Because of the
Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never
fail. Remarkable words when you consider the context in
which they were written. Here’s the context: Following a lengthy
siege, Jerusalem had been overrun and sacked by the Babylonians in
the year 586 B.C. The Temple which was the centerpiece of the
nation of Judah had been destroyed. The city walls had been
pulled down. A large percentage of the citizens of Jerusalem had
been put to the sword (if they hadn’t already died of starvation
and disease during the siege). Many of those who survived were
taken off to exile in Babylon. Death and devastation were on
every hand in Jerusalem. Everything familiar had been turned
upside down. So where in all this turmoil, all this anguish of
grief and tragedy, was there any evidence of the Lord’s great love
and His compassions which never fail?
Where were God’s love
and compassion following the terrorist attacks of 9/11? Where
were God’s love and compassion when Hurricane Katrina roared down
on the Gulf coast last year? Where are God’s love and compassion
when someone we love comes down with an awful disease, or gets
killed in a horrible accident, or when our house and everything we
own go up in flames, or when we experience any of the losses,
great or small, that come to each of us as we trudge our way
through this fallen world? Sometimes God seems to hide His face
from His people. Sometimes the face He turns toward us isn’t
wreathed with smiles of blessing but looks harsh and stern and
vengeful.
How do we account for
this? In a world where babies die and children are abused, a
world of plague and famine, a world brim-full of torture and
murder and sudden, violent death, is it reasonable to speak of the
Lord’s great love and His compassions that never fail? Look at
the tragedies and turmoil that are always popping up in human
history, and belief in a loving, compassionate God can seem
delusional.
And yet, it’s there in
the Bible, isn’t it – multiple testimonies to God’s love and
compassion. We’re told in Scripture that God is love. We’re told
He’s a God of grace. We’re told He’s merciful and forgiving.
We’re told that He is near to the brokenhearted and saves
those who are crushed in spirit – that He heals the
brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. It’s this God
who invites us to call upon Him in the day of trouble, and
promises that He will deliver us.
Ever since Adam and Eve
disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit the human race has
been living in the day of trouble. We’re so acclimated to this
that we easily lose sight of the cosmic catastrophe that followed
upon the Fall into sin – how far reaching, how absolutely
devastating, this catastrophe was. You’ve seen photographs of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atom bombs were dropped at the
end of World War II. Well that’s a picture of what sin, and God’s
judgment upon sin, did to God’s good creation. Ruined it.
Overturned it. Transformed it into a cruel and hurtful caricature
of what creation was intended to be. Before the Fall there were
no such things as terrorist attacks, and destructive hurricanes,
and cancer and heart disease and accident and death. There were
no such things as family conflict and broken marriages and broken
hearts. No such things as murder and rape and burglary and lying.
But these things are here now, aren’t they? The day of trouble is
all around us. It’s the environment in which we live.
And it’s in each one of
us too. In our failings public and private. In the guilt and
frustration we feel because we aren’t the husband or wife we know
we should be, we aren’t the parents we should be, we don’t love
our neighbor as ourselves, and though we’re commanded to fear,
love and trust in God above all things, when push comes to shove
we love and trust in money or pleasure or drink or drugs or sex or
anything more than we do God. Romans tells us that creation was
subjected to futility because of Adam’s sin. Guess what – as
heirs of Adam’s sin and guilt, you and I are subjected to futility
too. Cloudy, chance of sorrow, with intermittent periods of
trouble and mishap – ever since the Fall that’s the weather report
for each of us fallen sons and daughters of Adam.
But wait. There’s a
brighter day a-coming. Listen again to the words from Scripture
with which I started this sermon. Because of the Lord’s
great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.
And now listen to these additional words from today’s Old
Testament reading: The Lord is good to those whose hope is
in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for
the salvation of the Lord. . . For men are not cast off by the
Lord forever. Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so
great is His unfailing love.
In the midst of grief,
God shows compassion. In the midst of death, life arises. In the
midst of rejection, God brings reconciliation – and He does it all
through His Son Jesus Christ.
Exhibit A – the death of
Jairus’ daughter, recorded in today’s reading from St. Mark. No
doubt this little girl was the apple of her father’s eye. No
doubt he loved to sit her on his knee and talk quietly with her in
the evening hours before bedtime, and bring her treats from the
marketplace, and watch how she was growing up into a beautiful
young lady. But then she was stricken unexpectedly with some
awful sickness. And Jairus’ little girl, the apple of his eye,
was soon teetering on the very threshold of death.
A desperate situation
indeed. So desperate that Jairus, a synagogue official, a member
of the religious establishment, was willing to seek out Jesus – a
teacher who was definitely not in the good graces of the religious
establishment of the day. Maybe Jesus could help! After all,
He’d healed many who were sick with all kinds of diseases. Maybe
He could help her too.
To make a long story
short, Jesus didn’t make it to Jairus’ house in time. Word came
that the little girl had died before He could get there, and there
was no need to bother the teacher any longer. Win some, lose
some. This time Jairus and his wife had lost, and now they had to
pick up the fragments of their life and get used to living without
their little girl. Thank you, Jesus. Sorry for the bother.
But Jesus ignored the
message that the girl had died, and instead told Jairus, Do
not be afraid; just believe. Just believe. Do you get
what Jesus is saying? Have faith in God -- even though your
heart’s been torn out and stomped in the dirt. Have faith in God
-- even though your life has been completely devastated like the
city of New Orleans after Katrina. Have faith in God -- even
though all the circumstances of your life seem to deny His
compassion and love and kindness.
So, where were God’s
love and compassion to be found after the death of Jairus’
daughter? In Jesus. In Jesus who told Jairus not
to be afraid; just believe. In Jesus who went unhesitatingly into
that house of sorrow and death with Jairus and his wife to their
daughter’s pallet where she lay cold and still. In Jesus, who
reached out His hand, and took the girl by the hand, and spoke to
her the words of life, Talitha koum! Little girl, I say to
you, get up!
And hearing the words of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that’s exactly what this little girl did.
She got up. Alive. Hungry. Eager to be hugged and kissed
and drenched with her parents’ joyful tears. Eager to rush
outside and run and leap and play with her friends who’d thought
they’d lost their playmate forever. In the midst of tragedy and
loss and heartache, God’s love and compassion stepped in in the
Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the One who has
the words of eternal life. And that made all the
difference.
If Jesus can raise the
dead – and He can and He will – that makes all the difference for
you and me. Death’s no longer the master; Jesus is! Jesus tasted
death for us, in order to destroy death by His own death and His
resurrection. Because of our Lord’s Easter victory, death is now
a vanquished enemy, a whipped and cowering dog. It cannot
ultimately harm us if we’ve been united to Jesus through the Word
and water of Holy Baptism. It cannot ultimately harm us if we are
confident that it was for us and our sins that He died and was
raised again. Death’s just a scowling phantom that evaporates
before the light of Christ, who by His sufferings, death and
resurrection has decisively defeated sin, death and the devil
forever.
God’s love and
compassion and mercy and salvation come to us wrapped up in the
Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He entered this world of sin and
suffering and sorrow as the One who makes all things new. He came
into our fallen world to drink to the full its cup of suffering
and futility and tragedy and loss. He came to drink to the full
the cup of God’s anger over sin. He was made sin for us in order
to undo the curse of Adam’s sin. God willingly brought grief &
affliction upon His Son so He could show us His love & compassion.
He dumped the full load of His wrath on Jesus as He hung on the
Cross so that in our losses, in our struggles, in our sorrows, and
in our death we could know that because of the Lord’s great
love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.
Our Savior took the worst, for us, so that through faith in
Him we could be completely forgiven and ultimately have all the
best God has for His children – forgiveness, life, and salvation:
the whole enchilada of the Gospel.
So though the
circumstances of your life sometimes seem to belie God’s love and
compassion, your Baptismal union with Christ says otherwise.
Though tragedy and loss rear up their ugly faces from time to
time, and mock the Word and promise of God’s mercy, the Gospel
says otherwise. God is love. He gave His Son for
your salvation. God is compassionate. He wipes away all your
sins for the sake of Jesus’ death on the Cross. God is merciful.
He has forgiven you all your guilt and iniquity. He has placed His
saving Name upon you in your Baptism. He feeds you in the
Sacrament with His Son’s Body and Blood. And He has promised to
raise you from your graves and make you the heirs of a new heaven
and a new earth. That’s love and compassion to the full!
And if this seems like a
fantasy, a fairy tale, a bedtime story too good to be true, our
Lord Jesus Christ says to you, Do not be afraid; just
believe. I died for you to make you a new creation.
I am the Lord your righteousness, the Prince of your peace. I
am the Resurrection and the Life, the One who makes all things
new. I have washed you and claimed you as My own in Baptism; I
have placed My Body and blood into your mouth as the medicine of
immortality. Nothing can ever separate you from My love. You
believe in God; believe also in Me. So let the Word Jesus
speaks raise you up from your doubt, your fear, your hopelessness,
just as that Word raised up Jairus’ daughter from her bed of
death. That Word is the Gospel Word that brings life to you.
Because of the
Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never
fail. God’s love and compassion in Christ are infinitely
greater than any dire earthly circumstance. After all, earthly
circumstances, good or bad, are merely temporal. But God’s love
and compassion for you in Jesus Christ are undying,
eternal, without limit. Your Savior died for you and was raised
again so God could love you with an everlasting love. And nothing
you face in this world can ever change that.
In Nomine Patris. . .
