The Peace of the Lord in the Midst of Chaos

You can imagine that storm at sea, the howling of the wind, the crashing of the waves, the water filling up the boat and threatening to sink it.  You can picture the scene, whether or not you’ve been in a boat at sea, because you have your own storms to navigate, your own chaos: Howling winds, crashing waves, water up to your neck, and your whole world on the verge of shipwreck.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void, and darkness covered the face of the deep.  By His Word and Spirit He brought forth light out of the darkness, and He established a beautiful and brilliant order throughout His Creation.  It is still by His Word and Spirit that He creates and gives life and upholds all things in their proper place; whereas, apart from His Word and Spirit, creation collapses back into chaos.

There is such chaos in the world on account of man’s sin.  For the Lord God, who made the man in His own Image, also gave the man dominion over the Creation.  By the Word of the Lord, the man was to exercise authority over the earth, to govern it according to the good order that God had established, and to act as God’s own agent and representative.  Thus, for example, it was the man who gave names to all the animals.  So, too, the man and his wife were to fill the earth with children and to subdue it, not as tyrants but as a godly king and queen over God’s good Creation.  By the same token, when the woman and the man deviated from God’s Word and reversed the order of His Creation, they opened up the floodgates to the wild waters of chaos: Real storms that wreak havoc on land and sea and in the air, and a host of metaphorical storms that rock your world.

Now, man still attempts to exercise dominion.  And so you should within your own calling and station in life, in accordance with the Law of the Lord.  The chaos of sin and death is undone by the right logic of the Word of God, by living in harmony with His good and acceptable will.  When you fear, love, and trust in God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself, then the light shines in the darkness and the chaos gives way to a beautiful order and form.

Yet, man attempts to exercise dominion, not by living under the authority of God’s Word, but by imposing his own will against his neighbor and by pitting his own strength against the challenges and dangers of life in a fallen world.  He sets his own wisdom, ingenuity, and skill to the task of survival.  He takes on the chaos like an exhilarating adventure.  He thrills at the prospect of riding the storm out and forcing it to serve his purposes.  He harnesses the wind and dams the water.

It can be an invigorating contest, up until the point when it all goes horribly wrong and becomes life-threatening.  Then it’s no fun anymore, but scary.  Not only the danger that threatens your body and life, but the overcoming of your will, that is the most disturbing chaos.  The danger can be a thrill, but not the realization that you are powerless, that you are at the whim of wind and wave — that is when the chaos rolls over you completely and drags you down into its depths of darkness.

The external chaos is bad enough, but even more alarming and disarming is the chaos inside of you, driving your thoughts and feelings, your words and actions.  You’d like to believe that you’re in control of yourself, in charge of your own heart, mind, and will.  Except the storms within toss you around and threaten you as much or more than those that rage without.  You’re not really in control.  Lustful thoughts seize your mind, no matter how hard you try to resist them.  Envy and jealousy put you at odds with the neighbors you are called to love.  Bitterness and resentment cast long dark shadows across your soul, no matter how pleasant your outward demeanor may be.  Disappointments and regrets rob you of any confidence or ambition.

Your addictions call the shots, instead of reason or sound judgment.  You spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need.  You eat and drink things that you know will be harmful to your health.  You waste endless hours of your time on frivolous pursuits, instead of doing your duty.

These are the howling winds and the crashing waves that threaten you and overwhelm you from the inside-out.  Chaos and confusion reign within, and you are powerless to save yourself.

But, of course, there is Jesus who has come to help, and He is here with you.  Right?  The Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, restores peace and calm to His good Creation.  With His Word He undoes the chaos and orders all things rightly.  Even the winds and waves obey Him; for He is Himself the Word by whom all things are made, and He is also the true Man who exercises godly dominion over Creation.  You have heard the evidence of that in this familiar Holy Gospel.

So, then, why are the disciples even more afraid when Jesus has quieted the wind and stilled the waves than they were of the storm in the first place?  That is what St. Mark has described.  Before, they were afraid because they were perishing; but afterwards, they are very much afraid.  Why?  And why are you so afraid of the good and right ordering that Jesus establishes by His Word?

Such fear is another aspect of the chaos inside of you.  It is the fear of sin and death, instead of fear, love, and trust in God.  For in your fallen state the power and authority and right ordering of the Word of Christ can only be perceived and interpreted as the force of the Law, as the imposing of His will upon all that is contrary to His Word.  So, yes, all that chaos in the world that threatens you must obey Him and submit to Him.  But so is all the chaos within you likewise confronted by the authority of His commands, and your own stubborn will is silenced and stilled before Him.

That perception of the Lord and His authority, according to the power and the judgment of His Law, is even more frightening than the chaos that rages around you.  For it presses upon you and challenges your will, and in a single stroke it undoes all your sin and your self-righteousness.

That’s what you hear when Jesus speaks and the winds and waves obey Him.  And that’s what you hear when the Lord speaks to Job in response to that poor man’s worries and complaints.  That’s what you hear in response to your own sufferings, your struggles, and your sorrows.  Who are you — little man, or little woman — to question or complain about the judgments of the Lord?

But God is not backhanding Job with chastisements when He speaks.  He does not add yet another crushing blow atop the assaults and accusations of the devil.  He does not compound the chaos, and neither does He calm things down by constraining and compelling Job to “shut up.”  Rather, He quiets Job with comfort and consolation in his suffering.  The Lord reveals the mysterious truth that suffering is not a mark of His displeasure, nor is it foreign to His good and gracious purpose.

It is true that the Law reveals the good and right ordering of God’s world.  But there is a deeper and different authority of the Law than its demands and prohibitions, threats and punishments.  All of these confront you and accuse you and weigh so heavily upon you, but only because your heart and mind, your body, soul, and spirit, and the whole sinful world around you, are disordered and chaotic with sinful unbelief and stubborn disobedience.  At the heart of the Law, however, is the harmony of faith and love, the peaceful unity of the Holy Triune God who lives in perfect freedom and acts in perfect love, who gives life to those who are His own creatures.

Hence, the foundation and good order of Creation, and so also the fulfillment of the entire Law, is Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, crucified and risen.  He is the Cornerstone, not only of His Church, but of the heavens and the earth and all things.  From before the foundation of the world He was slain for the salvation of all flesh, and all things are made brand new in His Resurrection from the dead.  His Self-sacrifice upon the Cross is the Self-giving Love of the one true God, the divine grace by which and for which whatever is made has been made.

The Son of God enters the waters of St. Mary’s womb, and He is born from those waters under the Law, in order to redeem those under the Law.  He then enters the waters of St. John’s Baptism in the Jordan River, thereby submitting Himself to sacrificial death as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world; and from those waters He makes His way steadfastly to the Cross.  So does He also embark upon the sea, in order to cross over with His people — through death into life.  As such, He too is found on the boat in the chaotic storm, amid the raging winds and the thrashing waves.

He is on board “just as He is.”  He has flesh and blood like you.  He sleeps because He is true Man.  Which means, not only that He gets tired and must sleep, just as you must take your rest, but also that He lives by faith, just as you are called to live.  Only, where you so often cannot sleep but toss and turn at night, He rests in peace and quietness while the winds and waves toss the boat around.  It is neither exhaustion, nor laziness, nor a lack of care and concern for His fellows, but faith and trust in His Father which enables the Lord Jesus to sleep in peace with all the chaos going on.

He lives as the true Man by entrusting Himself entirely to His God and Father in faith and love.  That is how all of Creation — and man in particular — is created to live; so that is how Jesus lives.  And that is then also how He dies.  For not only does He lay Himself down to sleep in the peace of His Father, but so does He lay down His life, even unto death, in the confidence of His Father’s love and care for Him.  So there is this striking contrast between His peaceful sleeping and His panic-stricken disciples who wonder whether He even cares that they are perishing.  And there are such times when you also question His care for you, when the storm rages and your Jesus sleeps.

But it is in His sleeping, even in His death upon the Cross, that He fully sets Himself, His faith and love against the chaos of sinful unbelief.  His voluntary suffering and death in faithful obedience to His God and Father atones for all of man’s sin and remedies the brokenness of Creation.  So, too, it is in His rising from death and the grave that all of Creation is fully restored in peace, as life and immortality are brought to light through the preaching of the Gospel.

It is in His dying and rising that the Lord Jesus Christ receives the authority to exercise a godly dominion of love over all of Creation.  And nowhere does He do so more profoundly than here in the Holy Communion.  For here He takes bread and wine from His Creation, and He gives them to you as His own Body and Blood, as Meat and Drink indeed for your body of flesh and blood.  He uses His dominion to bless and sanctify Creation, to love, and to give life by giving Himself.  And in His Body and His Blood, given and poured out for you for the forgiveness of your sins, you have Peace in Christ Jesus.  For with His forgiveness the winds and waves are hushed and stilled.

It is true that He rebukes you for your doubts and fears of unbelief.  He calls you to repentance and to faith — to fear the Lord, yes, but so also to love and trust in Him.  To die and rise with Him in the sure and certain hope of His Resurrection.  To be at peace in His love for you.  And so to exercise dominion in the place where He has put you, not as a tyrant, but in mercy like His own.

You are on your way.  You’re in the midst of the sea, in the midst of crossing over.  You’re not yet to the other side, and meanwhile there is much that rages against you, both from without and from within.  For you have gone into the waters of Holy Baptism, and, make no mistake, those are deadly waters, in which you are drowned and destroyed with your old Adam, put to death and buried with Christ Jesus.  But consider what that means.  As you are baptized into Christ Jesus, then you are in the boat with Him, and He is in the boat with you, that is, within the Holy Ark of His Christian Church.  And herein you are safe in the midst of the storm, even though you are sometimes so afraid, and even though it seems as though your Lord Jesus were sleeping and not very much concerned about you.  He has laid Himself down to sleep in flesh and blood like yours, in order that you may find your peace and rest and quiet sleep in Him.  Just as He has died for you, so that, by your dying with Him in the waters of Baptism, you may also rise and live with Him.

Here you are safe.  For all your doubts and fears and lack of faith do not make the One who loves you any less faithful.  You may wonder what is going on, and whether He will ever help you, but in truth He is here with you, and He will not let you perish.  To be sure, your body will die, just as He has died.  But so shall your body be raised to be like His own glorious Body, and you shall live forever with Him in body and soul.  No hurricane or tidal wave on earth can drown or blow away that sure and certain hope, which has already been accomplished in the Body of Christ Jesus, your Savior.  In His sleeping is your Sabbath Rest, even in death.  And in His rising from the dead you are saved unto the Life everlasting.  In Him God the Father has already given His “Yes” and “Amen” to your every need and all your prayers.  And thus do you have Peace in Him forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

The Tree of Life Bears Good Fruits after Its Own Kind

There are lots of different kinds of birds, from the sparrows to the young ravens which do cry, and the Lord God feeds them all.  He cares for them and gives them life, He shelters and protects them; and not one of them falls to the ground or perishes apart from His divine wisdom.

There are lots of different kinds of plants, as well, from the lilies of the field to the tall cedars of Lebanon, and the Lord God gives them life, also.  He provides nutrients in the soil, He causes His rain to fall and water the earth, and He causes His sun to shine, so that, by His creative providence, the plants grow and flourish and bring forth leaves and flowers for beauty and fruit for food.

What sort of a tree are you?  What sort of a planting in the Kingdom of God?  Whether you are big and tall or short and small, what fruits are you bearing to the praise and glory of your Creator?

Are you living by His grace and growing in faith and love in the place where He has planted you?  Are you flourishing and bearing fruits that gladden the hearts of men and glorify your Father in heaven?  Are you ever green, even in your old age?  Or barren, dried up, and withering away?

The fruits of faith are borne from within a life lived in and with God.  This is a mystery beyond your knowledge and ability, given and worked in your body and life by the Lord Himself.  You are His planting, and He provides what is needed for life and growth and flourishing.  He provides the soil in which you are firmly rooted; He provides the rain from heaven that brings forth abundant fruit in you; and He provides the sunshine that warms and lights you and sustains your life in Him.

The fruits of faith are manifestly those of love toward God and for your neighbor in His Name.  In faith and love toward God you offer Him your thanks and praise, because everything you are and have is a gift freely given by His grace.  He has no need of anything from you, but He provides for you in every way.  The earth and all its fulness, all its plants and animals, the trees and flowers, the birds of the air, and all the beasts on a thousand hills are His — so what will you give to Him?

But, just so, as everything you are and have is a gift, for your part there is only thanksgiving and praise in return to the Lord.  Not because He needs even your thanks, but because it is meet, right, and salutary for you to give Him thanks and praise.  And there is nothing else that your heart of love can offer to Him who gives you all things, except to give thanks to Him, to praise His Holy Name, and to glorify Him for who He is and all that He has done for you in both body and soul.

The main way that you return such thanks and praise and glorify His Name is by confessing what He has said to you.  You confess His Word when you pray as He has taught you, and as you speak the faith before Him and to your neighbor.  To speak of all the marvelous works of the Lord your God, that is how the Holy Scriptures describe the praise and thanksgiving of His holy people.

Unto the Lord your God you offer such thanksgiving, the fruit of lips that praise His Name.  And in faith toward Him you exercise love for your neighbors in the world.  Indeed, you are free to pour yourself out in self-sacrificing love and charity and kindness for your neighbor, precisely because you know that your God and Father in heaven provides you with all that you need, and, whether you live or die, all good things are yours in Christ Jesus.

Is that what your life is like?  Is that how you are living?  On the one hand, it is not a hard life, because it is by the grace of God through faith in His Gospel; it is not earned but received as a gift.  But on the other hand, it is not easy, either, nor is it lacking in works.  To love your neighbor does require conscientious effort, long-suffering patience, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness, such as the Lord Himself has first of all extended in love toward you.  And that you might learn to live and love as He does — that you should be conformed to the Image and Likeness of God in the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus — He bestows this life upon you from the Cross, and He works this life within you by the way of His Cross, by repentance and faith in His forgiveness of your sins.

Apart from His forgiveness, it is impossible for you to live and grow and flourish in the Kingdom of God.  It is impossible to praise the Lord your God or love your neighbor as you ought, except your God and Father give you life in Christ Jesus by His Word and Holy Spirit.  And this He does within His House by the Liturgy of His Gospel, by the preaching and Sacrament of Christ Jesus.

“In the courts of God,” that is where He does His work and has His way with you.  That is where He causes the Rain of His Word to shower down and the Seed of His Word to be planted, whereby the Sunshine of His Spirit shines upon you in Christ Jesus.  And that is where the Lord takes you in hand, raises you up in love, and nurtures and sustains you with the Fruits of His Tree of Life.

It is by the righteousness of God that you live.  And that righteousness of God is not that you keep His Commandments or fulfill His Law; it is rather found in His grace, mercy, and forgiveness, in His salvation of sinners.  That is the Power and the Glory of God — and that is His righteousness — that He justifies sinners and gives them life instead of death for the sake of His divine Love.

To live by this righteousness of God is, first of all, simply to hear what He speaks and receive what He gives.  Look to Him for all good things, and trust Him for all that you need, in the confidence that He daily and richly provides for your body and soul, for this life and for eternity with Him.  And in such faith, return thanks to Him for all His benefits, confess what He has said and done, call upon His Name in faith, hope, and love, and serve your neighbors with the charity of Jesus.

By contrast, when you attempt to live by and for yourself, by your own reason and strength and for your own advantage and benefit, then you will die in your sin.  For that is not the righteousness of God, it is the idolatry of self-righteousness and covetous lust, whereby you do not receive but spurn the gifts of God, His forgiveness, life, and salvation.  That is not only the wrong way to live, it is no way to live at all.  It is not life but death.  There is nothing in you by which to grow and live and flourish.  Rather, relying on yourself and serving yourself, you consume yourself and perish.

Remove a plant from the ground, withhold water from it, and keep it hidden in the dark away from the sun, and you know that it will not survive.  Likewise, if you turn away from God, depart from His Word, and hide yourself away from your neighbor, then you cut yourself off from the very life which the Lord desires to give you with Himself and in communion with His Body, the Church.

Apart from the Word and Spirit of God there is neither faith nor love.  And where there is no faith and love, there is no life.  If you appear to be strong and mighty now, and yet have no faith in God and no love for your neighbor, then you are already dead and dying, and you are already useless.

But how do you live and grow and flourish in the Kingdom of God?  How is it that your dry and useless tree becomes green and fruitful?  And how is it that your low tree shall ever be exalted?  How is it that you, a sinner, are raised up from death to life in the Kingdom of God, in the courts of the Lord’s House, in the midst of His Jerusalem, planted and alive on the heights of Mt. Zion?

The answer and solution — your rescue and salvation — are found solely in Christ Jesus.  For the Kingdom of God is found solely in Him, the one righteous Man who flourishes and bears abundant fruit to the praise and glory of His God and Father and for the benefit of all His neighbors, even for His enemies.  He is the true Seed, the Lord’s own planting, and His Cross is the Tree of Life.

God thus speaks to you by His Son, who comes in His own Body of flesh and blood like yours, in which He also bears the full weight of your mortality, all of your infirmities, burdens, and sorrows, and all of your iniquities, trespasses, and sins of thought, word, and deed.  He bears it all in His own Body to the Cross, where He also puts it to death in Himself and then buries it forever.  For thus was He planted in the ground — in the dust of the earth — as the tiniest of Seeds in the dirt.

But whereas your sins have all been done away with by His Cross and Passion, put to death and put away forever in the tomb, God has raised this same Jesus from the dead in righteousness.  He has risen from the dust of the earth, and, what is more, He grows and thrives and flourishes over and above the mighty cedars of Lebanon and all the massive redwoods of California.  His Cross is a Tree above them all, although it appears to be very small and weak and fruitless and helpless.

And in His Resurrection, He bears and brings forth abundant Fruit from that Tree of His Cross.  Indeed, His own crucified and risen Body is the Firstfruits of the New Creation.  And all this He has done, not selfishly, not for His own benefit — He needed nothing — but He has done it all for you, that He might feed you, and that you might also live and grow and flourish in and with Him.

By the preaching of the Gospel He sows His Seed throughout the world, even to the ends of the earth, in order to make disciples from all the nations by way of catechesis and Holy Baptism in His Name, and by feeding and nourishing His disciples with His Word and Flesh within His Church.

By His atoning Sacrifice, His Cross has been planted and established as the Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise; and just so, it bears its good and blessed Fruits here within His Church on earth.

His Cross has become a place of shade in the noonday heat, a place of rest for weary travelers who cannot make it any farther.  In the branches of His Tree of the Cross birds of every kind abide in safety and peace.  The leaves of His Tree are Medicine for the healing of the nations; and the Fruits of His Tree are given and poured out for you and for the many as nourishment and refreshment.

His Tree of the Cross is your shelter and protection, because it is by and from His Cross that you receive the forgiveness of all your sins.  Daily you are forgiven by the Word of the Cross.  Daily and richly you are fed with its grace, mercy, and peace.  From the Cross the Lord Jesus hands over His Holy Spirit, pours out the Water and the Blood, and feeds you by His own wounded hand.

He is the righteous Man.  The Kingdom of God is not only like Him, but it is found in Him, and it is here at hand in Him.  For He has planted Himself here on earth in order to give Himself to you; and, indeed, He has planted Himself in you — into your ears, into your heart, mind, and body — that He should live and abide in you, and that you should live and abide in Him, now and forever.

Thus, by the washing of the water with His Word, you have been planted together with Him in His death and burial, that you should also rise and live with Him and bear abundant fruit to the glory of His Holy Name.  So it is that, as often as you are returned to the waters of your Baptism by daily contrition and repentance, by His preaching of the Law and the Gospel, you are watered with the Water of God, enlivened by His Holy Spirit in body and soul, and fruitful in His Righteousness.

Here, too, by His Word, in the courts of the Lord’s House, you are seated as a guest at His Table.  And here you are fed like a baby bird receiving a worm from its mama.  For here your own dear Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, feeds you with the Fruits of His Cross, with His own Body and His Blood — into your mouth and into your body — to bear good fruits in you after His own kind.

See how tenderly He cares for you!  Here you can make your nest and find your shelter and your shade.  Here you are safe and sound.  Here you are not found naked and exposed in your sin, but fully clothed and beautifully adorned in the righteousness of Christ Jesus.  You are not spurned or cast away from His presence, nor relegated to death and the grave, but raised to Life in Him.

The Psalmist declares that the birds of the air find a nesting place at the Altar of God.  Those are not careless or throwaway words, but Words of the Spirit and of Life.  For it is here at the Lord’s Altar, little bird, that you find your nesting place.  Here are you fed, and here do you live.

The Lord your God is gracious and merciful, He is full of compassion and great kindness.  And this is the Home He has made for you.  So it is that, living to and from this House of the Lord, you do bear good fruits after His own kind, wherever in the world He has planted you — according to whatever sort of tree He has created you to be, whether you are big and tall or short and small.  As surely as the Lord has gotten Life for you by His Tree, and as surely as He gives you Life from His Tree, so surely does He cause you to live and grow and flourish in the Kingdom of God forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Christ Jesus Is Your Champion Against Satan

It is a sobering fact that, not only are you unable to believe in Jesus Christ or come to Him by your own reason or strength, but you are likewise unable to discern or recognize the difference between God and the devil by your own intellect, wisdom, or sensibilities.  Apart from the Word and Spirit of God, you confuse good with evil and blaspheme against the Lord who has come to save you.

At the heart of the problem, you don’t even realize how ignorant and wrong you are.  Instead, you are quite confident of your perceptions and opinions, feelings and conclusions.  Yet, presuming to know God and His Will apart from His Word is the root cause of all the sin and wickedness and evil in this fallen world.  It is precisely what led Adam and Eve into sin, when they disregarded and disobeyed the clear and certain Word of God, deferring to the devil’s voice and their own senses.

We dare not attribute anything to the Holy Spirit apart from the Word and promise of the Lord, as He has spoken concerning the Church and Ministry of His Gospel and concerning your calling and stations in life.  Absent His Word, anything that claims divine inspiration or authority is not from God but from the devil himself.  No matter how sincere, well-intentioned, or self-righteous you might be, heeding voices that do not confess God’s Word will lead you away from Him into sin.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to recognize the voice and temptations of Satan in your life — whether you take the devil seriously or not — because the voices in your own head, that inner dialogue you carry on with yourself, and all the insights and interpretations of your sinful heart and mind are in cahoots with the devil.  That’s why the story of the Fall into Sin is so familiar — not only because you’ve heard it repeated so many times, but also because it keeps on playing itself out in your life.  It seems obvious enough in retrospect, but it’s not so obvious at all when you’re in the middle of being tempted.  The forbidden fruit, whatever its variety, appears beautiful and good for food.

So you take the bite.  You fall prey to the snares of the devil, you fall into sin, and you lead others into temptation right along with you.  And then, instead of fleeing to the Lord and His mercy, you run away and try to hide — ashamed of your nakedness and afraid to admit that you have sinned.  Instead of confessing your sins and seeking forgiveness, you come up with excuses for yourself, and you resort to blaming your neighbor, the devil, or God Himself for your faults and failings.

It’s still the same ol’ same ol’ story.  You are no different and no better than your first parents.  The devil has done his job cunningly well, not only tempting you and leading you into sin, but then also blurring the picture, confusing the facts, and turning everything inside-out and upside-down.

This morning’s Holy Gospel is a case in point.  Christ Jesus, our great Champion against Satan, is accused of being in league with Satan.  By that move, those who are supposed to be the religious leaders and teachers of Israel blaspheme the Holy Spirit.  So, then, things are not as they appear.

It is only by the Holy Spirit that you are able to recognize the Lord Jesus for who He truly is — and to recognize Satan and his temptations for what they actually are.  You cannot rely on your own faculties or filters to decipher the facts of the matter; otherwise, like the Lord’s own family at that point, you will terribly misjudge Him.  It is only by the preaching and hearing of the Word of Christ Jesus, where and when it pleases God, that the Holy Spirit works the fear and faith and wisdom of the Lord in your heart, mind, body, and soul, lest you be deceived and die in your sin.

Our Lord’s entire Ministry was a demonstration of His approaching victory over Satan.  Everything He did was a fulfillment of that first promise in the Garden — the promise of a Savior, the Seed of the Woman, who would crush the serpent’s head, obtain forgiveness, and restore life to Man.

Christ Jesus is engaged in combat with Satan from the first, especially as He is driven by the Spirit from the waters of His Baptism to be tempted by the devil in the wilderness.  As the true Man, He resists the devil with the same Word of God that you are also given in the Holy Scriptures and in your Holy Baptism.  But there is more.  As the very Son of God in the flesh, His presence marks the beginning of the end for Satan and his demons.  Whenever He heals the sick or raises the dead, He is already in the process of restoring life and vitality to all mankind and the whole of creation, thereby undoing the curse of sin and death.  Whenever He forgives sins, He exercises in advance the Absolution of the Fall by His Cross and Resurrection.  And whenever He casts out demons — a trademark of His Ministry in the Holy Gospels — He shows that He has come to “clean house.”

So, too, in His little Parable this morning, the one about the strong man’s house.  For the Ministry of Christ Jesus — His forgiveness, His miraculous healings, His exorcisms — it is all a binding of the “strong man,” Satan, that Jesus might plunder his possessions by the Cross and Resurrection.

That victory of Jesus over Satan, sin, and death, is likewise the point of His descent into hell, as we confess in the Apostles’ Creed.  It’s not that Christ Jesus must go there to suffer — for His suffering is perfectly fulfilled on the Cross.  But Jesus descends into hell as a declaration of His triumph over the evil one.  He boldly enters the strong man’s house to thumb His nose at the devil, to spike the football in the in-zone and run a victory lap with the standard of His Cross held high.

Now, then, from that same victory of His Cross, the Ministry of Christ Jesus and His Holy Spirit advances throughout the world, as an ongoing defeat and destruction of the devil and his demons.

The very same Ministry of Christ Jesus that is recorded and revealed in the Holy Gospels continues to this very day — and to this very place — in the Liturgy of His Holy Word and Sacraments.  Indeed, the stories of Jesus that we hear and tell are not just ancient history, “once upon a time.”  That is not the point at all.  Wherever on earth His Church is found, His story is still happening.  That very thing is indicated, just a few verses prior to this Holy Gospel, when Jesus gives His own authority to the Twelve Apostles, “that He might send them out to preach, and to heal sicknesses, and to cast out demons.”  Which is to say that the casting out of demons, as mentioned in the case at hand, is a Ministry of Christ and His Spirit which continues in the ongoing life of His Church.

So, how shall you respond?  The Lord Jesus Christ is with you here in the Liturgy of His Gospel, in the preaching of His Word and in His Holy Sacrament.  He is no less present for you, here and now, than He was for the people there and then.  And it is still the case that, wherever Jesus enters in, Satan is bound and cast out.  But how shall you respond to all these great and mighty wonders of the Lord, as He comes to you here with His forgiveness of your sins, with Life and Salvation?

There’s no need to guess at the response.  The Word of God describes what it will be — what it has always been, and what it will continue to be, whenever the Gospel of Christ Jesus is preached.

There are basically three responses, each of which is found in this Holy Gospel from St. Mark:

There are those, first of all, who hear and receive the preaching of Christ Jesus by the grace of His Holy Spirit.  They recognize that He is their Savior.  They recognize their sins, but they know and trust His mercy and forgiveness, so they warmly embrace His Word of Absolution or forgiveness, even though it is spoken by a human pastor.  They rejoice in their Holy Baptism, as a rich and full washing away of all their sins, even though they see nothing else than water.  And they hunger and thirst for the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, though all their senses perceive are bread and wine.

These are the people who are gathered in a circle around Jesus, hanging on His every Word, and looking to Him with childlike faith and trusting hearts, which are the gracious gift of His Spirit.

But there is another group of people — who hear the same preaching of Christ Jesus and partake of the same Means of Grace — who yet regard the Lord and His Ministry as foolish nonsense.  This preacher is “out of his mind!”  That was the evaluation of Jesus’ family and friends in this Holy Gospel.  They loved Him with human affection, but they did not embrace His preaching because it did not fit their preconceived notions of family and church and life as they knew it.

I suspect that many if not most of the people in this country who self-identify as Christians really belong to this second group.  They think of Jesus as their “friend,” but they’re embarrassed by much of what He says and does, and they would just as soon not be seen with Him in public.  In much the same way, His Church may be important to them, in a quaint, old-fashioned sort of way, but family and country come first; those are the priorities around which they organize their life.

Such are the people in this Holy Gospel who look for Jesus “on the outside,” that is, apart from His Church, apart from His Liturgy of the Gospel.  To be sure, they may be sitting in the pews on any given Sunday, bodily present — yet all the while their hearts, minds, and spirits remain elsewhere.  You don’t have to look far to find that group; you should simply examine yourself and repent.

There is then another group, with a third sort of response to Jesus, and you are not immune to this way of thinking and acting, either.  You find them here in the scribes and pharisees who came down from Jerusalem — who left the Temple and the Word of God behind — who went so far as to say that Jesus was Himself possessed by the devil.

In this accusation they the sin against the Holy Spirit — a sin which, so long as it persists, cannot be forgiven.  It is to identify the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Christ Jesus, with Beelzebul, the prince of demons.  Not only is this a horrible blasphemy, it is deadly to faith and life and damnable in its outright rejection of the Lord God Himself with His forgiveness, life, and salvation.  There can be no forgiveness for the ongoing denial and rejection of the very Spirit who breathes and bestows the forgiveness of sins in, with, and through the Gospel of Christ Jesus.

It is not the case that this sin, alone among all others, is simply “so horrible” and “so great” that no forgiveness could be had.  By His Cross and with His precious Blood the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, takes away the sins of the world.  As He says, “all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter.”  But those who harden their hearts against the Word and work of His Holy Spirit are thereby refusing and rejecting this very forgiveness of the Christ.

Those who are guilty of this unforgiveable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit — so long as they persist in their unbelief and refuse to repent — they are the vessels of wrath who are held in the possession of Satan.  They may not look like wicked people, not like in the movies.  In fact, they might be outstanding citizens and belong to model families.  But blasphemy and unbelief remain the work of Satan nonetheless; they mark the citizens of his hellish kingdom and the members of his evil household, who are caught and held in the deadly grip of this “strong man,” Beelzebul.

That is where you would be and remain, as well, if not for your Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who enters in to set you free from the bondage of sin, death, the devil, and hell.  He is the stronger Man who still invades the house of Satan, binds him up, and plunders his “possessions.”  You could not set yourself free.  In your native sinfulness, you did not even recognize your peril or want to leave.  But Christ Jesus has released you by the ways and means of His Cross, by His Word and Spirit.

Tragically, there are still a great many people who willingly choose to remain with Satan and reject the Lord Jesus Christ.  But, again, that is where each and every one of us would be, if not for the Holy Spirit, who calls you by the preaching of the Gospel, enlightens you with His gifts, sanctifies and keeps you in the one true faith — just as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps her united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.

It is here within the Church — where He daily and richly forgives your sins with the Gospel of Christ Jesus, with His Word and Flesh — that the Holy Spirit strengthens your faith and preserves your life in Christ, body and soul, now and forever.  And here within His Church is where you have become and still remain a member of Christ’s family, His brother or sister — living in His House, abiding in His fellowship, hearing His Word of the Gospel, and breathing His Holy Spirit.

This then is your fortress, your shield, and your strength — against Satan, all his works, and all His ways — the fellowship of the Holy Spirit in the Liturgy of Jesus, wherein you receive the promise of His Gospel, today and all year long, and whereby your sins are all forgiven in His Name.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.