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Sermon for Quinquagesima Sunday 2014
Isaiah 35:3-7 + 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 + Luke 18:31-43
We have a very simple summary of the whole Christian faith before us in today’s Gospel, and the sinner’s salvation is at the heart of it. Jesus saves. And, faith saves. The Gospel shows us how.
In the first part of the Gospel, Jesus explains to His twelve apostles what is about to happen to the coming days.
31 Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. 32 For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. 33 They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”
Jesus saves. How? By suffering and dying and rising again, according to the Scriptures, according to all that was written about him in the Old Testament. People have all sorts of twisted ideas of who Jesus is. They twist Him into some lovey-dovey social savior who just wants everybody to get along and help each other out. They disconnect Him from the God of the Old Testament, who seems much harsher and not nearly as loving and…tolerant. People want Jesus to be a savior who is constantly doing miracles in their lives, who makes them rich or makes them well and lets them do whatever they want. They want a Jesus who doesn’t judge and who wouldn’t send anyone to hell, or at most, who will only condemn the really bad people of the world, which surely doesn’t include me or any of my family or anyone I actually care about. Surely we don’t deserve to die!
But none of that is Jesus. These make-believe jesus’s are nothing but fictional characters invented by twisted, sinful minds of men who refuse to face the reality of their sin and the truth of Holy Scripture. These make-believe jesus’s can’t save anyone.
But the real Jesus…He saves. He is the God of the Old Testament, the six-day Creator God, the whole-human-race-except-for-Noah’s-family-Flood-destroying God. He is the God of Israel, the Ten Commandments-giving God. The jealous God who punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. He is the eternal Son of God whose coming into the world as the “Son of Man” (as He calls Himself again in our Gospel) was foretold throughout the Old Testament. He is the Son of David who was born of the virgin Mary for the express purpose of saving fallen, sinful mankind by doing exactly what He told His disciples He was about to do in today’s Gospel: to be delivered over to the Gentiles, mocked, insulted, spit upon, scourged, killed, and finally raised from the dead.
The fact that He announces this to His disciples ahead of time shows us something else about Jesus. It shows us His heart. It shows us that He suffered willingly and gladly. It’s not warm and fuzzy and lovey-dovey. But it does show us what true love looks like. True love suffers all for the sake of the one who is loved. True love—the love described by the Apostle Paul in today’s Epistle—doesn’t seek the temporary happiness of those who are loved, but rather, their eternal blessedness. True love led Jesus to rebuke sin and correct error in those He loved. True love led Jesus to the cross.
This is what it took for Jesus to save. This is all it took for Him to pay the penalty for the sin of all mankind and to earn forgiveness and eternal life for every sinner, the love of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us.
This is also why it’s good and salutary for us to have a crucifix here in our sanctuary, to hold always before our eyes the image of the suffering and death of Christ, because that’s where, that’s how our salvation was won.
34 But Jesus’ disciples understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
This is how lost and hopeless we human beings are. Human reason hears Jesus’ words, understands the language He is using, but still fails to grasp the love of Christ. To human reason it’s foolishness that One should die for all, that the Son of God should suffer, that our deeds count for nothing before God as far as earning our salvation goes. Human reason thinks that we sinners should earn some forgiveness with our own suffering, or that our sacrifices, our deeds of love and service should help to win us a place in heaven. That the Son of Man’s suffering and death should be the only things that count before God is beyond our understanding. Even believers in Christ, as the disciples were, struggle to understand it.
That’s why we need Jesus to do still more for us in order to save us. We need Jesus to send His Holy Spirit in the Gospel, to enlighten us and open our eyes to His love, to work faith in our hearts. Because, just as true as it is that Jesus saves, so also faith saves. But how?
We have this excellent picture of how faith saves in the second part of our Gospel, in the blind man who received his sight from Jesus. There’s the poor blind man, sitting in darkness, begging for alms. The happy crowd is following Jesus to Jerusalem, or actually, going ahead of Jesus to Jerusalem in a happy, glorious procession. None of them, however, sees Jesus’ true purpose in going to Jerusalem. Jesus’ own disciples didn’t understand His words about suffering, death and resurrection. How much less the rest of the crowd.
That is clear by how the crowd tried to silence the poor blind man when he called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The crowd told him to shut up. So much for love! If they had understood why Jesus was going to Jerusalem—to lay down His life for them and for all, they wouldn’t have so carelessly dismissed this blind man who was calling to Jesus for help.
But their lovelessness didn’t stop the blind man. He kept calling out after Jesus for mercy. Why? Because he had heard the word about Jesus, that He is the Son of David, the promised Messiah, and that He is kind and merciful and helps all the needy who call on Him for help. And faith comes by hearing. The Holy Spirit had worked faith in his heart through the simple word he had heard about Jesus—faith that was able to shut out everything else and focus only on Jesus and His mercy.
Jesus never ignores the cry of faith. He stopped the procession and insisted that the blind man be brought to him. “What do you want Me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” 42 Then Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” Or, “your faith has saved you.” See how pleased Jesus is with faith. See how He exalts it and praises it.
But wait. Isn’t it Jesus who saves? Of course it is. But faith lays hold of Jesus, nothing more and no one else but Jesus. Jesus, the Son of David. Jesus, that Son of God who became man to suffer, die and rise for us. That’s it. And where Jesus is, there is forgiveness. There is life. There is salvation. The only merit that counts is Jesus. The only righteousness that counts before God is Jesus. The only suffering and death that count are the suffering and death of Jesus. Faith lays hold of Him. And so faith saves the one who was lost. Faith makes alive the one who was dead. Yes, faith justifies the one who was condemned.
Everything else that people call “faith” is make-believe faith, just like the make-believe jesus’s we considered a moment ago. Faith in humanity doesn’t save. Faith in a made-up god or a made-up heaven doesn’t save. Faith in yourself doesn’t save. Only the faith that lays hold of Jesus Christ, true God, true man, who suffered and died and rose again for all—only that faith saves.
And you know where faith comes from—not from yourself, it is the gift of God. You know where faith comes from—only by the Word of Christ, the Word that is preached to you, the Word that is applied to you with water, bread and wine. Here, in the Word, is Jesus, the same Jesus who journeyed to Jerusalem to suffer and die and rise again. His love and His mercy are proclaimed to you again today, that your eyes may be opened, that you may look to Him for salvation, that you may believe in Him, not only today, but also tomorrow, and in the midst of sickness and health, and as you age, and as death draws near, that Jesus Christ and Him crucified should be the only vision before your eyes, with faith only in Jesus only. This is how you have been saved, and this is how you will be kept safe for all eternity. Amen.
