Sermon – Mark 9:1-10 – Under the Gospel there is no fear

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Transfiguration sunday. Exactly what we do with this picture of the Glory of God in Jesus is tough to talk about. Fundamentally, the image is too bright for our mortal eyes. What we can look at is the reactions of the disciples in contrast to the reactions of other people who have glimpsed the glory, primarily those healed like the leper or the deaf man in Mark’s gospel. Those two can’t keep the joy and the word in. Jesus tells them to be quiet, but they run and tell everyone, and there is no crackdown.

The Disciples don’t do that. They do three things. 1) They equate Jesus the messiah with Elijah and Moses – just another teacher, and they want to build an institution around them. Let’s build three tents. When God works in his glory we often want to domesticate it. We are scared of God working so we try and put Him in a box. The world and the church is full of sad empty boxes where God used to work. 2) They react out of fear. The text says they were terrified. The leper and the deaf man come to Jesus, unafraid or at least uncommented. Jesus drags the disciples up the mountian, and they cower. This view of the glory before calvary was for their reassurance, but run in fear. Fear is the power of the law. In Jesus God is doing a new thing. Fear is not called for. 3) They keep the word to themselves. They have just glimpsed the glory of God. Would this not have been something to share? If they had been healed like the leper, if they had been under the gospel, they would have told everyone.

Don’t build institutions, but follow Jesus where the Spirit wills. Don’t cower in fear. The law has no claim on you in Jesus Christ. And please, pass the Word on to those still in cowering. Under the Gospel we are freed from fear. The little kids know it best. Jesus loves me this I know. Hide it under a bushel – no! I gonna let it shine!

Sermon – Mark 1:40-45 – The clean get the mission

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Allen Bauchle asked a great question/observation in bible class after worship about something called the ‘messianic secret’. That is a technical term for those times when somebody is telling who Jesus is (the messiah/the son of God), but he tells them to be silent. The demons obey. The humans do not. Strangely, the disciples do. Many words have been spilled on this theme, and while it is present to some degree in Mathew and Luke it is primarily something in Mark, the gospel for this year.

The truth of the matter is that I have received view, one that I’ve been told and strikes me a very close to truth, but I have not given enough pray and study to hold a view of my own. The only piece that I’ve done some work on is catagorizing the who and why.

The text of this sermon has one of the secret events. Jesus tells the leper to be quiet. The leper goes and tells – in loaded terms the former leper – “proclaims/preaches the word”. I don’t know why our more “literal” translations give us things like “talk freely about it and spread the news.” The New Living Traslation gets very “literal”…”the man went and spread the word, proclaiming to everyone.” The juxtaposition of proclaiming the word by the man made clean and the command to be silent seem to be core. The leper is doing more than just talking about an event.

Part of my answer has to include the why’s of the people told. The demons, who have no interest in spreading the gospel, shut up at the command. The leper breaks the command, the law, for the sake of the speading the gospel. That is a slippery slope. Which laws can be broken? When are you breaking them for the sake of the gospel? Martin Luther’s quip about ‘sin boldly’ would seem to be appropriate.

Ultimately, it is those who have been cleaned by Jesus Christ that are given the mission to save others. Jesus can’t go into the towns, but everybody is looking for him. They are coming out to the desert places. It is the cleansed, the healthy, that can give directions where to find him.

Sermon – The Mission of God – Mark 1:29-39

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Not a very Lutheran sermon, but I think it is spot on. (It was not very Lutheran becuase the overly simple condensation is Jesus was/did this, so we should do this. Lutherans tend to frown on Jesus the example which drifts to close to Jesus the law giver.) I liked it enough that I used it with the circuit meeting today. Lutherans love talking justification, and law/gospel and freedom from the law. The freedom from the law is absolutely correct, but it is freedom in Christ and not a general freedom. Even Paul’s response to that thought (should I sin so that grace may increase?) was absolutely not! Sometimes the simple Jesus the great example is called for especially when the issue is His mission to save sinners. It is directly out of that mission that the gospel comes. If we get the gospel we are part of His mission. We make his mission ours.

Sermon – John 1:43-51 – What you believe effects what you see

This sermon is counter intuitive in its message. We naturally think that first we see something, then we sort it out, and eventually form beliefs based on those observations. That is not what John in the text or the small catachism say about faith.

Third article of the creed…what does this mean? I believe that I cannot by my own reason of strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel….

In the text Jesus asks Nathanael if he believes because I told you you were sitting under a tree? The answer is no, but becuase he does believe he will see greater things than that. John is full of these encounters with Jesus and how people come to believe or has deficient belief. The Strongest might be Mary Magadelen at the resurrection (John 20:10-18). She “sees” Jesus, but doesn’t believe it. She thinks he’s the gardener, but then Jesus calls her, and she “sees” Jesus. If your firm belief is dead people don’t rise, you can’t see the risen Lord, at least not without intervention.

The true Israelite, unlike the original Israel is Gen 28:16, “sees” the Lord in this place. The Son of God might be hidden behind a cross, the face of a homeless person, bread and wine, the frailty of a minister, but surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.

I putting the sermon together I stumbled accross the scientist story. I thought it was a great example coming from the ultimate ground of seeing in believing where seeing was shaped by belief.

Ultimately we as Christians have a vocation more like Philip who called Nathanael. Can anything good come from Nazareth? Come and see! We invite the blind to see. And leave the miracle to Jesus.