What is it that you trust and rely on? What is it that you cling to for dear life? What do you look to in yourself and in your life for safety and security, for a sense of peace and satisfaction?
Is it your good works? Or have you come to the honest realization that your good works just aren’t good enough? What, then? Your good intentions or best efforts? Your property, your land and all your stuff? Can you name and number your possessions, and do you keep them close at hand?
Is it your income you depend on? Your savings and investments? Or your insurance policies? Have you got everything in its place, so that, no matter what happens, you’ll still have it made?
Or, maybe you know better. Maybe you know that your silver and gold will disappear, and that all of your stuff will rust, or moths will eat it, or thieves will steal it. So, do you look for your life, instead, in your family, friends, and loved ones? In your relationships and social circles? In the number of “likes” and comments that your posts and pictures get on social media? Or in the nice things you hope they’ll say in your obituary and at your funeral? Is that what you’re relying on?
The rich young man understood that, for all his good works, and for all his possessions, there was still something missing. He was still falling short and lacking something crucial. Perhaps he had heard (or heard about) the Sermon on the Mount, and he wondered how his righteousness could ever exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, that he might inherit and enter the Kingdom of God. He had questions, in any case, because his heart and mind were not at rest. He had no real peace.
It’s easy enough to hear this story and suppose this young man was boastful and arrogant, prideful, and self-confident. But he comes to Jesus because he’s looking for something — something he doesn’t know or have or understand. He’s restless inside, and he’s searching. How about you?
For all that you have — for all your best efforts, all your hard work, your family and friends, your good name and reputation — for all that, what is still missing, and what is it that you still need? What is it going to cost? And what must you do to get it and keep it? What are you willing to do?
Actually, you already know what you should be doing; or, you should know, in any case. Like it or not, the Lord has told you what to do and not to do, and what you are to be about. He has given you the guidance of His Word, He has called you to a particular office and station in life, and He has positioned you in the proximity of neighbors you are to love and serve and care for.
As the Catechism has taught you, consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments, and then you will already have more than enough to occupy all your days and life on earth.
Wherever God has placed you in this world, that is it where you are to fear, love, and trust in Him, to listen to His Word and call upon His Name. That is where you are to honor your parents and the other authorities God has positioned over you, to catechize and care for those He has entrusted to your oversight, and to do unto others as you would have done unto you.
You don’t have to go hunting and searching to find or figure out what God would have you do — in fact, you absolutely should not abandon your post to attempt that kind of self-chosen adventure. Just do what God has given you to do in the place where He has put you, according to His Word.
But don’t do it as a way or means of getting life for yourself, far less as a way or means of saving yourself or gaining the Kingdom of God by your own works and efforts. Rather, do what God has given you to do, and live according to His Word, because He is the Author and Giver of Life, and His Word to you is your Life and Salvation. It is good and right to live as He has spoken. What is more, it is good for you and for your neighbor to live in harmony with His Word, which reveals and describes, guides and governs the divine Life that is lived by His grace in faith and love.
Goodness is not achieved or accomplished by your behavior. You can’t make yourself good by the works that you do. That is not within your power or ability. Goodness belongs to God alone, to His Word and His works. And such goodness can only become yours by the gift of His grace.
Now, then, your goodness as a creature of God, as a human being, is by and according to His holy Word, for He has created you in His Image and Likeness; He brought you into existence by His almighty power, and He formed you in your mother’s womb for Life with Himself in both body and soul, both here in time and hereafter in eternity. And notwithstanding the Fall, in spite of the curse and consequences of sin and death, the goodness of God is established and fulfilled in Man in the Person of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, that you might inherit the Kingdom of God and Life everlasting in Him. And that divine goodness of Christ Jesus is given to you and realized in you by His grace, by faith in His Word of the Gospel. Your goodness is solely by faith in Him.
It is because you are good by faith in Christ that you do what is good and right in love for God and for your neighbor, in the keeping of the Lord’s Commandments. It is not what you do that makes you who and what you are (nor can you determine for yourself who and what you are); but who and what you are is manifest in what you do. Because you are a sinner — a fallen child of Adam — you sin: you do what you should not, and you don’t do what you should. But so, too, because you are a child of God in Christ Jesus — baptized in His Name — you do what is good and right: you live according to His Word by faith, and you love your neighbor as Christ Jesus loves you.
Now, your works in themselves can be measured by the Word of God, as to whether they are good or evil, right or wrong, outwardly speaking. But as for yourself, your heart and soul, body and life, and where you stand before the Lord your God, that is another matter. Your outward behavior is good and right to the extent that it agrees with the Word of God. But apart from faith in Christ Jesus, even your best and most impressive works are detestable, filthy, and unclean in the presence of God. Your self-righteousness is no righteousness at all in the eyes of the Lord, no matter how good it might look to you and to the world. Apart from faith, it is impossible to please Him.
Such faith is not a commodity you can possess and put away on a shelf or in your closet. It’s more than intellect or emotion, more than your knowledge of true facts, more than your good feelings. It is rather to fear, love, and trust in God above all things, to stake your entire body and life on Him and on His Word, to rely on Him, to learn from Him, to bear His Cross and follow Him, even unto death, in the sure and certain hope of His Resurrection. And with that, it’s a willingness to let go of your possessions, to give them up or use them up in service to your neighbors, while fixing your heart, mind, body, and life upon the Lord Jesus Christ and His divine Liturgy of the Holy Gospel.
Whatever it is that you cling to and won’t let go — whatever it is that you depend on for dear life — whatever it is that makes you feel happy, complete, safe, and at peace when you have it; but if or when it is threatened or taken away, you are inconsolably angry, defensive, or sorrowful — that is your god, and that is your worship. So, if you cannot relinquish your possessions, if you cannot let go of your stuff, you are worshiping the wrong gods, which are perishing and cannot give you life or save you. But if you fear, love, and trust the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ above all things, then, no matter what comes your way, whether for life or death, you have Life in Him.
What, then? Repent of your sins. Turn away from evil and do good. Hear and heed what God the Lord has spoken to you, and do what He commands. Above all, believe and trust the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Depend upon His grace and His forgiveness. Receive His gifts, and so rely on Him. That is your Life and Salvation. For you are His, and He is yours, and He will not let you go.
Repent of your sins, believe the Gospel, and be baptized. Or, if you have already been baptized, then return to the ongoing significance of your Baptism — every day — and so also, here and now. Return to the Cross of Christ, to your death and life in Him, by contrition and repentance, by faith in His forgiveness of your sins and His free gifts of the Gospel. Because everything that you lack, everything that’s missing — the big empty hole in your heart, the restlessness in your mind, and all your sleepless nights — everything you need is here for you in the Word and Flesh of Jesus.
And it is all given to you, freely, by His grace, by the divine Charity of the Lord your God, whose eye is ever upon you in love. It is not by your works that you receive it. Nor is it for sale, as if you ever could afford to buy it, anyway. But it is poured out upon you generously in Christ Jesus.
He is the One who keeps all of the Commandments, inside and out. He lacks nothing in regards to holy faith, and He lacks nothing in respect to holy love. And so it is that He who was rich with all the riches of the Kingdom of heaven made Himself poor with the utter poverty of your sin and death, in order that you might inherit His Righteousness and everlasting Life in His Resurrection from the dead. He liquidates everything, His Body and His Life upon the Cross, in order to give you His Body and Life and all the Treasures of God’s Kingdom in the Liturgy of His Gospel.
Today, then — right here and now, Today — you hear His voice, that of your Good Shepherd and merciful High Priest, speaking His Gospel to you, forgiving you all your sins. And as you hear His voice Today — from this Pulpit and this Holy Altar — do not harden your heart against Him, but follow Him where His Voice leads, and live by His good works, by His Cross and Resurrection.
Like that rich young man of St. Mark’s Holy Gospel. Maybe it was John Mark himself, as tradition suggests (and I am inclined to believe). In any case, we hear the story of this young man who had so many possessions — who was actually a ruler of the synagogue, a leader in the church — who had so much and did so much, and yet he knew that he was missing something — we hear about him here, and then we hear about two other young men in the continuation of the Holy Gospel.
I’m sure you remember the one story. In the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus was arrested and as He was being hauled away to get beaten up and then to be executed on the Cross, there was a young man following after Him. He was wrapped in a linen sheet, that’s all he had on his body. And the soldiers grabbed him — they were going to take him away, too — but he slipped away, and he ran away naked into the night. Buck naked. He had nothing. It had all been stripped away.
And then, on the Third Day, very early in the morning, when the women went to the tomb, and they wondered how they were going to move that huge stone out of the way, they found that it was already gone. And the body of Jesus was not there, because He had risen, just as He said. But there in His tomb — you know it was an angel — but that’s not how St. Mark describes him. There was a “young man,” he writes, clothed in white raiments, in the radiance of the Resurrection.
That’s what the Lord Jesus has done for you in Holy Baptism. And that’s what He does for you Today and every Sunday. Stripped naked by way of repentance, you are clothed in Christ Jesus, radiantly adorned in His Righteousness and Holiness, and decked out in His divine Goodness.
Here, then, is the peace and rest you’re looking for. Here your poverty is filled up with His Riches. Here your nakedness and shame are covered by His Honor and His Glory, because here your sins are all forgiven by His Word of the Gospel. They really are. And that is very good.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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