This sermon was preached at St. John's Karoonda (9 am) .
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
There's a comedian who does a bit about his mother giving a prize to
the first of his siblings to get married, in order to encourage these
things, you know. One evening his sister came home from a blind date
saying, “he kept calling me Christina the whole night” [that's
not her name], to which the mom said, “well you look like a
Christina.” That means she took his side, all for the sake of
marrying her daughter who would now be known as Christina to a nice
if forgetful husband. Now what does this have to do with Jesus being
rejected in his hometown? The people of Jesus' hometown thought for
sure that Jesus would do the same miracles for them that he did in
other towns, but he didn't. “Of course he'll take our side”,
they thought. And he did, but he didn't.
Jesus doesn't take your side when he takes your side.
Jesus doesn't take your side when
you don't acknowledge your great need for his Gospel, in fact he
exposes your sin too
by the Law. The people in Nazareth thought he was obligated to them
because they were the people of his fatherland (which is why they
mention who his father is: “Isn't this Joseph's son?” Legally,
they're right. In truth, they're not. But the point is that he's
“one of them”, because he's from Nazareth and, as we know,
because he's truly God and
man.) That's why Jesus tells them what he does – about how God
sent his prophets to strange foreigners/'not one of us' people in the
Old Testament: “Truly,
I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25
But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the
days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six
months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26
and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the
land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27
And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet
Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
Here's what gets them mad: he undercuts all the people's demands of
what they think Jesus has to do for them, and says that even his
hometown benefits in the exact same way as those godless OT pagans –
only through God's mercy in Christ Jesus.
Bring that to today and how Jesus
loves us
- only one thing on our part moves Jesus to act – our great need.
Our great need for what? For everything Jesus read out of the book
of Isaiah (which was last week's Gospel reading): good news to the
poor, liberty to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind,
liberty to those who are oppressed, that is, the year of the Lord's
favor. These are all things we need because of sin, and all things
we deny that we need because of our sinful nature.
You can see how hard this is for our sinful nature when we ask the
question, “why does Jesus forgive my sin?” Well the answer is
obvious: “I'm a good person, and so Jesus is obligated to forgive
me because I've earned . . .it. Oh.” “I offered my heart to
Jesus, and so it's because of something I did that he then has to
forgive . . .me. Oh.” These answers are no different than the
people of Nazareth saying, “Jesus has to do miracles for us because
we're related, because he's one of us.”
So Jesus doesn't take their side, because he exposes sin (and is
rejected for it). It starts with a true statement: “Jesus loves me
and is on my side”. But then it goes to a false conclusion: “My
Jesus wouldn't tell me anything I do is wrong.” So when we hear in
his Word of our own sin, our conscience tells us “that thing that
you like, yes, that's a sin”, then we get angry: “he's not on my
side. Well, I'm right and God's Word must be wrong.” But that's
because we want Jesus to be different than how he is. And how is
that any different than the people of Nazareth? Jesus does purposely
expose our sin to us through his Word. And we don't like it.
Now, if someone came to your home and exposed deadly mold, you'd
thank them even if they didn't do anything about it. But Jesus
exposes our sin, and we're filled with rage, when he is the only one
who can do anything about it.
Our sinful nature is filled with
wrath because you can't stand having one bad word said about
yourself, just as you can't stand one good word being said about
anyone else (like when it would bug you when your parents would
praise one of your friends: “oh your friend Joe, he's
really good on the footy field”).
And that rejection by the people there in Nazareth, that's not just
a one time thing. It's always part of Jesus' work to expose people's
sin. So this crowd here, they want to lay hands on Jesus and kill
him, and then the next time in the book of Luke that we hear of
somebody putting hands on Jesus in that way is when he's arrested.
The people who want to kill him then are the ones who have him
arrested and call for his death.
Transition: This is because everything Jesus does there in Nazareth
is a lot like what he keeps on doing, what he does all the time. And
that includes exposing sin, but it also includes proclaiming the year
of the Lord's favor. That's actually why he exposes sin, so he can
deal with it.
Jesus actually does take your side when he doesn't take your side -
when he defeats sin, death, and the devil in your place by his
totally free forgiveness. What Jesus does at Nazareth is the same as
what he keeps on doing – exposing sin, and declaring the year of
the Lord's favor. He does it not only there, but at the cross and
resurrection, and throughout the entire life of the Church. That's
his sermon: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing.” - that's what he was doing when he said it, and that's
what he's still doing for you right now. That is him taking your
side. But he does it by dying for you on a cross, and does it by
baptising you, and does it by giving you his Holy Supper.
The only obligation he has toward
you is his mercy, and the only thing we can expect is his grace. And
both of those are gifts. Grace means “undeserved gift” and mercy
is “pity, compassion and love brought about by the need of the
person who receives the mercy”. And that's a lot more comforting
than the other way, because you know they're totally good enough,
because he tells you in his Word that they're totally good enough.
His grace is good enough for you. “So
then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has
mercy. (Romans 9:16)”.
“For
God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
(Romans 11:32)”
But your works, they are never totally good enough to save you.
They are totally good enough to serve your neighbor in love, because
through them Christ is serving your neighbor.
It's a comfort that he takes your side when he's the one who does
the invading. [Who's the one who went out into the wilderness to be
tempted by the devil? Jesus. Who's the one who brought up
Nazareth's rejection? Jesus. Who's the one who goes to synagogues
so that even the demons cry out, “leave me alone”? Jesus. And
that's all just Luke chapter 4. Go look it up.] When it comes to
winning your salvation, that's a fight that Jesus is always happy to
start and finish.
You know, if doctors came unannounced, diagnosed disease for which
there were no symptoms, cured it on the spot, and for free, everyone
would be over the moon. Jesus does better: The Lord's favor for
nothing, forgiveness for free.
Conclusion: So never let anyone try and tell you that Jesus isn't
on your side, that would be wrong. But at the same time, don't let
anyone try and tell you that Jesus isn't on the side of forgiving
sins, because he's always exposing sins that he might forgive you,
not because you make him, but because he is mercy. Amen.
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