READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
2 Kings 2:5-15
Acts 1:1-1
- St. Mark 16:14-20
Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and
Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His
Service, saying:
“Go into all the
world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”
In stead of St. Luke’s account of the Ascension of Jesus, in
Acts, I’d like us to focus on St. Mark this evening. For, though it is
important to believe the Ascension is about Christ, that belief needs to know
where and when to believe and St. Mark takes us to that place where Faith may
rest and grow: in Christ and His Church.
He does so by describing life in the Church after the
Ascension. Specifically when listing all the exciting parts: casting out
demons, new tongues, picking up serpents, drinking poison, and healing
miracles. And because these things are so exciting, some Christians have taken
them and run, making Christianity solely about doing them.
As in, if you don’t handle those snakes like the Lord said,
then you ain’t got the Lord.
Here is your first step when facing these sorts of things:
has God promised to close heaven to me because I do not handle snakes? Has the
Lord condemned to hell those who do not exorcise, speak in tongues, heal others
miraculously, or drink poison? Who even does that anyway, I mean besides
Wesley…
Once you frame the debate in that manner, you will not find
one ounce of support in God’s Word for any of that. What you will find support
for, however, are the Apostles; those whom Jesus sends. These, after all, are
the men Jesus is addressing in the Gospel and these are the men to whom much
was given to confirm God’s Word through them.
St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, “For I was not at all
inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a true
apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders
and mighty works” (v. 11-12).
In the very first place, these signs are given to Christ’s
Apostles to proclaim the Gospel to all of creation. They were given and they
were fulfilled in the Apostle’s works, for we read on in the book of Acts all
of these deeds accomplished by the Apostles who preached the Word and
administered the Sacraments to those hearers.
In the second place, we are not commanded to nor are we
promised grace if we accomplish these things ourselves, but instead we realize
our Lord’s lovingkindness and compassion for us, in them. That, as our heavenly
Father, He does defend us from all danger and guards and protects us from all
evil, even that of poison, serpents, and disease.
In the third place, God does not give gifts as some sort of
party favors to show off in front of your girlfriend when you and the gang get
together. God’s gifts have purpose and power and God’s purpose and power is
always belief in His Son.
Yes, the Son. What does it mean to cast out demons in His
Name? It means no longer being a part of the world, overcoming it by the Faith
of Christ. Don’t commune with demons. 1 Corinthians 10 says, “what pagans
sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to commune
with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You
cannot commune at the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (v. 20-21).
The Lord spreads His Table before you to show you which is
His and which is not.
What does it mean to speak in new tongues? Babbling
incoherently and pretending someone understands? No, it means speaking with a renewed
tongue, a clean tongue. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”, says 2
Corinthians 5:17. And “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am
making all things new’” (Rev. 21:5).
You don’t put new wine in old wineskins. Our old, sinful
tongues cannot handle the Gospel of Christ, they would burst apart. In His
washing of rebirth and regeneration, we are given new tongues to speak of His
suffering, death, and resurrection to all of creation.
We are not handling snakes, but “lifting up serpents”, says
the Greek. This one should be easy to understand as we just heard of Moses
lifting up the bronze serpent in the wilderness, in Numbers 21. And we know
Jesus says it points to Himself in John 3:14-15: “as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever
believes in him may have eternal life.”
Its not “drinking poison”, but drinking “death-causing” things.
With these words, hymn #760 comes to mind: “no poison can be in the Cup that my
physician sends me.” We also remember Leviticus 17:14, “I have said to the
people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of
every creature is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off“ and St. John
6:53, “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.“
What is really happening here, in St. Mark’s Gospel, is that
the Apostles are going out to preach Christ Crucified and administer His
Sacraments. They will lay their hands upon the weak, those suffering from
sin-sickness unto death, and by that Apostolic act, they will have God’s
goodness. That is how that part actually reads.
The Gospel that will go out into all creation is not parlor
tricks or games, but belief and baptism. The only reason it would be snake
handling that goes into all the earth is if God lied and baptism doesn’t save
you and the Apostles were fake and they didn’t baptize anyone in the New
Testament.
Well they did and they still baptize today, through their
doctrine and the Lord continues to work through their words, as Jesus says in
St. John 17:20, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will
believe in me through their word”.
And their words are: ”Whoever believes and is baptized
will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
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