Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Luke 9,57-62, Oculi Sunday

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

Luke 9,57-62 (Matthew 8,19-22) 1615

Okuli 26 „My eyes“

Philemon the Flute Player, Martyr 311 ✠

8. März 2015

1. O Jesus Christ, Thou Merciful God, Your eyes see the righteous and Your ears hear their petitions. We ask You to watch over us and all those for whom we pray. Kyrie eleison. (VELKD, Prayer for Okuli § 1). Amen.

2. »As they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus: „I will follow you wherever you go.“ And Jesus said to him: „Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.“ To another He said: „Follow Me.“ But he said: „Lord, let me first go and bury my father.“ And Jesus said to him: „Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the reign of God.“ Yet another said: „I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.“ Jesus said to him: „No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the reign of God.“«

3. Luke 9,51 is the great apex in the Gospel according to Luke. Prior to verse 51, Luke notes that Jesus had been teaching, preaching and doing miracles: all of which proclaimed that He is the Son of Man who was sent by God the Father to redeem the world. At verse 51 Jesus’ ministry entered the final stretch; He has set His face toward Jerusalem and journeys up to that holy city. As Jesus embarks on this journey, one boasts that he will follow Jesus anywhere, another is commanded by Jesus to follow Him, and a third also desires to follow Jesus. Each disciple does not fully comprehend what „following Jesus“ as His disciple entails.

4. One of the purposes for the season of Lent is to help us ponder and meditate upon the cost of following Jesus. To follow Jesus is to put Him first. The First Commandment tells us that we are to have no other gods. Jesus, and Jesus alone, is to be the God in our life. All other idols must be forsaken: wealth, prestige, power, influence and any others must give way to following Jesus. This also includes other philosophies and religions. We cannot mix and match what we like from Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, paganism and any religion with Christianity and expect to be considered Christian by Jesus. Likewise, worldly philosophies cannot be mixed into our Christian melting pot and expect to retain the Biblical Christianity presented to us in the Holy Scriptures. Christianity is a unique religion and philosophy that is radically different from anything else in the world. Likewise, Jesus is a radically different God from the other gods we find in the world’s religions.

5. At its core, Christianity is a religion of self-denial and cross-bearing. Other religions and philosophies highlight denial and suffering as a means to better oneself, but only Christianity understands denial and suffering as the means of salvation, and it is a salvation merited not by ourselves but by Jesus. Christ our Lord denied Himself and suffered on the cross to merit our forgiveness. You may have forgotten the pledge you took at your confirmation. Most likely you were asked by your pastor at your confirmation a question similar to this: „Do you intend to continue in this [Christian] confession and the Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?“ (Agenda 29) How well have we lived up that that confession and pledge? Most likely we realize that we have failed to deny ourselves and take up our cross in affirmation with Jesus. Rather than following Jesus, we more often hide when our confession becomes too costly. We fear suffering, ridicule, persecution and martyrdom for the Name of Christ. We are tempted to keep looking over our shoulders to see if someone is behind us ready to mock us or if perhaps there is something more profitable for us than the Christian faith.

6. Let’s face it: we all know where Jesus’ path ends. It ends with His betrayal by Judas Iscariot, His arrest, conviction of sedition against Rome and His execution on the cross. The other apostles and disciples all scatter in fear and go into hiding save His mother, a couple of other women and John. When the time had arrived for His apostles and disciples to stand next to Jesus and confess Him boldly and proudly as the Christ, only a few were at Jesus feet silent and sorrowful.

7. Jesus knew the cost to redeem fallen men and women. Shortly before His arrest, Jesus had gone to the Mount of Olives to pray, saying: »Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done. And there appeared an angel from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground« (Luke 22,42-44). In the Mount of Olives Jesus showed true self-denial and perfect cross-bearing. He suffered all this for us in order to save us.

8. We will never meet the high, exacting standards of God’s law, but Jesus did. We do not go to the law when our failed attempts at discipleship beat us down with guilt, but we go to God’s gospel that is manifested in Christ Jesus. Striving to be better disciples does not merit in any way our justification and salvation. We should indeed strive to be better Christians who with the Holy Spirit’s help work to curb our vices and be more virtuous, but we must never put any amount of trust in our striving, our self-denial or our cross-bearing as something to be added to our meriting righteousness. The gospel tells us that Jesus is the Faithful Disciple, and He Himself has merited pure righteousness; Jesus freely gives us this righteousness in our Holy Baptism.

9. Those who put their hands to the plow and look to Jesus are fit for the reign of God. Christian discipleship is about following Jesus to the cross where He merits the forgiveness of sin for the entire world. This forgiveness is given out in the preached Word, in Holy Baptism, in receiving the Lord’s Supper and in the confessing of sins and accepting the Absolution that promises that your sin is forgiven. All of this is received by faith which is a gracious, free gift given to us by the Holy Spirit. Christian discipleship, self-denial and cross-bearing is thus faith in Christ.

10. The wonderful story of the Holy Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation is that Yahweh’s people fall into sin and never live up to His strict demands of discipleship, but Yahweh draws near to His fallen and discouraged people and brings them the gospel of forgiveness that is grounded upon Christ crucified and risen for our justification and salvation. Christian discipleship is not about living the good, morally improving life – any philosophy, religion or self-improvement methodology can offer that – but Christian discipleship is about Christ, believing in Him whole-heartedly for the forgiveness of sins and rejoicing in the amazing gospel that says you are saved, you are the beloved of the Heavenly Father – not because you have lived up to your Christian potential – but rather Christ has lived it for you and He gives it to all of us as a free gift. It is a gift that we cannot buy or earn by our good intentions or merits, but it is a gift that was earned by Christ so that He alone gives it to us through the Holy Spirit. This is the gospel, and its message is unique in all the world, and we have it by Christ alone for our eternal salvation.

11. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, Thou alone is fit for the reign of God, keep our faith and trust focused upon You so that we have the certainty of our fitness for the reign of God not on ourselves but on You. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Soli Deo Gloria

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Luke 9,57-62, Oculi Sunday

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