The sermon for October 22 was based on Matthew 9:1-8.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Jesus were walking the Earth today. How would he be treated by the likes of Phil Donahue, Oprah Winfry or even the more sensible Dr. Phil? You can almost hear their reactions can't you. Jesus you have got to stop trying to change everyone in your life. You have got to stop telling people what to believe and how to think and how to feel. What makes you think that what's right for you is right for everyone else. And one more thing Jesus, you really need to work on establishing more healthy boundaries in your ministry, you are too concerned about the little details in the lives of your followers. You need to trust them to do what's healthy for themselves and let them live their own lives. It's funny but it's also pretty accurate. Modern people just can't make any sense of God's will.

But this isn't a problem of modern people only. Generation after generation of people have been confounded by the will of God and how radically different is seems from what we all recognize as basic common sense. That disconnect, the difference between what God commands and what we consider to be wise, is the source of so very much of our unhappiness and anxiety.

Today I feel sorry for the Scribes in our Gospel lesson. They're just trying to do their job as the spiritual watchdogs of Israel. They observe Jesus tell a man that his sins are forgiven and immediately their antennae go up. In their hearts they recognize this as blasphemy and it would be blasphemy if it had been said by any other man. If it weren't for the fact that Jesus is the Son of God what He said would have been absolutely false. They Jews had to go to the temple and offer a sacrifice for the forgiveness of their sins. The Scribes were right to question Jesus' ability to forgive sins. They were wrong to doubt that Jesus was the Son of God who came with the authority to forgive sins and for that very purpose.

Everything hinges on who Jesus is. If He is an ordinary guy, or even an extraordinary guy, then the Scribes are right. If Jesus is who He says He is, the very Son of God come to forgive our sins, then the Scribes are wrong and there is a whole new way of living about to be revealed. But what about in our day and in our circumstances? How does Jesus identity make a difference to the way we live? To help understand that we need to compare the way the Law works with the way the Gospel works.

We see the Law at work in this morning's Epistle. St. Paul commands the Ephesians to be good and nice and kind and honest and hardworking and generally perfect in every way. He gets so involved in painting a picture of perfect Christian virtue that he gives this almost ridiculous command, quoted from the Psalms, Be angry, and do not sin. I've rarely met a person who has even come close to being able to walk this particular tightrope of virtue. The Law is God's command. It is what He demands of us but the Law has no real power to make it so. The Law can be shrill and frightening and it is perfectly justified in being so but in the end it is ineffective. God demands that we be cheerful doers of His will and all the Law can do is convey that requirement. The Law leaves us with the absurd image of God shout at us from His throne in Heaven "Be Cheerful or I'll throw you into hell for all eternity!" This is true and righteous and holy and godly and pious and, in helping us be cheerful doers of God's will, utterly useless.

We may want to be the kind of people God requires us to be. We may agree that we ought to be such people. We don't have the power to become such people and hearing over and over again what God demands of us only makes us resent His requirements all the more. Eventually, even the most well intentioned among us will come to hate God and His Law unless something is done to change things. That something is the Gospel. The heart of that Gospel is the person of Jesus Christ. Let's leave the law for a moment and turn our attention to the Gospel. When Jesus meets the paralytic in today's lesson His first words are Law, very much like those of St. Paul. Son, He says, be of good cheer. Somewhere deep in the soul of the paralytic he has this reaction; Oh great, here's another preacher telling me to be happy even in the middle of my affliction.

But before the poor man can sink any further into despair, Jesus adds the Gospel. Your sins are forgiven you. Where the Law demands the Gospel provides. The Law requires you to be cheerful in the middle of your misery. The Gospel enables you do it. In the midst of this man's many woes Jesus comes to him and declares that all is forgiven. Jesus gives the man something to be genuinely cheerful about. Jesus' absolution amounts to this: Hi there you poor paralytic, I am the Lord your God and I have come down from heaven to forgive you for everything and to give you all my strength and all my grace so that you and I can live together for all eternity in perfect happiness and wholeness.

Where the Law filled the paralytic man with a dread of God, the Gospel reveals Him to be compassionate and full of mercy and grace. The Gospel doesn't make us any more fond of God's demands but it fills us with love and confidence in Jesus and our salvation depends, not on the Law but upon the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus then goes the extra mile and heals the man's paralysis. But note that Jesus was not primarily interested in the man's physical health. He came to forgive sins and restore our broken relationship to God. From that absolution and restoration flow all the other blessings of life.

So then, plainly the Gospel is the thing. But what is the Gospel? The Gospel is not to be confused with it's fruit. The Gospel makes us cheerful and patient and helps us with our anger and our temptations but it is not, itself, cheerfulness or patience or concord or fortitude. The Gospel is the truth that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God came down to earth, lived, suffered cruelly and died horribly for the forgiveness of our sins and that this forgiveness is affirmed by His resurrection and distributed freely by the Holy Ghost through the Means of Grace to all who hear this truth and believe it. The Gospel is a fact, a truth, a proposition.

You can't get to the Gospel by swimming up stream. The Gospel can make you cheerful but being cheerful will not set you right with God. Neither is being cheerful enough to fulfill the requirements of the Law. All of the virtues we long to exhibit and even those we are afraid to adopt are fruits of the Gospel being brought to bear on our lives. We must never think that by merely being nice we are proclaiming the Gospel. Neither can we accuse those who are not as nice as we would like them to be of being without the Gospel.

At the heart of today's lesson is this simple truth, Jesus saves us from our selves and our sin. We cannot understand God's will. We cannot see why or how His ways are superior to our ways. His will seems to make no sense to us and His priorities are beyond our comprehension. But God gives us every reason to trust Him and He strengthens that trust with miraculous gifts. He gives us faith through Holy Baptism. He speaks to us in His inspired and inerrant Word. He gives us His Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar and He speaks His words of forgiveness directly into our ears through the voices of our Pastors. All of these supernatural gifts strengthen our faith, not in the Gospel but in Jesus Christ.

We believe in Jesus. We trust in Him and we count on His goodness. When we find ourselves in the same boat as the paralytic man we need Jesus and Jesus comes to us. In our difficulties and sorrows, in our angst and pain, Jesus comes to us and proclaims His love for us. He insists upon His Law but also promises to fulfill that Law in and through and for us by His grace.

Many of you are hurting this morning. To you the Law says, be cheerful and virtuous. To you the Gospel says, your sins are forgiven and Jesus has come to take care of you. My life, like yours, is filled with difficult people and painful circumstances, often I can see no reason to be cheerful or joyful and at such times Jesus comes to me and assures me of the forgiveness of my sins and having been thusly absolved I, like the paralytic in today's text, find new strength and renewed joy in the company of Jesus my Savior. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes . . .

Last Updated: 5/27/2009