Take Heed, or Take Care
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Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Truth, Response to)
You are driving down the highway when you encounter a sign that reads, “Dangerous Curve Ahead.” Immediately you are confronted with making a choice. One, you can observe the warning and slow down. Two, you can ignore the warning and maintain your rate of speed. Or, three, you can defy the warning and speed up. Whatever response you exercise, you will not change the truth of the sign. The curve remains dangerous, regardless of whether you acknowledge the fact or not.
Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
This pericope starts in the middle of a conversation - don’t you hate what happens when someone comes into the middle of your conversation like they were a party to all of it? They usually say something that seems profound to them, but silly to you. Today’s Gospel text begins with the words, “The Jews answered Him...” Who were these “Jews?” According to Frederick Danker and Walter Bauer, the authors, along with F.W. Gingrich, of A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (479), “in J(ohn) Ἰουδαῖοι or ‘Judeans’ for the most part (for exceptions s. a and c) constitute two groups
α. those who in various degrees identify with Jesus and his teaching John 8:52; 10:19–21; 11:45; 12:11 al.
β. those who are in opposition to Jesus, with special focus on hostility emanating from leaders in Jerusalem, center of Israelite belief and cult; there is no indication that John uses the term in the general ethnic sense suggested in modern use of the word ‘Jew’, which covers diversities of belief and practice that were not envisaged by biblical writers, who concern themselves with intra-Judean (intra-Israelite) differences and conflicts:”
William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 479.
Ok, I promise that this is the most boring moment you will have for the next 15 or so minutes - I just had to get that seminary polish out of the way :) The point is that these were people who had been identified as being “those who believed Jesus,” in v. 31, but not “those who believed in Jesus. They heard his words, and, as it is written in Romans 10:17
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
But when Jesus exposes their lack of faith in Him, beginning in v. 34-38, instead of hearing and submitting to the cleansing work of the Spirit through the Word, the proper response of the child of God, they resist the Spirit, the natural response of the child of the devil. By the time we get to our reading for today, this crowd that started out apparently open to Jesus ministry were now challenging it because He challenged their self-perception.
This is the reality in which we, catechized Confessional Evangelical believers in Jesus Christ, practice Witness - Mercy - Life Together, day in and day out, amongst “fellow believers” - insofar as they are baptized into Christ but not discipled to the level of full pulpit and altar fellowship, friendly non-believers, and hostile enemies of the cross. We are called, by Christ through the Gospel and in the power of the Holy Spirit, to live and speak as those who know that we are, in fact, united to Christ in His death, as it is written, Romans 6:3-4
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
By the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, we recognize the truth of Psalm 8 heard earlier today in the Liturgy, and we feel the passion expressed in our 1st reading:
Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud: “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man.
We look at our families, our neighborhoods, our communities, our nation and our world, all of which are under the sovereign rule of Christ, for whether they exist under the right or left-hand Kingdoms, they belong ultimately to God, who exercises His authority both openly and “behind the veil.” Before Jesus returned to the Father, He told His disciples, Matt 28:18-20
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
This morning, it might look to you, and the devil will use every tool he has to goad you into this thought, that those words are wrong: the premise in v 18 is false, and there for the conclusion in verses 19-20 are invalid. He wants us to be just like the Jews in today’s text:
The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
Jesus makes a promise, and whatever else you might say about the Gospel, know that it is a promise, a promise “to you, and to your children and to those who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call” (Acts 2:39).
God has placed us where we are, in terms of our families, our communities, our congregations, even the nation in which we live. He gives us our vocations in which to walk, and He gives us the power and authority as His dear children, baptized by water and the Spirit, to be His witnesses. We won’t all be like Peter on that first Pentecost ingathering of the Church, standing before a gathering from all across the known world, and we might not be in the position of Paul, given a call to go to the Gentiles, even before Caesar himself, to bear witness to Christ as the one who took a former persecutor and turned him into a preacher.
God has poured out His love upon us, and has pour out His Spirit within us, and we are well able to fulfill the vocations that He has given us. His reward is with Him, as He said in
Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
and in
“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
There is a difference between reward and recompense. The former comes to those who have lived out of a confidence in God’s faithfulness - they believed the Gospel. The latter comes to those who tried to earn their way into the blessings of eternal life. But when Pay Day comes, the wages of sin is death.
Every One His Witness isn’t just a marketing slogan or the name of a product for Lutherans. It is the life Jesus Christ being put on display by those who are branches of Him, the True Vine. We get our strength and nourishment from Him, even as we eat His Body and drink His Blood, as we are washed by the Word as faithful pastors proclaim the Law in all of its harshness and the Gospel in all of its purity, as teachers, deaconesses and other church workers teach and serve with all diligence, and as the conversation and consolation brothers and sisters takes place both inside and outside these hallowed walls. Isaiah 43:10 tells us:
“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.
The world challenges this statement everyday, saying to Christ’s Church today as the Jews said to Jesus on that day, “Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
We are not called to comfort the world in its self-delusion, nor are we called to cosign those who mix law and Gospel so that the two are confounded and the saints are confused. That Christ died and rose is a certain as the emptiness of His tomb, and that we are His witnesses is as certain as the day that we became united to Him through baptism. Peter only spoke what he knew to be true on the Day of Pentecost, and Jesus spoke the truth when asked:
So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
“He is Lord - He is Lord. He is risen from the dead and He is Lord. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
And the peace of God, that passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.