Trinity 13
Lk
10:23-37
9/10/17
When playing against a fast defense,
football offensive coordinators seek to use that speed against the
defense. They run misdirection plays –
plays that start off in one direction, but then in various ways reverse the
direction that the ball is being moved.
The goal is to get an fast and aggressive defense to begin pursuing the
ball in one direction, only to find that it has over pursued and is out of
position as the play suddenly goes in the opposite direction.
If you read the little introductory
paragraph to the bulletin this morning you saw that after talking about how
Christ gives us forgiveness through the Means of Grace, it went on to say, “Today’s
Scripture readings remind us that Christ’s love is not to stop when it reaches
us. Instead, we are to reflect that love
to others in word and deed as we bear witness to Jesus Christ in the world.”
In the reading of the Gospel lesson
this morning, you heard the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan. In Children’s Catechesis, I talked about the
parable of the Good Samaritan that is in the Gospel lesson. And now I have just announced that the text
for our sermon is the Gospel lesson.
No doubt you are now sitting back,
ready to hear a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Except … that’s not what my sermon is about
this morning. I’m running my own
misdirection play; my own fake in one direction when I am actually going in
another one.
The sermon this morning is on the
Gospel lesson. But it’s not about the parable of the Good Samaritan. Instead the sermon is going to focus on the first two verses of the text where we
hear: “Then turning to the disciples he
said privately, Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that
many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to
hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”
The first
two verses of our text today are actually the conclusion of what has happened
thus far in chapter ten – events sent in motion by what happened at the end of
chapter nine. In verse fifty one of chapter
nine we are told, “When the days drew near for
him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” This is the great turning point in the Gospel
of Luke. Jesus begins his journey
towards Jerusalem for the purpose of suffering, dying and rising on the third
day. In Luke’s Gospel much of Jesus’
teaching is set within this journey to Jerusalem.
Jesus has entered into a new and
final stage of his ministry. Time is of the essence, and so Jesus sends forth
seventy-two disciples in pairs. They are to travel light and fast. He says, “Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no
sandals, and greet no one on the road.”
Their mission is simple. Jesus
tells them that when they arrive at a village they are to: “Heal the sick in it
and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.”
Our Lord
prepares the disciples for the fact that they will also meet with
rejection. He says, “But whenever you
enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even
the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you.
Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that
day for Sodom than for that town.” No matter whether the Gospel met with
acceptance or rejection they were to say the same thing because the response
did not change the fact that in their proclamation the kingdom of God – the
reign of God had come near.
A little
later we are told that the seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even
the demons are subject to us in your name!”
Jesus replied by saying, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Our Lord described how the proclamation of
the Gospel was driving Satan out of people and a world that did not belong to him.
And then Jesus said: “Behold, I have given you authority
to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and
nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits
are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
These disciples had been doing
amazing things. Jesus told them that
they would do more amazing things and his statement points forward to what we
find in the book of Acts. But our Lord
also told them not to focus on those amazing things. Instead, they were to rejoice that their
names were written in heaven – they were to rejoice in their status of being
the children of God because of faith in Jesus.
Jesus
speaks about rejoicing. And then, immediately before the start of our text, we
learn that Jesus rejoiced. We hear, “In that same hour he rejoiced in
the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that
you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them
to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things
have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is
except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the
Son chooses to reveal him.”
Jesus rejoiced
that God the Father had not revealed the things he was doing to the wise and
understanding – to those who thought they were wise; those whom the world
considered to be wise. Instead, he had
revealed it to the disciples – to little children. And here we need to recognize that in the
ancient world little children were not considered to be cute and adorable, but
rather dumb and useless.
Then in the
first verses of our text Jesus follows this up by saying to the disciples, “Blessed
are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings
desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and
did not hear it.” Our Lord calls
attention to the unique moment in which they were living. They were seeing the
fulfillment of what the prophets and kings of Israel’s past had longed to see.
The first
two verses of our text and their immediate context call us to reflect upon what we have received. We need to do this, because it can be easy to
overlook it. We see a culture that is
increasingly indifferent and even hostile to the Gospel. We hear about the
miracles and wonders that were performed by Jesus and the early Church in the
book of Acts and we feel cheated. After
all, why doesn’t God do that for us now?
That would certainly wake people up!
But of
course, this overlooks the fact that Jesus performed miracles and yet people still rejected him. The disciples
performed miracles and yet people still
rejected their message. When the
disciples returned, Jesus told them not
to focus on the fact that the spirits were subject to them, but instead to
rejoice that their names were written in
heaven. Our Lord rejoiced and gave
thanks to the Father that the reign of God had been revealed to children – to those who were dumb and
useless. And then in our text he says to the disciples, “Blessed are the
eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired
to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not
hear it.”
Like the disciples
in our text, your names are written in heaven.
You know this because you have been baptized. You have been born again of water and the
Spirit. You were nothing. You were children. You could not by your own
reason or strength do anything. It was
the Holy Spirit who called you by the Gospel and enlightened you with his
gifts. He was the One who called you to
faith and gave you a share in the saving death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
The first
verses of our text then force us to consider how we view these things. You see, you have heard the Gospel because
you live at a unique stage of the history of mankind. You live in the time that was begun by the
death of the incarnate Son of God and his resurrection from the dead. You know
about the things the many prophets and kings only hoped to see. You know what has happened and you know what it means because, as Peter
said when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost, you are living in the
Last Days.
However,
does your life look like this is the case?
In the Gospels you have the inspired accounts of these events. In the epistles you have Lord’s apostles
telling you what the events mean for your salvation and the way you live. When
was the last time you read them at home? When was the last time you studied
them here at church? And beyond that,
when was the last time you told someone
else about them?
We see in
our Gospel lesson this morning that you are blessed. You are blessed because
you know about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness
of your sins. You are blessed because
you know that your name is written in heaven – salvation is yours because of
your baptism into Christ. The things
that many prophets and kings longed to see now gives you the status of being a
child of God. It gives you peace in the
present. It gives you hope for the
future. That’s just too good to take for granted. That’s just too good not to
share.
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