Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Luke 8,4-8. Sexagesima

Monday, February 8, 2021

Luke 8,4-8. Sexagesima

Luke 8,4-8 1321

Sexagesima 021

Richard, King of Wessex, England, father of Walpurga, ✠ at Lucca, Italy 722

7. Februar 2021

1. O Lord God, Heavenly Father, we thank You, that through Your Son Jesus Christ You hast sown Your holy word among us: We pray that You will prepare our hearts by Your Holy Spirit, so that we may diligently and reverently hear Your word, keep it in good hearts and bring forth fruit with patience; and that we may not incline to sin, but subdue it by Your power, and in all persecutions comfort ourselves with Your grace and continual help. Amen. (Veit Dietrich)

2. »And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town drew near to Jesus, He said in a parable: „A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.“ As He said these things, Jesus called out: „He who has ears to hear, let him hear.“«

3. Today’s Gospel pericope gives us the historic theme of Sexagesima: grace is passively received. Jesus likens the gospel to seed and hearers to types of soil. Jesus gives, and we receive.

4. Just as there are soil more conducive to yielding a harvest, so too are there people who are more receptive to the gospel. In this parable Jesus explains why some believe the gospel but many do not. He gives 3 reasons for unbelief: 1. The Devil takes away the gospel before they believe it; 2. 0thers believe at first but temptations or tests to their faith cause them to fall away; 3. still others believe at first but later their faith is lost because the riches and pleasures of this world prove more important than God. Thus Jesus tells us: »Many are called, but few are chosen« (Matthew 22,14).

5. Here we are confronted with the most unique and wonderful trait God gave to human beings when he created us: free will. C. S. Lewis delves into this topic in his book Mere Christianity: „God created things which had a free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right.… Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having“ (Lewis 34). We see this in the Garden of Eden. God created Adam and eve with free will. He told them to eat from any tree except for one: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve had the free will to obey God or disobey God. We know what happened: Adam and Eve disobeyed God.

6. In Adam’s fall we find the truths of Jesus’ parable today playing out. The Devil came along and took away God’s Word, first from Eve and then Adam. He tempted them to fall away. His promise of the wealth and pleasure of being like God caused Adam and Eve to freely reject God and His Word. In the Devil’s fall we also find this free will it work. All the angels were created holy, but they could choose to serve God or strike out on their own. The Devil decided to be his own master and he convinced 1/3 of the angels to follow him. Then the Devil convinced Adam to do the same. Grace is passively received, but grace can also be actively rejected.

7. Adam’s fall has corrupted our free will. Martin Luther wrote in 1518: „Free Will after the Fall is nothing but a word, and as long as it is doing what is within it, it is committing deadly sin. Free Will after the Fall has the potentiality toward good as an unrealizable capacity only; towards evil, however, always a realizable one“ (Heidelberg Thesis 13 and 14). „For without [God’s] grace, and if He do not grant the increase, our willing and running, our planting, sowing and watering, all are nothing, as Christ says John 15,5: Without Me you can do nothing. With these brief words He denies to the free will its powers, and ascribes everything to God’s grace, in order that no one may boast before God. 1 Corinthians 1,29; 2 Corinthians 12,5; Jeremiah 9,23“ (Epitome II,6). The only reason a person is receptive to the gospel, is not by his or her own free will, but because the Holy Spirit has tirelessly prepared the person to hear the gospel and in hearing believes and receives the gospel.

8. Again Luther: „But without a theology of the cross, man misuses the best things in the worst way“ (Heidelberg Thesis 24). And again: „Grace says: “Believe in this [Christ]!”, and forthwith everything is done“ (Heidelberg Thesis 26). Christ makes all the difference.

9. J. R. R. Tolkien works this truth in his novel The Lord of the Rings. The antagonist of this story is Sauron who creates the one ring to dominate the free will of others. His desires is to bend everyone’s will to his own evil will. Commenting on Sauron’s defeat and the destruction of his one ring, Tolkien writes in a letter dated 27 July 1956: „It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome–in themselves. In this case the cause (not the ‘hero’) was triumphant, because by the exercise of pity, mercy, and forgiveness of injury, a situation was produced in which all was redressed and disaster averted“ (Tolkien 252). Tolkien says that Frodo, the protagonist, was unable to destroy the ring when the time arrived, but because Frodo had shown pity upon Gollum, events were set in motion caused Frodo’s pity, mercy and forgiveness, that the one ring is destroyed and Sauron is defeated.

10. Likewise, we are saved by God’s pity, mercy and forgiveness. Paul tells us: »Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death on a cross« (Philippians 2,5-8). This pitiful and merciful action undertaken by Jesus on our behalf has forgiven sin, undone death and defeated the Devil. This is the gospel that is proclaimed and it is a gospel that yields forgiveness, eternal life and everlasting fellowship with God. It is not by our work or free will, but by God’s work and free will in the person of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Amen.

11. Let us pray. O Lord, who is gracious and merciful; when we hear Your Voice in the Bible, then do not harden our hearts, so that in hearing we believe and in believing we have everlasting life. 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 28. Revised Edition © 2012 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Monday, February 8, 2021

Luke 8,4-8. Sexagesima

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