READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Proverbs 4:10-23
Galatians 5:16-24
- St. Luke 17:11-19
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father
and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2 John)
Who speaks you this morning saying,
Dear Christians. I hate to break it to you, but your God is
weak. He is so weak that He cannot change the hearts of 10 lepers. Sure He can
heal them and He did, but it appears He failed in His primary objective of
converting them to His side, saying, “Where are the nine?”
As if to say, “I healed them, yes, but I was trying to
change their hearts. Why didn’t it work?”
Some more weak sauce we find in our Epistle reading. How can
God close heaven to some of these mistakes? I can understand being upset that
people commit some of these grievous acts, but “fits of anger”, “jealousy”? I
mean how are we to fight that? We’re only human? Is being human a sin?
Apparently God cannot find mercy and must stick to the
rules. “Welcome to the pearly gates! Oh. Uh. Looks like you got angry that one
time. Sorry. Not getting in. Next.”
What this looks like is that God seemingly cannot handle
bodily acts. Or at least, our bodies are somehow able to overcome the works of
God, and back Him into a corner where He has to choose Him being right over
being merciful.
What comes from this incorrect view of Scripture is what we
can call a Dualistic Worldview. What that simply means is we firmly believe
that there is a Spiritual realm and a material realm and these can never live
in harmony. Good v Bad. Light v. Dark
Thus, when we read Holy Scripture, we find a cruel, corrupt
world (bad) that must be escaped (good). We find an Old Testament God (bad)
that seems to be the opposite of the New Testament God (good). We find men made
subject to crippling and life-ruining diseases, such as leprosy (bad) and the
only apparent relief is death (good). We investigate our fallen world and find
no hope.
But, should we expect to? Even Jesus says things like,
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…but lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”
(Matthew 6:19-21) and “Set your minds on things that are above, not on
things that are on earth” (Col 3:2).
The Lord points us away from the earthly to the heavenly. It
is then no wonder that we divide God’s Creation into spirit and body, good and
bad. God, angels and archangels, and everything good in one corner. The devil
and his angels, human bodies, and everything bad in the other corner.
Repent. It is also no surprise, when we are presented
with God’s Word and Sacrament, that we interpret them in the same way. There is
no way that the God Who speaks so ill of earthly things could in any way,
shape, or form work out heavenly things through such weak objects.
In our experience it is a losing battle as well. Why waste
time, we say, as we stare at the cemetery.
Yes indeed. Why waste time? Being born, being loved by many,
going places with your family, making friends, even standing up for your
beliefs such that you are crucified for them. Ain’t nobody got time fa
dat.
Except. Well, you know. Except the Lord of all creation. Who
does waste time being born, being loved by many, going places with His family,
making friends, and standing up for His beliefs which is basically standing up
for Himself.
Point is, there is a problem. We see the world in this
dualistic way. In Jesus, the dual goes away. In Jesus, the earthly becomes as
important as the heavenly. In Jesus, all of creation is redeemed and worthy of
God’s greatest work: salvation.
Yes sin is the problem. And its our problem when we hear
God. We hear Him with sinful ears and so we place our own biases and prejudices
into His Word that just aren’t there. Take the body, our bodies, for example.
We have the opinion previously stated, but we have forgotten the opening
chapters of the Bible.
The part where He says, “So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them…And
God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:28,
31).
The body is a created Good. Very good. So Good, that the
same bodies that house you and me, house God. Jesus, God made man, has His own,
unique, body. Unique as in, just as there will never be another “you”, so there
will never be another Jesus. Yet, His body is not unique as in, in every way,
it is just like yours.
Though it sounds as if God does not promise mercy and
forgiveness in earthly things, if we were to go up into heaven and try to steal
them from God, we would not find Him there, as He told us, “For I have come
down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (Jn
6:38).
Not only has Jesus placed Himself in the earthly realm and
at the mercy of the earthly realm, as evidenced by His suffering and death, but
He promises as He continues in St. John 6: “And this is the will of him who
sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it
up on the last day” (Jn 6:39).
In Christ, God is not on high, He is on earth. In Christ,
God has taken on a body, sanctifying all others who have a body, you. In Christ,
God is not satisfied with Creation being “very good”, but He will have it be
the ultimate good; the Resurrected Good.
A giant part of salvation is that you make it. You. Body and
soul. Not just part of you. Not just “spirit you”. You. For this reason, Jesus
suffers, dies, and rises again from the dead with His Body. A recognizable
body, as St. Thomas attests to after Easter saying, “My Lord and my God!”
(Jn 20:28). It was Jesus, back from the dead, body and soul. No mistake.
In the weakness of God, He redeems all of humanity, in their
bodies no less! As such, the 10 lepers take comfort in the weakness of their
God, not because He cannot produce faith in 9 or heal every body in the world,
but because He takes on all weakness and shows us that it can overcome sin,
death, and the power of the devil.
God is the God of the weak, for they find perfect strength
in His weakness. God is the God of the sick and of the helpless and of the
lonely, because in His sin-sickness from your sin, helplessness on the cross,
and lonely care for sinners, He rises again from the dead, never to die
again.
Perfect, heavenly healing is freely offered and freely given
in the resurrection of the body. In order to be a part of the resurrection of
the body you need to have a body. It doesn’t matter the condition of it. It
doesn’t matter what type, or size, or constitution. Having a body guarantees a
resurrection.
However, a guaranteed resurrection does not guarantee heaven
for eternity. Every body will hear Jesus’s voice on the last Day and come out
(John 5:28-29), but only some “will go away into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life” (Mt 25:46).
In the weakness of God, Jesus Christ has produced strength.
He has created a righteousness that surpasses earthly righteousness, in that it
can be given to even the most unworthy sinner. In His weakness on the cross,
Jesus has purchased and won a healing that no body can resist, no matter if it
is leprous or scattered to the winds.
Jesus, in the weakness of God made man, has secured a faith
so enduring, so persistent, so invincible that it can withstand everything the
world throws at it and come out the winner, in the end.
Is God weak for only getting one healed leper to come back?
No. He is strong for being able to pay for and forgive the sins of all 10. Is
Jesus weak for not being able to heal the whole world or create human bodies
that don’t suffer and die? No. He is strong to be able to defeat such things in
the body and give hope to those who cannot overcome them on their own.
Dear Christians, rejoice in your weakness. For in it, you
imitate your God and Lord, Who has stepped down to earth, saved you, and remains
here with you to the end of the age. Celebrate your inability to comprehend
God’s desire to save you by Word and Sacrament. For in such contemplations of
weakness, you find Christ on the cross for you.
And such is the will and purpose of Him Who sent Jesus
Christ Crucified.
Who speaks you this morning saying,
“Rise and go your way; your faith has saved you.”
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