The Third Sunday after the Epiphany, 2020
Pastor Gregory L. Jackson
The Confession of Sins
The Absolution
The Introit p. 16
The Gloria Patri
The Kyrie p. 17
The Gloria in Excelsis
The Salutation and Collect p. 19
The Epistle and Gradual
The Gospel
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| Roof materials picked up and delivered - Philippine mission. |
Announcements and Prayers
- *When IBM bought Ustream, the URL changed. If IBM is not in the link, it will not work.
- Pilgrim's Progress is on Wednesday at 7 PM. Blame Mrs. James Shrader. Booklet to follow - about the book's Gospel lessons.
- Bethany Lutheran Mission has purchased and delivered the materials for their roof. Additional gifts help with the seating, doors, windows, labor, and food.
- Pray for Ivy Anderson's mother, and Kermit Way, the husband of Christina Jackson's sister.
- Gary and Alicia's wedding anniversary is tomorrow.
KJV Romans 12:16 Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. 17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. 18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. 20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. 21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
KJV Matthew 8:1 When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. 2 And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. 5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, 6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. 7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. 8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. 9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
Third Sunday After Epiphany
O almighty and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all dangers and necessities stretch forth Thy mighty hand, to defend us against our enemies; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one true God, world without end. Amen.
Gryphius (1616-1654), Silesia, ranks as one of the principal poets of Silesia. The troublous events of his life, however, cast a gloom over most that he wrote, and his hymns especially are sombre in character. He wrote "Preserve Thy Word,"
Background for the Sermon, Matthew 8:1-11
First of all, we have to consider the consistent testimony of the Scriptures and the Lutheran Reformation. This is where I say "Lutherans are more Pentecostal than the Pentecostals." The simple reason is that we follow what the Bible says - everywhere - that the Spirit always works through the Word, and the Word is never lacking in the divine energy of the Holy Spirit. This Biblical teaching must be maintained at all times to keep from distorting and destroying God's message in the Scriptures.
Isaiah 55:10-11 put it this way - Just like the snow and rain, God's Word always has an effect. This is revealed to allow no exceptions - never returning void, always accomplishing His purpose, always prospering His will.
Anyone who imagines he is doing God's will without the Word is delusional. He is dreaming, and those dreams can inflate and pop like an over-extended balloon. I visited a church - like many in America - that attracted everyone with entertainment and joking around, professional acts, fun. It no longer exists, because it folded when the pastor grew up and closed down the entertainment.
In contrast, by trusting that the Word is always effective and powerful, we trust the work of God to that Word. Many congregations are organized around the pastor being the superintendent who makes sure everything runs smoothly. The least amount of time is devoted to studying the Word, preparing to teach and preach, visiting with the Word of God.
The foundational sin is not believing in Christ, John 16:8ff. That breaks down in many ways in America, even though we have so many church buildings.
- Questioning the value of prayer is doubt in God's Word.
- Denying the truth of the Scriptures and the authenticity of the text is the path to ruin, as the NIV and ESV show so clearly in their lies and distortions. Doctors know they can remove anything if enough anesthesia is used. The same is true with the Bible.
- Pointing to so-called errors and contradictions in the Bible (often refuted centuries ago) is the same as making the Scriptures just another religious work.
- The theology professors love to deny Creation and the divinity, miracles, atonement, and resurrection of Christ. The Ascension? - when was that service dropped in local churches?
- The result of no faith in the Word is trusting in clown "worship" services, popcorn and soda to keep everyone burpably happy, using coaching messages to replace the Gospel with the Law.
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Paolo Caliari (Il Veronese) (1528-1588) -
The Centurion Before Christ |
To Increase Faith in God's Word
KJV Matthew 8:1 When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. 2 And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
The context of these two healing miracles is important. The Sermon on the Mount was completed with the warning against false teachers - and the two trees comparison, one bearing good fruit only (faith in Jesus) and other only corrupt fruit (unbelief). Conclusion - A house is built on solid rock or on shifting sand. End of Chapter 7.
Beginning of Chapter 8. What moved these two men to seek healing from Jesus? He taught as one with divine authority, not like the niggling Pharisees, who only offered the Law as righteousness. Faith comes from hearing the report (as Luther says in his sermon on this passage). When Jesus preached to the crowd, they experienced His divine knowledge, power, and authority.
The man (full of leprosy, Luke) approached Jesus and worshiped Him as the Savior. As a leper, he was unclean and should not have even been near Jesus. He was also horrible to see and felt that disease, not only in his body's decay but also in the disgust and horror of the crowds. (If you want to pass through a crowd, simply have your child cover his own mouth and say, "He's sick!" The crowds will part, no matter how packed they appear to be.) How could the leper approach Jesus in the crowd? No one wanted to be near him, lest they catch his disease or become ritually unclean. Our daughter Erin Joy loved a woman with that condition. Adults saw disfiguration; Erin saw a woman who loved her. They beamed smiles at each other.
It took profound faith in Jesus to approach Him and ask for help. Why do people not do the same as the leper? The leper did not look at his own worthlessness in the eyes of everyone - or his helplessness. He only saw the divine power and mercy of Jesus and knew from the Sermon on the Mount that God was speaking to him.
Rationalists with no faith see the Sermon on the Mount as a collection of sayings, not a sermon so they miss the connection with the miracles following. Jesus also performed miracles and taught afterwards, to show the connection between His supernatural powers and His supernatural Word. However, that also exposed unbelief and anger toward Him. John 6 - That is a hard saying...many disciples departed and no longer walked with Him. (Disciple-makers should observe - the solution is not "making disciples" the way Ford makes trucks, but instructing with the Word of God.)
Luther:
7. This is what I have often said, that faith makes of us lords, and love makes of us servants,. Indeed, by faith we become gods and partakers of the divine nature and name, as is said in Psalm 82:6: “I said, Ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.” But through love we become equal to the poorest. According to faith we are in need of nothing, and have an abundance; according to love we are servants of all. By faith we receive blessings from above, from God; through love we give them out below, to our neighbor. Even as Christ in his divinity stood in need of nothing, but in his humanity served everybody who had need of him. Of this we have spoken often enough, namely, that we also must by faith be born God’s sons and gods, lords and kings, even as Christ is born true God of the Father in eternity; and again, come out of ourselves by love and help our neighbors with kind deeds, even as Christ became man to help us all.
3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Matthew 82 και ιδου λεπρος ελθων προσεκυνει αυτω λεγων κυριε εαν θελης δυνασαι με καθαρισαι
3 και εκτεινας την χειρα ηψατο αυτου ο ιησους λεγων θελω καθαρισθητι και ευθεως εκαθαρισθη αυτου η λεπρα
John 15 2 παν κλημα εν εμοι μη φερον καρπον αιρει αυτο, και παν το καρπον φερον καθαιρει αυτο ινα πλειονα καρπον φερη 3 ηδη υμεις καθαροι εστε δια τον λογον ον λελαληκα υμιν (we use the verb in the name Catharine, pure)
This is the power of God's Word. Jesus is the Logos, the Creating Word, so He has power over the entire universe. The believing leper said, "If it is Your will," and Jesus said, "It is My will. Be cleansed."
As we can see from John 15, the verb for cleansing is also used for absolution. Just as the leper was healed and purified by the Word of Jesus, so we are absolved from sin by the efficacious Word of the Savior. Just as the cleansed, fruitful branch of the grape vine or rose becomes even more fruitful, so our absolution from sin makes us even more fruitful in Christ.
The reason for the lovelessness in this world is the lack of faith in Christ. Church bodies can become riddled with legalism and rationalism so there is little or no faith in the Savior, little or no love.
4 And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
The instructions seem odd at first, but Jesus is telling the healed man to go directly to the Temple and perform the ceremony which follows healing from leprosy. "Tell no man" means - do not stop along the way to tell everyone, but carry out this task first of all.
Lenski, Matthew, p. 322.
Jesus thus orders this man in all due form to carry out the ceremonial requirements "which Moses ordered" and thus to have himself officially reinstated as being clean of leprosy. Jesus has not come to destroy but to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (5:17), and by his order to the leper he had healed fulfills what the Law of Moses required in the present case. This helps to explain that final phrase, "for a testimony unto them."
This is another example of taking the Gospel to the Jewish leaders, giving them a chance to repent and believe in Jesus. The leper himself was sowing the living Seed of the Word, telling them about the sermon he heard and his transformation from leper to healed. Another example is found in John 9.
5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, 6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. 7 And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
Jesus did not wait around for praise from the crowd, but kept moving. The next request came from an officer in the Roman army, the occupation troops there to keep everyone peaceful.
The centurion was a patron of the synagogue there, and he probably knew of the prophecies about the Messiah. The Roman Empire was on its last legs as a pagan force, and people had their doubts the ridiculous and fanciful tales of the Roman deities, borrowed from the Greeks. We still have those names in our vocabulary - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter...
In response, Jesus said He would come and heal the servant (no doubts expressed on either side).
8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. 9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
The officer spoke just like a military office, and he had the power of life and death over his soldiers. If they were undisciplined, he could give the order to "decimate," which meant that 10% of the men could be beaten to death by his fellow soldiers. That still inspires certain synods - Beatings will continue until morale improves.
The officer knows the power of the word when it comes from authority, and "authority" is that mysterious word that we find hard to translate. Jesus taught with "authority," not like the scribes and Pharisees. I think it needs to be "divine authority" to convey the true meaning. Jesus spoke as God, because He was and is God. He did not say, "It's me," but "I AM" - the Name of God from the Burning Bush.
Therefore the officer is responded to the divine authority He experienced and heard about from others (the Report). Faith comes from hearing (the Report).
10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
We can see from the response that the centurion considered Jesus' Promise as coming from God, because its effect had no boundaries or limitations. Jesus answered by marvelling about the officer's faith, greater than anything found in Israel. And that is often the truth. Those raised in the faith find such matters to be familiar and not that dramatic.
Those of us raised in the mainline denominations know how laborious it is to remove all the layers of rationalism from the Scripture narratives. So many books and sermons out there simply touch upon the Word to use as a springboard for alien thoughts and human ideas. I recall a book where the author judged how good the Old Testament poetry was (not so great), as if our standards judge the Word. And I recall the seminary professor who made fun of a book's German title because it clearly stated in the original that Bible is historically accurate.
Therefore, they do not teach faith but something far more toxic than unbelief. They teach anti-belief, which installs a layer of filtering over every Word of the Bible. "You don't mean that is literally true, do you?" they ask with sarcasm. Everything becomes a symbol (and merely a symbol) and an important lesson, but only as they see it.
Jesus warned here too, like the two trees and the houses built on rock or sand - false teaching has consequences. Some who openly despise the Word but still pretend to teach it pay a horrible price in this life and the life to come. Live a few decades and those people will stand out.
13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
In both examples, the individual, with faith in Christ, asked for a miracle. We can see in the various examples of miracles a lesson about how God works. The second miracle proved that it did not take Jesus' presence with the sick man to heal him, nor did He touch the man. The first miracle showed what a complete and instant transformation could be made, far beyond anyone's imagination or hopes.
These examples of faith are written to create and nurture our faith, because we have so many questions, not at the same time, but over time.
- How does one pray? The leper showed us an example - if it is Your will... We do not demand from God or command Him to do what we want. If we think we can control the outcome, He will surprise us.
- How much can God do in a miracle? A baby fell from a tall building and landed unharmed. Some claim the exploded diaper absorbed the energy. They failed physics and the Bible. God did that through His angels.
- How can Jesus be physically present in Holy Communion? That is answered in His two escapes from crowds who surrounded Him and His presence in the locked room after His resurrection. His human nature does not hinder His divine nature.
- How can God answer silent prayers? Just as easily as He answers spoken prayers. Jesus knew what was in the minds of His audience. To encourage our prayers God offers hundreds of examples in the Bible to quell our doubts and increase our faith.
- God seems to be silent. In fact, He seems to let more sorrows pile on my head. The Canaanite woman is an example example and there for a reason. That is why Jesus kept the appearance of silence and even contempt - to draw out her humility and her faith -"Even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master's table."
- We also have the example of the Virgin Mary, who suffered because of her unique role, the Apostles, and of course Jesus Himself. Now we see that they glorified God in their suffering, so we can see the wisdom behind His will.
