READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 1:1-2:3
Ephesians 6:10-17
- St. John 4:46-54
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 1)
Who speaks you this morning saying,
“Jesus said to
him, ‘Go; your son lives.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him
and went on his way.”
In a related event, that St. John does not write down, but
Sts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke do, Jesus heals a certain man’s daughter, not a
son. It is a similar ceremony, however. Both accounts tell of a man that comes
to beg for Jesus’ action and presence. Both tell of Jesus speaking the Word of
resurrection, because in both accounts the Son and the Daughter die before
Jesus comes. And both tell of a crowd that had gathered.
One glaring difference, which we will focus on today, is
that when the Son is raised, there is belief. The father hears the Word of God
and believes, and the Word accomplishes exactly what the father believes. St.
John tells us this is the Second Sign Jesus created in Galilee and we know
these signs give faith.
However, when the daughter is presented to Jesus, instead of
belief Jesus is presented with laughter. They laugh. Part of this could be
attributed to the subject being a girl and of less value than a son, in that
time, but that is baloney, in my opinion. Male and female are alike to God.
No, something else is going on with this demonic laughter.
Understanding it is as easy as this: belief comes when the Son of God is raised
from the dead, but laughter and derision come when the world figures out that
the Son of God does His Resurrection work through the Daughter, through His
Church.
“So God created man in His own image”, Genesis 1
tells us, “in the image of God He created him; male and female He created
them” (Gen 1:27), from our Old Testament reading. The Sun and the
moon. The earth and the heavens. A perfect pair joined into one flesh, not just
in marriage, but at the marriage of God and man in one Christ. The Head and the
Body, the Husband and the Wife, the Son and the Daughter.
This Daughter is dear to our heavenly Father and will never
be forgotten. She is placed on earth, though, and the Lord Christ prays for Her
saying, “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because
they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that
You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the
evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” and “As
You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (Jn 17:14-16,
18).
She is the object of demonic laughter because she is weak in
sin. They dare not laugh at the Son, they know better, as they have already
said, “Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You
come to destroy us (before the appointed time)? I know who You are—the Holy One
of God!” (Mk. 1:24, Mt. 8:29).
Regardless, She is still the object of her Bridegroom’s full
affection and therefore the object of full derision from the devil and his
angels. I made this point last week, that our Divine Liturgy marks the Church
of God as “she who bears the cross”, if only because She is the weaker target.
Repent. You only care what others think about you. You think
that everyone thinks you’re crazy for following Jesus. You think that everyone
thinks you are an extremist in your belief of Jesus’ Word and because of that
you take their laughter and derision as proof that God loves you. But you are
not worthy of such praise as to be laughed to scorn as Jesus’ was. For they do
not laugh at your personal choices but because you go to the Liturgy.
It is all of God’s work that is met with laughter and scorn.
He promised a Son to Abraham and Sarah and they both laughed at Him (Gen 17:17,
18:12). This has been God’s plight ever since He decided to place His Name
alongside His people and pledge His honor with theirs.
Thus, the Church has cried out since the beginning of time,
“O my God, I trust in You; Let me not be ashamed; Let not my enemies [laugh]
over me” (Ps 25:2). And yet, the story repeats itself again and again. In
advertising the Temple’s Divine Service, king Hezekiah sent messengers with
invitations all over Israel but they were laughed at and mocked (2 Chr. 30:10).
It is divinely ordained for us to weep now. As Jesus said,
we will weep when we see God die on the cross and we will weep when we do not
see Jesus for a little while (Jn 16:20, 16). So it is that each time we go
through our Lord’s Passion in the Church Year, we pray fervently that God’s enemies
would not triumph and that God would have the last laugh.
Our Lord does indeed have the last laugh, and not just in
the end either. He even has the last laugh now in our time. For though we are
weeping, Jesus laughs. Is He cold-hearted? No. He laughs in the face of danger
and in the face of His enemies.
He laughs at destruction and famine (Job 5:22), not because
He hates us and neither because He has gone mad. He laughs, because He has
already faced destruction in His suffering and death and has ended it. He
laughs at famine, because He was starved to death on a cross and has come back
to life bearing the Bread of Heaven which satisfies to eternity.
Our Resurrected Christ also laughs at the rattling of the
enemy’s javelin (Job 41:29). His opposition arrays himself for war, but neither
has the power nor the cunning to even approach the battlefield. As we have
already said, satan contents himself with attacking the Church in the shadows
as a coward.
Finally, our Lord laughs at fear itself. He does not fear,
fear, but laughs it to scorn. As Psalm 2 says, “He who dwells in heaven
shall laugh them to scorn; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak
to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, ‘As for me, I have
set my King on Zion, my holy hill.’ I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to
me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’” (v. 4-7)
Though the world will laugh at His Church, the Lord
terrifies everyone when He sets His King on Zion. Meaning, fear and dread come
upon all God’s enemies when they figure out that God’s kingdom comes when He
gives us His Holy Spirit so that by grace we believe and live godly lives here
in time and there with Him to all eternity. In other word, when He works
through His Divine Service.
Our Divine Liturgy may be the cause of worldly derision
aimed at us, but they only do so in fear. How can water do such great things?
How can bodily eating and drinking do such things? That Jesus is master of both
the spiritual and the physical world is a nightmare for those who are perishing
“…but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).
The preaching of the cross, which is this power of God, is
nothing but the Divine Service, for it is both Trinitarian and Christocentric.
This is to say that it is purposely and fully Father-Son-and Holy
Spirit-centered. The focus is on who God is and what He has done through Christ
and the Holy Spirit in real human history. From the invocation in God’s Name to
the Trinitarian benediction, the liturgy is focused on the activity of the
Triune God centered in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, but also the
Spirit. The emphasis of the liturgy, therefore, does not fall on “me” or “we”
but on God in Christ reconciling us to Himself.
In this way, the Liturgy is also didactic. That is, it
teaches the whole counsel of God – creation, redemption, sanctification,
Christ’s incarnation, passion, resurrection, and reign, the Spirit’s outpouring
and the new life of faith. And it teaches the great works of God and His
presence with us through word, song, rites, ceremonies, art, colors, clothing,
architecture, iconography, and many other things, including the liturgical
calendar.
“Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea” (Ps 46:2), because
we do not have to wait for Jesus to show up and raise us from the dead. He has
come even before we die that we may have life and have it more abundantly in
Him.
He fills us with Himself, Body and Blood, and the result of
attending the Divine Service is that now we are righteous for His sake and
laugh with the righteous of Psalm 52:6, “The righteous shall see and fear,
and shall laugh at him, saying, ‘See the man who would not make God his refuge,
but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own
destruction!”
The whole armor of God is here offered in His Liturgy, for
He has made it Himself. A perfect fit for each and every sinner. Righteousness
and eternal life to all who believe that Jesus came from God, has descended to
His people, and will never forsake them in His holy Supper.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the
man that trusteth in him” (Ps 34:8) and makes Him his refuge and strength
in the Divine Service (Ps. 40:4).
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