” time. Countless parents keep their children from Christ’s life-giving power of baptism because all they see is simple water or a man-made rite of administrative membership.
Thousands of people in our own communities this very day will partake in mere bread and juice, calling it communion, and yet openly denying that Jesus could be present with His very body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, even though He says so quite clearly that this IS His body and His blood for the forgiveness of sins. Generally, they are using human logic to manipulate God’s Word. It disturbs me greatly to know that good Christian people are using bread and grape juice, in a manner contrary to Jesus’ command, simply because in doing so, they’re preventing Christ from giving them His life-giving gifts of Body and Blood. It disturbs me greatly to know that people, mostly unwittingly, are content with an empty, powerless counterfeit. Maybe it concerns you as well. Maybe it doesn’t. I personally am troubled at such indifference and unbelief influencing Christian denominational doctrine.
Of course, this is just looking at all this from the perspective of “Word and Sacrament Mainstreamers” (Anglican, Lutheran, Roman Catholic etc.) looking out at everyone else. Whether we want to admit it or not, we do the same sinful preventative sorts of things in our daily lives too! I say this for good reason because, while there are many times when, whilst we would NEVER voice this doubt concerning God’s omnipotence, there are those same times that we’re certainly thinking it. There are those times when life turns ‘pear shape’ and bottoms out, and being the good Christians that we are, we turn to God in prayer. Unfortunately, the bad situation only gets worse, in spite of our prayers, in spite of our noticeable increased fervour toward religiosity, in spite of the fact that we call on God to fix and heal the situation. Things don’t change within our expected timeframe. Nothing powerful happens right away… and that’s when the doubt gets a foot in the door of our faith. Perhaps there truly are some things that Jesus can’t handle.
How often we are slaves to our humanity. We may not like to admit it, but we routinely deny and prevent Christ from working His gifts of life and salvation for a wide variety of reasons. We stay away from church because of the weather, our emotions, our feelings, the other people at church…whatever. There’s never a shortage of self-justifications and excuses. How many times have we failed to open our mouths and speak up, proclaiming the truth of Christ’s Word when it is needed most? I know that you all know somebody who isn’t here today and needed to hear this message. Why don’t you share it with them? What’s stopping you? What’s preventing you from speaking and teaching the truth of Christ and His Word?
You know, when all this prevention happens in our lives, I understand why Christ marvelled at the people’s unbelief. It really is sad because in all these instances here’s the Almighty and all-powerful God calling us and reaching down from heaven to us to be in our very midst; to work and speak to us and through us; to teach us and to teach through us; to feed and nourish us and our fellow brothers and sisters with His gifts. And what do we so often do? We muzzle Him. We slap His hand away, preventing Him from working the very gift that is so desperately needed; the very powerful, life-giving, life-saving gift He so desperately wants to give to us and to all His people—His free and unmerited gift of Gospel grace, mercy, peace, forgiveness, and everlasting salvation.
Dear friends in Christ: My simple prayer this day and every day is that nothing prevents the receiving and sharing of these life-giving, life-saving gifts in our lives—not me, not you, not anyone or anything. My prayer is that through the eyes and ears of saving faith, which God has freely given us as His gift; a gift which enables us to recognise and repent and receive and give thanks for the mighty and powerful workings of God in His Word and His Sacraments, we behold not the mere broken vessels and earthly means God chooses to use, but the true giver of these powerful, life-saving gifts—Jesus Christ; the same Jesus Christ who is our loving and gracious, almighty and all-powerful Lord and Saviour; the same Jesus Christ who willingly laid down His life for us on His cross for the complete forgiveness of all our sins; for our life and salvation, all so that nothing would prevent us from receiving the eternal love and life that our heavenly Father has for us and is already ours because of Jesus Christ alone.
It is finished, in Christ alone and because of Christ alone. The powers of sin, death, and the grave have been crushed and put to death by the omnipotent power of Christ and His all-redeeming life, death, and resurrection. The omnipotent Saviour—Jesus Christ, full God and full man—has effectively and eternally rendered sin, death, and the devil impotent. There is nothing to fear; nothing to doubt or despair over, no matter how dark the world and current events may seem. “It is finished!” Our omnipotent God and Lord has declared it. It is so. This is our Good News. This is our Gospel, Baptismal reality.
Almighty God has worked truly powerful things in His life, death, and resurrection, and He did it all for us. Think about that for a moment. If you were the only person to ever live in all of history, Jesus still would’ve died for you. That’s how precious we are to almighty God. we are His precious children; children He willingly laid down His life for on a criminal’s cross, suffering all of His Father’s righteous, hellish wrath for us in our stead. He did all of this all so that nothing would ever prevent us from receiving the eternal love and life that our heavenly Father has for us and is already ours because of our baptismal in-grafting into Jesus Christ alone, through the Holy Spirit.
May this Gospel Good News of God’s omnipotent and immeasurable love for you take root in your heart and work His mighty works in you and all those He brings you into contact with. To Him alone be all the glory, for it is He alone who works His miraculous works of repentance and salvation! Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow! Praise God, to whom alone belongs all power and dominion and grace and mercy and peace. Amen
The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment