Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: John 5,1-16. 19. Trinity/Reformation Sunday

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

John 5,1-16 5419

19. Sn. n. Trinitatis 064; Gedenktag der Reformation 095

Procula, wife of Pontius Pilate, 1^st c.

Frumentius and Aedesius, Apostles of Ethiopia, 4^th c.

27. October 2019

1. O Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh; direct our eyes upon You who make us well, so that we trust in Your Providence and grace. Amen. (John 5,15)

2. »Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, He said to him: „Do you want to be healed?“ The sick man answered Him: „Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.“ Jesus said to him: „Get up, take up your bed and walk.“ And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. ... Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him: „See, you are well! Sin no more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.“«

3. In 1520, 3 years after he had posted his 95 Theses in Wittenberg, Martin Luther wrote 3 major treatises: Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church and On the Freedom of a Christian. In that 3. treatise, Luther postulated 2 propositions:

i. A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to no one.

ii. A Christian is a perfectly beautiful servant of all, subject to everyone.

This lordship and servanthood are two sides of the same coin, and Luther formulated these propositions from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians: »For although I am free from all, nevertheless I have made myself a slave to all so that I might gain/win many more« (1. Corinthians 9,19). We see this exemplified in John 5 where Jesus who is the Lord of all creation has become the servant of that creation; He heals a man who had been an invalid for 38 years, does so on the Sabbath and then tells the man pick up his bed and walk. Under the Pharisee’s interpretation of the 3. Commandment to heal and to walk with a bed in public were prohibited (Halakha; Talmud tractate Shabbat). Jesus faced similar scrutiny from the Pharisees throughout His ministry. One time He told them: »The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Thus the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath« (Mark 2,27-28).

4. Martin Luther faced similar pharisaical criticisms 1500 years later from Catholic theologians: Dr. Luther, the popes have set forth means to address the remission of sins and guilt, namely, viewing the holy relics, undertaking pilgrimages, penance and buying indulgences; why are you set setting aside these means of remission? Luther’s answer was: Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of pardon (36. Thesis). Luther argued that the Medieval Church had obscured the simple truth of Christ’s victory over evil through His crucifixion and resurrection (Kolb 11). Luther perceived that Christian faith was not a legal system, a legal relationship between man and God, but rather a life rooted in Divine grace; and that it was only by faith in Christ that people could attain assurance of salvation (Kooiman 48). Luther furthermore explained it this way: „For on [Christ] has God the Father set His seal (John 6,27). For today the question is still debated whether we are justified and obtain eternal life through our own preparations and good works, through our love, our actions and our merits. But compare the two, and see whether your works, your merits, your fasting, your praying and your pilgrimages are the flesh and the blood of Jesus Christ. See whether they are the food which the Son of Man gives. Place the two next to each other, and examine them: my body, my toil and labor, and Christ’s body. No matter how much I have fasted and prayed to the saints, how often I have gone on pilgrimages, abstain from sleep and performed this or that work — put all this on one pile, stuff it into one sack and see whether such works are the body and blood of Christ. They will fall far short. Then why does anyone boast of being saved by good works? We cannot give ourselves this food; we must obtain it from the Son of Man. Therefore all that is necessary is that Christ affix His seal, and I am assured that my God is gracious to me“ (Luther 23,15). Jesus forgives and He gives this forgiveness to us through the preaching of the Word, in Holy Baptism, in the Lord’s Supper and in Absolution; all of these means of grace are given to the church to be freely and graciously given to sinners longing to hear that God is merciful to them.

5. The paralyzed man in John 5 desperately wanted to be healed; he languished in his infirmity for 38 agonizing years always a hand’s breadth away from God’s mercy yet unable to span the remaining gulf. He could not get to the final place where God’s mercy visited His people, so the Son of God went to him, showed him the Father’s mercy and made him whole. Today Jesus draws near draws near to us with His Word and Sacraments to make us whole as well.

6. To the convicted sinner, Jesus tells us that His Father is not angry at us. Our Heavenly Father is merciful to us; Jesus has redeemed us from God’s anger and He forgives us. This is the proclamation Luther sounded forth from his teaching lectern and his preaching pulpit: anyone who regards God the Father as angry is not seeing Him correctly, but has pulled down a curtain over His face (Luther 21,37). But to see God’s face means to recognize Him correctly as a Gracious and Faithful Father, on whom we can rely for every good thing (Luther 21,37). This happens only through faith in Christ (Luther 21,37). „It is a wonderful thing, I treasure beyond every thought or wish, to know that you are standing and living in the right relation to God. In this way not only can your heart take comfort and pride in the assurance of His grace, but you can know that your outward conduct and behavior is pleasing to Him. But anyone who takes hold of the Word of God and who remains in faith can take his stand before God and look at Him as his Gracious Father. He does not have to be afraid that He is standing behind him with a club; and he is sure that He is looking at him and smiling graciously, together with all the angels and saints in heaven“ (Luther 21,38-39).

7. The healing of the paralytic presents a story of new creation through the forgiveness of sins and the granting of life to be lived as a disciple of Jesus (Weinrich 563). The gospel is „the Divine assurance and promise, which says: If you want to fulfill all the Commandments, if you want to be free of all your evil desires and sins, as the Commandments pressure and demand, then look here, believe in Christ, through whom I promise you all grace, righteousness, peace and freedom. If you believe, then you have it … the promise of God … fulfills what the Commandments demand, so that everything is from God Himself, both commandment and fulfillment. He alone commands; He alone also fulfills. Therefore, God’s Word of promise is the New Testament, and the New Testament belongs to us“ (Luther 7,24.9-21).

8. Five months (March 1518) after he had posted the 95 Theses on Indulgences upon the doors of Schloßkirche (Castle Church) in Wittenberg, Luther preached a sermon on the topic. One of his key points is this: „13. It is a tremendous error when people imagine that they can make satisfaction for their sins, which God instead always forgives gratis [freely] out of immeasurable grace while desiring nothing for this grace except that one live well from then on. Whenever Christianity demands something further, it may and should set such a thing aside and not impose anything heavy or unbearable.“ That is the Reformation in a nutshell, as Jesus told the paralytic: »My son, your sins are forgiven« (Matthew 9,2). Also St. Paul: »The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, for the righteousness of God is manifested through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe« (Romans 3,21-22). We cannot make satisfaction for our sins, we cannot appease God, we don’t have to buy indulgences, we don’t have to grovel before God begging for His mercy, we cannot merit His grace and favor. And we don’t have to merit it! That is the gospel message Luther and the Reformers thundered from their pulpits 500 years ago. God Himself has made satisfaction for our sins, God has been appeased, God is free and liberal with His mercy, God has merited us righteous, has poured upon us His grace and favor; God has paid for our sin and its consequences. Again the Apostle Paul: »Everyone is justified by God’s grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God Himself put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith« (Romans 3,24-25). On account of these Scriptures, Luther was bold to pen in his 36. Thesis: Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of pardon. Why? Because Christ Himself is our Letter of pardon. Our sins are forgiven and our guilt has been absolved; we are free from the burden! With our sins forgiven, we are a perfectly free lord of all, subject to no one, and a perfectly beautiful servant of all, subject to everyone. This, too, is a gift from Christ who Himself is both our Free Lord and Beautiful Servant.

9. May God at last be merciful to us and cause His face to shine upon us, so that we may know His way upon earth [Psalm 67,1-2], His salvation among all nations, God, who is blessed forever [2. Corinthians 11,31] (Luther 31,377). „This reaches a climax in Holy Communion when we acknowledge ourselves to be together with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. Do you belong there? If you look at yourself closely, you may well doubt it, but look to Jesus. He says you do. He died and rose again for you. With Him there is forgiveness and the life that lasts, and from Him there is nothing that can separate you, neither time, distance, nor death itself. He holds you together with all who are His, together in His catholic church or, as we usually say the Christian church—same thing, His church“ (Nagel 307). Amen..

10. Let us pray. O Christ, Your steadfast love endures forever; bestow favor and honor upon us, so that we receive by faith every good thing You give us. Amen. (Verses for 19. Trinitatis and Reformationfest)

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 28. Revised Edition © 2012 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Thursday, October 31, 2019

John 5,1-16. 19. Trinity/Reformation Sunday

No comments:

Post a Comment