Of Shepherds and Sheep: An Easter Meditation on John 10

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not,

seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth:

and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.

The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling,

and careth not for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.

As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father:

and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold:

them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice;

and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

Jesus’ parable in John 10 uses earthly imagery to help convey spiritual realities.  In ancient Israel, as in many agrarian communities to this day, the image of shepherds and sheep is one readily perceived.  Sheep are creatures which are easily hunted and taken by those who would destroy them, and shepherds serve as both guide and guardian for an animal which cannot even fathom their own dangers. But sheep do learn the voice of their shepherd, and the ones who survive and flourish are those who heed their shepherd’s voice; those who are drawn by their own inward desires or other outward voices away from their shepherds, usually find only suffering and disaster.  Wolves love an easy mutton lunch, and the earthly terrain is ambivalent of those who traverse it.

Jesus uses this imagery, because it teaches us something about Him, ourselves, the world, and our relationship to Him.  First, we learn that He is unfailingly good, in full unity with God the Father, and that He is so devoted to the life and flourishing of His people, that He is prepared to give His life to save theirs.  This love and divinity brought forth in His human Incarnation, make Him a unique Shepherd to His people, at once their Lord, their Savior, and their Preservation.  No other pretender of human or demonic origin can fulfil this role which Jesus has with His people, nor would they seek His people for anything but destruction, slavery, and death.  While demons and wicked men will seek to enslave and ensnare people, using them as means to their own ends of power, lust, and wealth, Jesus alone seeks His people only to love and save them, that they might have life eternal and abundant.  He is the one and the only Good Shepherd.

We also learn of ourselves, that we are hopeless without our Good Shepherd.  Like sheep relative to the shepherd, our perception and our wits are dim.  Easily we would wander into dangerous terrain that would wound us, into snares which would entangle us, or into lairs which would devour us.  Unable are we to untangle the web of our own fallen desires from the dangers of a fallen world, and unmatched are we to the predators who swarm throughout it.  A herd of sheep to a pack of wolves is nothing more than a buffet; a gathering a people is nothing more than slave labor to the tyrant; a wounded soul to the demonic horde is nothing more than the prey of hell; without the guidance and guardianship of a Good Shepherd.

As the perception and abilities of sheep are to people, even more so are man’s perceptions and abilities to God.  We traverse a universe of majesty and wonder, but it is also one of danger to our fragile and fallen nature.  There are forces for good and evil at work in the world, both in human and angelic realms, so little of which we can see.  The wolves which hunt the people of God lurk everywhere, hidden in the camouflage which amplifies their lethality.  Our minds are easily drawn to the shiny and the smooth, to lies and deceptions, and to our own destruction.  Thinking ourselves wise, we find ourselves fools, as easily despoiled of our lives and liberty as a wandering sheep is by a passing brigand.

And so, this Easter season, we are reminded of where our life, our liberty, our safety, and our preservation abide:  in Jesus, our Good Shepherd, alone.  He alone is God with Us, fully human according to our unfallen nature, and fully God according to the divine nature.  He alone loves us as the Eternal Word of our Omnipotent Creator, the revelation of the Holy Spirit which is testified to every living soul.  He alone has laid down His life for His people, and He alone has taken it back up again, that He might lead His people from fallen life, through death, to the bliss of eternal life.  His voice alone calls to forgiveness, life, and salvation, by His Word carried forth in every generation.  He alone gathers all who repent and believe in Him into one flock, one universal church, with Him alone as their One Good Shepherd.  His voice, His Word alone, prevents our eternal calamity and restores us to eternal life by His grace and mercy.  What we could not do, He has fully accomplished, leading His people today as He has faithfully led His people in every generation which has come before, and every generation yet to come.

We will never see things, in this world or the next, as clearly and completely as our divine Good Shepherd.  Even in glory we remain creatures, and our Creator remains the only omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient King of the Universe.  And yet, while we may not know the fullness of all things in heaven and on earth, we know that our Saving Lord is Good—that His voice, His Word, leads and preserves us even through the valley of the shadow of death, that we may fear no evil of man or demon.  We know what He has done for us, and what He has promised to complete in each of us, according to His own time and wisdom.  And so, with Him we rejoice even in our sorrows, knowing that our Good Shepherd remains and abides with us, leading us through this world and into the endless ages of ages to come.  Glory be to Him forever.  Amen.

Gird Up Your Mind: An Easter Season Meditation on 1st Peter 1

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind,

be sober, and hope to the end for the grace

that is to be brought unto you

at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

As obedient children,

not fashioning yourselves according

 to the former lusts in your ignorance:

But as he which hath called you is holy,

so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;

Because it is written,

Be ye holy; for I am holy.

The first chapter of St. Peter’s first letter is a rousing call to the scattered brethren, beginning with a remembrance of the salvation given by grace through faith to all who believe in Jesus.  He describes the fallen world from which Christians are redeemed, together with its corruption and lust, and the eternal life into which we have been raised through the sacrifice of Jesus upon His Cross.  The world is passing away under the curse and condemnation of the wickedness which permeates to its core, and only through the Vicarious Atonement of Jesus, the very Son of God incarnate, can anyone hope to escape this fate.  Such salvation is worth celebrating, as we do in the Easter season, but it also calls us to consider what kind of life this salvation leads us to live.

Peter did not leave his readers wanting for guidance in this consideration.  He knew that Christians would be tempted to return to the same rudimentary evils from which they were rescued, and even compared such temptation of one’s faith to the refinement of gold in fire—that both are tested and purged by their respective trials.  Peter certainly doesn’t offer his readers a false solace that in this world they will avoid trouble, but rather (as he heard Jesus tell His disciples in the garden before His crucifixion,) that our Savior, Jesus Christ, has overcome the world.  In this, Peter rightly calls his readers to gird up their minds and prepare for the battle which will rage all around them until the Lord calls them home.  Jesus did not destroy the fallen world after He rose again from the dead; rather, Jesus sent His disciples with His Word into the world, that all who might hear, believe, and turn to Him would live forever.  Such was not a call to a soft and vapid existence, playing about in one’s passions and lusts until the fire sweeps everyone away.  This call of Jesus which St. Peter proclaims, is one of a life lived soberly, aware of one’s real enemies (sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil) and the victory which resides in Jesus alone.  This makes the Christian a military emissary of the Kingdom of God, sent into the world to speak God’s truth to evil powers, and by the Word and Spirit of God leading others out of their captivity to the devil and to life and freedom in Jesus.

Such a life and mission is not to be taken lightly.  To gird one’s mind is to place securely upon it the armor of God’s Eternal Word, with a heart steadfastly clinging to that Word which both calls us to repentance for our sin and to life in His grace.  This Word of Life which calls us, calls through us to the whole world, that everyone might repent and believe unto eternal life.  And of course, the evil one does not lay down quietly, even in his defeat at the Cross.  Rather, he pursues the faithful with ardent fury, seeking to tempt Christians into the same evils from which they were saved, that he might invalidate their witness to the world, and drag as many souls as he can into the fires of hell prepared for him and his wicked host.  The devil is girded up for war, a suicidal plunge into perdition where he seeks to take everyone he can with him.  He is cunning, ancient, and powerful, bent on the destruction of the world and the whole human race.  Yet his power over fallen men is broken by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, for all who repent and believe in the Gospel.

This is our battle, and today the world lies before us in full cacophonic array.  Our enemy is not flesh and blood, but the evil powers which seek to kill and destroy and enslave.  Our victory is not one of swords and spears, but of the finished work of Jesus, in whose resurrection is the promise of eternal life to us all.  Our calling is to life, united to the Lord of Life by His Eternal Word, and armed with that Word as we press headlong into the ranks of our foes, seeking the salvation of souls.  We are the military emissaries of the Kingdom of God, sent and sealed by the Lord of Hosts, to destroy the works of darkness and shine the saving light of His Word into every dying soul.  We are set aside unto this work, made holy by the shed blood of Jesus, that we might be holy as our Savior is holy.

Gird up your minds in the Word of God, and prepare to surge once more into the battlefield.  The enemy will rage even as he flees before you, and the hearts of men will beat once more with the hope of everlasting life.  Amen.

A Palm Sunday Meditation on John 12: Prepared and Unafraid

And Jesus answered them, saying,

The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.

Verily, verily, I say unto you,

Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,

it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

 He that loveth his life shall lose it;

 and he that hateth his life in this world

 shall keep it unto life eternal.

If any man serve me, let him follow me;

and where I am, there shall also my servant be:

 if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?

Father, save me from this hour:

but for this cause came I unto this hour.

Father, glorify thy name.

Then came there a voice from heaven, saying,

I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

 The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered:

others said, An angel spake to him.

Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.

Now is the judgment of this world:

 now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

This he said, signifying what death he should die.

In John 12, we first find Jesus and His disciples at the home of Lazarus whom He raised from the dead, together with Lazarus’ sisters and family.  He was anointed with a costly perfume in preparation for His burial, something His disciples did not yet understand.  Then He proceeded toward Jerusalem with the crowd hailing Him as the Messiah, casting palm branches in the road before Him, striking such fear into the hearts of the Jewish leadership that they sought to kill both Jesus and Lazarus.  This triumphal entry, less than a week before Jesus’ betrayal and murder, is how we mark the beginning of Holy Week as Palm Sunday.

Among the many lessons we learn from Jesus upon His arrival into Jerusalem, is that He knew what He was doing, where He was going, and what it was going to cost Him.  He knew His own disciples would abandon and betray Him; that His own countrymen would seize Him by night and hand Him over to a foreign power for public torture and execution; that He would be unjustly condemned, mocked, slandered, and ridiculed; that He would die in unparalleled agony, bearing the weight of every sin of every soul of every person that would ever be born from the beginning to the end of time; He knew that He was the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world, and that by His Vicarious Atonement upon that Roman cross, He would become the salvation of every person drawn to Him by grace through faith; He knew that by dying He would defeat death for all mankind, casting out the devilish tyrant of the world’s wicked system, and giving all people a path back to reconciliation with God.

Jesus was prepared for this.  He spoke about it often with His disciples, though they couldn’t fully understand it until after it happened.  Jesus’ soul was troubled by what He was about to do, the tremendous gravity of His path to save the world, but He was not afraid of it.  As the Author of Life who condescended to dwell among us, full of grace and truth, He knew all too well the wonderful blessing of life, and the terrible curse of death.  Jesus knew that death was not a blessing to be embraced, but a curse to be overcome—the curse we brought down upon ourselves by cutting ourselves off from God by our own sinful rebellion against His Eternal Word.  Jesus knew that without His saving work of redemption upon the Cross, mankind had no hope in this world or the world to come, that the curse of death in this world would be ratified by an eternal death of separation from God for all eternity.  Jesus knew what His path through the valley of the shadow of death would entail, and that He would take that journey willingly for our sake.

And He accomplished what He set out to do.  He submitted to His Father’s will, became the sacrifice for the sins of the world, descended to the dead, and rose again triumphant over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  He took this path through betrayal, suffering, pain, and death, that He might secure for us a way through death unto everlasting life; that where He is, there His servants may be also.  He prepared a place for us with the Father, and left to us His Holy Spirit, that we might journey faithfully through this fallen world to be with Him where He is.  He has accomplished all things necessary for our salvation, doing what we could not do, and giving to us freely the fruits of His labors by His unbounded grace.

Thus it is that Jesus has prepared us for our journey through the valley of the shadow of death, that we might walk it unafraid.  We follow Him who has gone through death for us, conquered death for us, and risen again that we might know for certain that we are the inheritors of life through Him.  Death is still a curse which plagues mankind as a result of our fall into sin, but for those who abide in Jesus by grace through faith, it is a conquered curse, a defeated enemy.  Death has been trampled down under the sacrifice of Jesus, and just as hell could not hold the Lord of Life, neither can it hold the sons and daughters of the Living God who put their trust in Him.  We are an Easter People, joined to the victory of Jesus through faith in His Word.

And so it may be that we will be troubled by death as we journey through this world, for we know how terrible a curse death is.  But we are also prepared to walk through life and death unafraid, following in the footsteps of Jesus who has walked this path before us, and shown us by His resurrection the eternal life He has secured for us.  This path through Holy Week is a hard one, where death surrounds the world like a gathering darkness.  Yet it is a path illuminated for all by Jesus, who calls all people to gather in His light, that they might pass from death to life in Him.  Amen.

A Lenten Meditation on Psalm 130: Out of the Depths Have We Cried

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.

Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.

My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning:

I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy,

and with him is plenteous redemption.

And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Suffering is a part of life in this world, and our current global crisis is yet another example.  While some suffering is easy to compartmentalize because it is a tornado which struck over, or a tsunami which struck over there, or a political collapse which struck over there, or a famine which afflicted people over there, global catastrophes make it difficult for anyone to escape the present pain.  Even individual pain of those around us is easier to compartmentalize and distance ourselves from, because it is not happening to us personally.  Yet today the world is reminded that it is a fallen place, and that pain can strike everyone, everywhere.  There is no escape based on race, or location, or gender, or philosophical persuasion.  There may be distinctions of mortality based on age and physical fitness, but young people and old people are suffering together.

Today, most churches are empty, obeying the government mandates to restrict travel and gatherings which could speed the rate of infection.  Businesses are shuttered except those deemed essential by bureaucrats who have assumed emergency powers from local to national levels, and neighbors look suspiciously at each other as some bow easily to government restrictions and others refuse in more libertine conviction.  Much of the world today is huddled in their homes, afraid of what the future holds for them and their families, unable to escape from the pain and suffering now made present by a microscopic virus.

But this is not the first time a plague has scorched the earth, and it is unlikely to be the last.  Our world is broken, and we live out our lives in this broken world with varying degrees of pain and death all around us.  The Creator of this world tells us by His own Eternal Word that what He originally made perfect, we have corrupted by our own selfishness, pride, and evil intentions.  It is by our own hand that this world exhibits such pain and destruction, by our own fault that fallen humanity is now wounded by the creatures which originally lived in harmony together.  It was not our Creator’s design that we should be huddled in fear against an unseen viral assailant, but in cutting ourselves off from Him, we have made ourselves fragile and frail.  Our fall into sin was a fall into death, as we abandoned the Lord of Life to pursue ends apart from Him.  These depths into which we have fallen are full of misery and torment, where even the good creation of God becomes to us a source of death through the natural law we have violated.

It is from these depths that the Psalmist cried nearly 3000 years ago, and from which the people of God have cried since the time of the Fall.  Yet the Psalmist’s cry is not one of despair, but of hope—a hope rooted in the Word of the Lord who promises to save His people from death in this world and the next, by saving them from the sin and evil which originally cast them into these hellish depths.  It is a cry which acknowledges the reality of pain, the torment of hounding death, but which declares more powerfully the redemption and rescue of our Lord.  Disease and pestilence have been known by every generation, and in every generation there has been a witness to the One who is greater than every disease and every pestilence.

Our Creator tells us that this was not His intention for His people or His world to fall into the depths we have plunged it, and that He has no intention of leaving it there, either.  Even as we fell, He spoke His Word of promise that He would rescue all who would put their trust in Him.  To a world now grown old under the curse of the Fall, that same Word of promise comes to our generation.  The Word which was carried by the Prophets through war and exile, destruction and captivity, plague and persecution; the Word which became flesh and dwelt among us in our Lord Jesus Christ, who took our fall upon Himself, that He might lift everyone out of these horrible depths; the Word which the Apostles carried after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, through martyrdom and reviling, political oppression and devious intrigue; the Word which was carried by those who believed after them, through the rise and fall of empires, through flood and earthquake, through violent storms of nature and man; this is the Word which comes to you today, persisting beyond all time and place, bringing the Gospel promise of peace and salvation by grace through faith.

This living Word of redemption and hope, is Jesus.  It is to Him that we call from the depths of our suffering, and it is He who has promised to carry us through every torment and every travail.  It is Jesus alone who has born our suffering and our death through His Cross, and who shall lead us safely to an eternity restored to His fellowship.  It is Jesus who shared the undimmed glory of the Father and the Spirit before the world began, and who has done all things necessary to gather us into that glorious fellowship forever.  It is Jesus upon whom our souls wait with surer promise than the next coming morning, knowing that we are not abandoned in these depths, but that we shall see His redemption and resurrection from all our iniquities with our own eyes.

Though we suffer with our fallen world, we suffer as those who have a certain hope.  Let the people of God call out from the depths of our pain and sorrow, with a faith which clings to the promise of Jesus’ salvation, and a repentance which turns from the ways of death which brought us all to our lowly state.  And we shall see, in the fullness of time, not only our own restoration, but that of the whole world.  Amen.

Meditations for the Lenten Week of 22 March, 2020: John 9

And Jesus said,

“For judgment I have come into this world,

that those who do not see may see,

and that those who see may be made blind.”

Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words,

and said to Him, “Are we blind also?”

 Jesus said to them,

“If you were blind, you would have no sin;

 but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.”

The text of John chapter nine recounts the story of Jesus granting sight to a man born blind.  All miracles are by definition rare, but such a miracle as this was so rare that no one had ever heard of it happening.  In fact, most people of the time (and many today, also,) assumed that God’s judgment is upon the family of such a person born with a defect, and so appeals to God for restoration were not readily forthcoming.  The blind man Jesus healed was such a person, disregarded and judged wanting by those who passed him by, but precious in the eyes of his Creator.  It is likely this man had little or no education, except what he was able to hear from those around him, and perhaps what he was able to glean from his parent’s instruction before he was out on the streets as a beggar.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were the polar opposite of this poor blind beggar.  They were educated in the Law and the Prophets, held in high regard as teachers and leaders of the people, and sought to keep themselves aloof of a filthy and sinful world.  To these educated elite, the healing of a blind man on the Sabbath was a violation of the Mosaic Law (not what was written by Moses in the Torah, but what had been added as Tradition and commentary by the elders over the previous 1500 years) regardless of the mercy or good it accomplished in the blind man.  Such educated men, believing their eyes wide open enough to judge everyone around them, condemned both Jesus and the blind man who testified of His healing gift.

When Jesus found the previously blind man, now healed but cast out (excommunicated) from the Jewish community, He used the moment to teach everyone something about what true sight meant.  The previously blind man received a free gift of grace from Jesus, and in return, trusted Jesus in faith, receiving forgiveness, life, and salvation through Him.  The Pharisees, having seen His many miracles and works of grace given to the people, chose instead to condemn Him and plot His murder.  Both received unmerited grace, but reacted in very different ways; the one responded by faith and love, the other responded by disbelief and hatred.  To the response of faith, grace upon grace was multiplied unto eternal life.  To the response of unbelief, grace was turned to judgment unto eternal condemnation.

As the Church continues her walk through Lent, it is important to remember Jesus’ lesson to the blind man, the Pharisees, and His Disciples.  We are a people who have received the grace of Jesus Christ’s Word of Law and Gospel, His blessings of forgiveness and life.  Having received such grace, we are enlivened and enlightened to respond by His Holy Spirit in lives of faith, repentance, hope, trust, and love.  Such lives of faith are blessed beyond measure in this life and the world to come, granting us victory over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. 

And yet, with such grace and blessing comes a warning we dare not forget:  to those whose eyes are opened to the light and life of Jesus’ Eternal Word, and yet reject Him in hatred and derision, there is no escape from the sins in which all mankind finds themselves entangled.  Like the blind beggar who could not by his own power escape the blindness into which he was born, so neither can any person escape by their own power from the sin and death into which they are born.  To remain bound in our sins is a sentence of eternal death, of separation from the Lord of Life in this age, and for all ages to come.  To see the gift of God’s mercy and grace which frees us from death and hell, and to reject it, leaves a soul bound in death and hell.

We are reminded today that Jesus’ call to forgiveness and life is one of grace which can only be received by faith, raising us up to live in Him and His Word forever.  As the Word of the Lord comes to all for their restoration and salvation, it empowers all to freely respond either in faith unto eternal life, or in unbelief unto eternal death.  By the power of the Holy Spirit working miracles more glorious than the recovery of sight to those born blind, through the Eternal Word of Jesus’ everlasting Gospel:  repent, believe, and live.  Amen.

Vunerability of Paganism: Meditation on Luke 8, for the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost

And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee.  And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs.  When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not.  (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.)

And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him.  And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep.  And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them.   Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.

When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.   Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed.  Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear: and he went up into the ship, and returned back again.

Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him: but Jesus sent him away, saying,  Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.

Much can be learned from Jesus’ engagement with this possessed man in the land of the Gadarenes, and of particular interest in our day and times may be the radical vulnerability of pagan people to diabolical abuse.  In this recounting by Luke, Jesus found a man who was so oppressed by demons that he had been completely ostracized from his community and his family, dwelling instead in the tombs where he could see the foreshadowing of his own demise.  The local people attempted to bind him, but the demonic Legion which infested him gave him supernatural strength to break and escape his bonds, leading the people to be both terrified of him and terrorized by him.  The Scriptures do not reveal why this man is more tormented than the other pagans around him, what led to his possession by this Legion of unholy spirits, or why this situation has been allowed to continue so long.  What is clear, however, is that the demons know and recognize Jesus immediately for who He is, and that the rules of their game with the pagan Gadarenes has now radically changed.

Many peoples around the world in non-Christian cultures have had similar experiences, as recounted in their own folklore and the journals of explorers and missionaries.  Demons or evil spirits dominate the fears of many people, and those fears work themselves out into religious systems which try to evade, appease, resist, or serve them.  Thus, many of these religious systems share traits that are remarkably similar, whether they are found in Asia, Africa, the Americas, or various far flung Islands.  Evil spirits make havoc of communities across the globe and across the centuries, such that the story of the possessed Gadarene is not so foreign to a global stage.

Truth be told, such stories are not so foreign now, even in previously Christian countries such as our own.  Where people have stepped away from Jesus and living faith in His Word, they have often found themselves beset by evils they cannot control nor comprehend.  In the West, our culture is quickly being subsumed by humanistic atheism which presumes to elevate man as his own god, claiming the universe and chance as his origins, and hedonistic power as his summit.  Of course, man standing alone in his own meager power among the unseen hosts of this universe makes him easy prey for those who would manipulate, abuse, and ultimately destroy him.  His delusions of his own deity hold nothing at bay, and thus our culture is awash in epidemics of drug abuse, violence, hatred, fear, and a rising form of paganism that attempts to evade, appease, resist, or serve the dark forces which pursue them from the shadows.  The vapidity of materialism is giving way to a new spirituality with its modern shamans, and city streets filling with people like the hapless Gadarene of Luke 8 while others huddle in fear behind their own locked doors.

And yet, it is Jesus who continues to arrive on the shores of our oppressed communities, seeking and saving those lost under the horrible tyranny of dark Legions.  His emissaries whom He has sent forth in the power of His Word and Sacraments, by grace through faith in Jesus alone, approach the merciless hordes of demonic forces in His Name.  As when Jesus engaged the Legion possessing the maniacal Gadarene, the demons know Jesus and His divine authority far better than the people He is sent to save.  They know that His Name and His Word are sovereign in every square inch of this vast universe, and that they cannot resist Him who is the Word which made, sustains, and will judge all things.  They may beg and plead and howl, but in the end they must obey the Word of the Lord, even when spoken by weak and sinful human emissaries who stand redeemed in His Word by grace through faith.  Wherever His people abide in Him, there He is among them, the sovereign King of the Universe who deigns to be the Savior of all mankind.

And yet, there will be those who are so terrified by the presence of the King, that they will beg the Savior to leave them in their darkness.  Like the Gadarene community who saw the salvation of the oppressed man and yet begged Jesus to depart, so will some communities in our time push the Church and the emissaries of Jesus back into the boat out of fear of having the King of the Universe in their midst.  For the very presence of the King reminds every soul that we are not our own gods, that we are accountable to the One who has given us our life, and that in our own broken sinfulness we cannot save ourselves from the cursed darkness into which we so easily fall.  The presence of the King reminds us that our self-imposed delusions are like vapors of smoke, and that our pretenses to sovereignty are but vain dreams of fevered minds.  The Law of the King reminds us of who we really are, and the destiny we face apart from him, bound for eternity in the same burning darkness which is the prison made for the devil and his evil hosts.  For reasons unfathomable, there will be some who prefer to keep their delusions and embrace a terrible fate according to the Law, rather than receive the free gift of Jesus’ Gospel of forgiveness, life, and salvation accomplished through His Vicarious Atonement for us upon the Cross.

But we do not despair.  Like the newly freed Gadarene who would follow Jesus into the boat, we who have been freed from Satan’s tyranny are sent back into our communities, our families, our friends, to tell what great things God has done for us.  We become His emissaries to a dark and suffering world, bearing the truth of His Eternal Word and Eternal Life which makes demons quake and repentant souls rejoice.  We continue to land on the shores of every place we go with the light and compassion of Jesus, knowing that whether we are invited to stay or pressed to depart, we go every step and every breath with Jesus.  And if we encounter a tormented Gadarene in our place of work, our coffee shop, or our living room, we bring with us the Word of Jesus to liberate and redeem them in Jesus’ Name, and send them as we have been sent, to tell what wonderful things our Savior has done for us.  Amen.

Throwing Bread to the Dogs: A Meditation on Mark 7

And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, 

and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: 

but he could not be hid.

For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, 

heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:

The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; 

and she besought him that he would 

cast forth the devil out of her daughter.

But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled:

 for it is not meet to take the children's bread, 

and to cast it unto the dogs.

And she answered and said unto him, 

Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table 

eat of the children's crumbs.

And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; 

the devil is gone out of thy daughter.

And when she was come to her house, 

she found the devil gone out, 

and her daughter laid upon the bed.

I confess that no matter how often I read this story, it always unsettles me.  Jesus, the Son of God made flesh, who comes to save the entire world from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil, because He is the eternal Creator and Savior of all the world, in this story seems to have a bias for the Jewish people over others.  And more than a bias, He used insulting language to respond to a Greek woman who pleaded with Him to rescue her daughter from possession by a demon.  Anyone who has been up close and personal with a demon knows how vile, dangerous, and malevolent they are, how bent upon the desecration and destruction of the human race they show themselves to be.  This mother, having watched a demon wreak devastation upon her child, sought out Jesus and begged Him to save her precious little girl.  How then could a just, loving, and saving God brush her aside with a racial slur, inferring that His gifts were primarily intended for His own people?

It is first important to note that the text does not reveal what was in this woman’s heart, nor in the hearts of His disciples and those around Him.  We might assume this woman is motivated by love of her daughter, but we do not know what other mixtures of pride and wickedness also flow out of her fallen heart, as Mark’s earlier recording of Jesus’ teaching in this chapter describe— for it’s not anything from the outside going in which defiles a person, but that which flows out of a person’s fallen and twisted nature which defiles him.  The reader is tempted to judge Jesus harshly for His treatment of this woman, but only He really knew this woman’s heart.  Perhaps our discomfort in reading Jesus’ words to the desperate woman reveal something about us that we are uncomfortable acknowledging.

For both Jews and Greeks, and every other race of people under the sun, there is a temptation to entitlement before God.  Such a sense of entitlement shows up as a manifestation of pride, demanding of God what we think we are due by virtue of our own dignity and self-worth.  What this pride fails to recognize is that before God we deserve nothing but death and hell.  Our fall into sin and depravity was not God’s doing but our own, choosing evil over good, hatred over love, destruction over life.  As a whole human race, we are fallen from our Creator’s design, with a twisted nature which pride goads into judging ourselves as righteous and God as unjust.  Pride seeks to make God our servant and bend Him to our will, resulting in a delusional sense of entitlement that manifests in all sorts of bizarre pagan religious trappings.  For the Jews who thought themselves specially entitled to God’s favor by virtue of their birth and nation, or the Greeks who thought themselves entitled by virtue of their own special peculiarities, the problem is the same:  pride is a dangerous delusion, an idolatry which presumes the mantle of divinity, casting ourselves as our own impotent gods who have no ability to rescue from our impending death and hell.

The truth is that every man, woman, and child, regardless of race, affiliation, nation, or peculiarity, is the filthy little dog underneath the Master’s table, unworthy of any good thing set upon it.  When the Greek mother of a hopelessly possessed child realized that she was entitled to nothing from Jesus, but rather begged Him of His mercy to grant her what she knew she did not deserve, she and everyone around her learned something critically important about their God.  In addition to His justice and truth, His power and His righteousness, He is also merciful and gracious.  His love does not come to us based upon our worthiness, but upon His unfathomable compassion.  Jesus knew that so long as anyone approached God in a vain pride pride of seeking justice for what we feel entitled, we could only receive the just reward of the Law which strips every delusion bare, and reveals the fate of every evil creature before a perfect Judge.  But in a faith and repentance which seeks grace and mercy, our Saving God is quick to respond with forgiveness, life, and salvation in this world and the next.  While according to the Law we stand condemned for the sake of our own most grievous fault, in the Gospel of Jesus’ vicarious atonement for our sins through His life, death, and resurrection on our behalf, we receive all the gifts of His grace by a humble, repentant faith in Him.

Pride is always uncomfortable in the glaring light of humiliation, but such divine light is the beginning of our healing and restoration before God.  To know that we are the little dogs who are unworthy to be sustained by the crumbs which fall from our Master’s table, is to know that we are unworthy by own merits of the grand feast He has set before us.  But in a living faith which trusts in God’s promises of mercy and love, we find that we are not merely left to scrounge for scraps, but invited to sit at the table for the sake of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, clothed with His righteousness in place of our own fallenness.  For it is not God’s desire to give us what we deserve according to His justice, nor to validate our deadly delusions of pride and entitlement.  Rather, it is His desire to pour out His riches of grace and life without measure upon all who will repent and believe in Him.

If the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Greek mother of a possessed child makes you uncomfortable, it is the antiseptic of God’s Word and Spirit reaching your heart’s font of pride which resists knowing who you are, and who your Creator really is.  Let the Law break your prideful heart so that you might know the truth of your condition, that together with the whole human race, there is none who can rightly demand any good thing from our Maker.  But in this realization, hear your Savior’s gracious Word of forgiveness and life, receiving from Him a saving faith which trusts His promises and turns from the delusions of evil.  Hear the Word of the Lord which seeks not to give you the scraps you don’t deserve, but the fullness of His eternal banquet, where grace upon grace abounds unto you in eternal life, and joy, and peace.  Amen.