READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 50:15-21
Romans 8:18-23
- St. Luke 6:36-42
Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Savior. (Titus 1:4)
Who speaks to you from the Gospel reading today, saying:
“Be merciful even
as your Father is merciful”
And with these words, the Lord teaches how to love Him and
how to love your neighbor. And we must be taught, because we don’t understand
on our own. Therefore, to seek God is to seek instruction. No one knows God
without Him telling them. This should lead us to greater hunger for knowledge
and faith in His Word and for His Church.
Today we hear of the ignorance of God. It is definitely our
ignorance, but maybe even God’s ignorance, although we can only say that in our
sin and only because God wills our ignorance. He wills it so that we may
forsake all works and reason and trust in His work alone.
Yes our ignorance of God; of Who He is, what He is saying,
and what He is doing is symptomatic of Original Sin and the Gospel today
reveals this in us. This is our biggest problem in life. You could almost say
that we drown out God with our lives and the world.
We do not understand when hear Jesus speak in proverbs: “if
you do this, then this” and also “don’t do this, do this instead, and then
this”. We believe that ignorance of God is simply not knowing enough facts
about Him. So we make it a priority to find out who really owns realty in the
middle east, and gain insight to Who God is. Which doesn’t happen.
Let us take the plank and the speck. Some today may say that
it takes great strength to carry around a plank and that carrying that load and
being willing to help your neighbor at the same time, is a noble thing. Only
the strong survive and God only gives His hardest tests to His greatest
believers.
Or some may say of the blind men: better to fall into a pit
outside, than to sit and rot in self-pity inside. You know. At least they
tried. Just do your best and God will do the rest. That’s in Scripture
somewhere, right?
But we know these passages and have heard them. We are not
ignorant of them, so what does ignorance of God have to do with us? In the
first place, our ignorance is built into our very created, being. We are the
creature, He is the Creator. We are the humans, He is God. Incomprehensible,
inscrutable, unapproachable. We do not have a mind that can even begin to
understand Him and we weren’t made to, at least not on our own.
Second, we have an active rebellion going on against God. In
our sin, we don’t want to know about Him or hear Him or care about Him. We are
in bondage, our Epistle taught us this morning. So much so that Joseph's
brothers, from our Old Testament reading, acted the way they did.
Maybe Benjamin, the youngest didn’t have a hand in things at
that time, but did you ever think about all the men that sacrificed Joseph?
They are biblical leaders. Patriarchs. Leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel, that
so many people are fawning over these days.
Reuben the first born. Supposed to be the example for all
the rest. “My might and the first fruits of my strength”, says Jacob
(Gen 49:3).
Levi, the 3rd born, from whom come the line of all the
priests of all Israel.
Judah, who received the ultimate blessing of being a direct
father to the Messiah! And the rest over the 12 tribes of Israel, mentioned in
Revelation 7, sons of Jacob who saw and wrestled with God, meant evil instead
of good, thinking they were doing good, being ignorant of God’s will.
In sin, we miss God’s will and plan, completely overlooking
Joseph, as well. And it makes sense to us. Who would want to be Joseph, killed
off, even if it was faked? Who would want to be sold into slavery and told,
“its all part of God’s plan”?
Our Confessions state:
"In spiritual and divine matters, the intellect, heart,
and will of unregenerate human beings are completely blind. By their own
powers, they cannot understand, believe, accept, or do anything that is right
or pleasing to God... Human reason is blind to the things of God and can see
nothing but what is contrary to God." (SD II:7-9)
What do we really know about God? We say words like
“all-powerful”, “all-mighty”, and “all-knowing”, without knowing what they
actually mean. But listen to 1 Corinthians 1:25 and Romans 1:19, “the
foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than
men” “for what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it
plain to them”.
We know nothing of God, except what He reveals in Christ
Jesus. Not only is God far above us, alien you could say, but so is the kingdom
of faith. It is ruled strangely as God always makes men strong when they are
weak. And He even demands that men become weak first, before He begins to make
unreasonable and impossible requests, such as with Jonah.
(2 Pet. 3:8ff) St. Peter says, “Do not be ignorant of
this one thing”, the Word that creates is the Word that recreates. And
since we are in darkness, the Light must come and tell us. Jesus reveals the
Apostles’ ignorance by teaching of His coming death and resurrection.
He heals their ignorance with instruction. “if you speak
a blessing in spirit, how can someone who is uninstructed say “Amen” to your
thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying?” (1 Cor 14:16).
Jesus is the weakness and foolishness of God. Jesus, the
Word of God made flesh, is the cure for ignorance. What is God doing, Joseph?
He is dying and rising again, he says. What is God saying, Jonah? He is calling
for repentance and handing out free forgiveness. What kind of God is He,
brother? He removes all planks and specks to build a cross for Himself.
God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our
ways, because He thinks only of forgiveness and mercy. We all out here trying
not to judge, not to fall in a pit, and worrying about planks and specks, when
the true knowledge of God has been revealed outside us.
Acts 17:30 says, “Although God overlooked the ignorance
of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has
set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has
appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the
dead.”
Ignorance is a forgivable and curable sin. As Scripture
plainly said, repentance counters ignorance. How can repentance counter
ignorance? Usually you’d go to school or spend time in Room 101 in order to
undo your ignorance. But in the real world, repentance leads to absolution,
forgiveness, and forgiveness leads to Jesus.
The Bible does not simply contain the Word of God, it is the
Word of God. Every bit of it He wants us to hear. We are not saved by knowing
enough facts from the Bible nor is the Bible is a code book for probing God’s
mind and predicting the end of the world. The Bible is a unity revealing God’s
holiness and His love in Christ and that foolish love hangs on a cross.
Thus, the only way to return to the correct order of all
things is to repent and be forgiven, wiping away our ignorance. For there, we
find God’s foolishness and it goes another step further than the cross.
Yes, our opponents say, it is foolish for God to die on a
cross. And out of the other side of their mouth they say that it is foolish for
God to be touched and eaten. It is shameful, not glorious, for the Lord to put
His true Body in the Lord’s supper. It is ignorance.
God’s ignorance. And I’d rather have God’s ignorance than
the world’s wisdom. I’d rather have the weakness of God, rather than the
strength of men. In weakness, Jesus purchased and won me from all my sins. In
ignorance and foolishness, Jesus beat the devil at his own game, for me.
As our Introit today taught us, the wicked stumble and fall
when they come to eat up flesh, because they are in darkness and ignorance of
their sins. They believe God is seeking power, when God is seeking sins. They
trip over plans to forgive and show mercy.
The world believes the flesh of Jesus brings the power to
conquer, to be gods.
We know and believe that the Body and Blood only brings
adoption and the redemption of our own bodies.
Amen.
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