Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Psalm 32,1-3.5b; Psalm 34,17. 19. Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

Psalm 32,1-3.5b; Psalm 34,17 5217

19. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 064

Cordula, Virgin, Martyr, 453

22. Oktober 2017

1. О Lord Jesus Christ, Thou who hears our prayers, send forth Thy Spirit and comfort us, so that we are at peace with Your will in our lives. Amen. (Gradual)

2. The Lord speaks to His people: When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. I said: „I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,“ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.

3. Our Introit begins with this verse: »The Lord speaks to His people: When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.« The Lord certainly responded to the cry for help in today’s Gospel pericope. Jesus was at His home in Capernaum preaching to the Galilean Jews. His home was full of eager listeners, so full that a paralyzed man’s friends could not get him near Jesus. They had hoped Jesus would heal him, but they were not deterred: they climbed onto the roof of the house, removed part of the roof and lowered the paralytic down before Jesus.

4. These 5 men were determined to see Jesus. Now, they didn’t destroy Jesus’ roof by knocking a hole in it. Rather, most Jewish houses in that day had flat roofs that doubled as an upper deck. The roofs were made in sections and not normally nailed down, so the owner could simply undo a simple binding and easily move a small section of the roof to gain access to the top or to lower himself below. This is simply what these 5 men did as well.

5. It probably surprised the crowds when they saw part of the roof opened and a man lowered down. Jesus then used it to preach on the topic of faith and forgiveness. Mark tells us: »And when Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic: My son, your sins are forgiven« (Mark 2,5). Such a statement does not phase us, but in Jesus’ day it was unheard of; and so some scribes who were hearing Jesus preach took offense at Jesus’ absolution. »Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?« (Mark 2,7). Jesus taught with authority, but the scribes did not teach as those having authority (Mark 1,22). Jesus taught and spoke as if He were the author of the Holy Scriptures and that they were His own words; the scribes could not, and would not, teach with such authority for such Scriptures are the words and authority of the Lord; they merely said: thus saith the Lord in His Word. The scribes are uncomfortable because Jesus sure seems to be speaking with authority as if He were the Lord Himself. To claim to be the Lord or to speak with such authority as if the Lord’s words are your own words is blasphemy: only the Lord has the authority to forgive sins.

6. Judaism in Jesus’ day grounded forgiveness upon animal sacrifices. The priest declared sins forgiven because a scapegoat had given its life as the ransom payment. Such was the Lord’s law and thus forgiveness spoken as the Lord has spoken by accepting the sacrifice vicariously. The scribes and rabbis have no authority to speak forgiveness apart from the sacrifice and the Scriptures, thus forgiveness was grounded upon the Lord alone. The Psalmist declares: »Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.« Only the Lord can speak the absolution forgiveness, or speak it through the one He has sent to speak in His name, thus the priests absolved by the command and in the stead of the Lord. Jesus forgave the paralytic by His own authority; He declared: your sins are forgiven.

7. At the beginning of His ministry Jesus had made a Divine claim: He has the authority to forgive sin. Jesus gives us only 2 choices here: 1. He is the Lord, or 2. He is a blasphemer; if He is the Lord, then He is to be praised, but if He is a blasphemer, then He is to be punished. Most of the scribes judged Jesus to be a blasphemer; the penalty for blasphemy, claiming to be the Lord or to falsely speak in the Name of the Lord, is death (Leviticus 24,13-16). The scribes were among those seeking the arrest and death of Jesus (Mark 11,18) which they finally were able to carry out at the end of Holy Week. Jesus rightly judged them: »Beware of the scribes, who like to walk about in long robes, like greetings in the marketplaces, have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widow’s houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation« (Mark 12,38-40). Jesus called the scribes hypocrites, blind guides, fools, unclean, snakes and vipers (Matthew 23,11-36). Their greater condemnation is to be sentenced to Gehenna (Matthew 23,33). Jesus chose a very particular noun that we translate as hell (3 different Greek words for hell are used in the New Testament); He consigns the scribes to the abode of the damned which exists after the final resurrection and judgment on the last day; their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched in Gehenna (Mark 9,48). Jesus associate the scribes with their ancestors who persecuted and killed the prophets, magi and true scribes whom He had sent to call them to seek the Lord’s forgiveness and welcome His salvation. Jesus stood in their midst as the Forgiver and Savior of all men and women.

8. The Psalmist promises: »I confess my transgressions to the Lord, and He forgave the iniquity of my sin.« The Psalmist was looking forward to Jesus who forgives the sin of the world (John 1,29). Jesus brings to the world the certainty of salvation (Heilsgewißheit); He wants every man and woman to know and believe that He is merciful to them and that He has now purchased their forgiveness. Hell (Tartarus) is the abode created for the Deil and the angels who rebelled against the Lord; Gehenna is not where Jesus wants us to spend all eternity separated from His love and grace; Jesus says: your proper abode is in Paradise with Me and the holy angels. This is why Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans: »I am not ashamed of the gospel, for the gospel is the power of God for salvation to every one who believes, for in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed: The righteous shall live by faith. For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, then you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved« (Romans 1,16-17; 10,9-10).

9. Jesus desires every one to be saved and abide with Him forever. So adamant is His desire that He Himself became our sacrifice of atonement and by shedding His blood on the cross shows that His Father’s anger and punishment on us and our sin has been born by Him so that God’s wrath has passed over us (Romans 3,25). There is therefore no condemnation to Gehenna for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8,1), and here is the certainty of salvation: Jesus gives us forgiveness and eternal life for free! Jesus is gracious to us and we receive His mercy by faith. Salvation is grounded solely upon Jesus. Salvation is not grounded upon us because if it were then we would always have that terrified vote that would wake us up at 3 am and fret: I haven’t done enough! I didn’t give enough offerings. I forgot to confess this sin or that sin. I should have gone to church more often. Woe is me; I’m doomed! And that is when Jesus assures us in His Word: Don’t look at yourself, rather look at Me, only Me. I did everything to save you. I, Jesus, forgive you. I have saved you. You have an everlasting fellowship with Me because I am your Savior.

10. The crowds were amazed in Mark 2 because they saw Jesus say and do things that assured them all is well because He says and makes it well. Such is our great heritage as Christians: we have Jesus, therefore we have everything, life, salvation, forgiveness, all that and more is ours because Jesus is the Christ and He tells us: your sins are forgiven. Amen.

11. Let us pray. O Lord, Your steadfast love endures forever; and by this promise we know that we have forgiveness and eternal life by Jesus alone. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

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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

Monday, October 23, 2017

Psalm 32,1-3.5b; Psalm 34,17. 19. Trinity

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