When Allied forces landed on the beaches of
Normandy on June 6, 1944, the German army didn’t welcome them with
bouquets of roses, hugs and kisses, and bottles of French
champagne. They didn’t serenade the Allies with Teutonic
renditions of “The Star Spangled Banner” and “God Save the King”.
No, the Germans had prepared a radically different welcome for the
Allied forces trying to breach the walls of Fortress Europe.
And it was exactly the kind of welcome the Allies
were expecting from the Germans: Landmines and machine gun fire
and artillery bursts and sudden violent death. The D- Day
Landings were not some sort of genteel afternoon tea party, with
ladies dressed in elegant pastels and gentlemen clothed in
seersucker suits and people playing croquet on a neatly manicured
lawn. D-Day was an example of the most brutal kind of war. It
was a conflict, not a confab. It was an invasion, undertaken to
drive the enemy from occupied territory and free those held in
bondage by the Nazi regime.
Something similar is going on in today’s Gospel
lesson. There we read of another kind of invasion of enemy
territory. Our Lord Jesus Christ sends out the twelve disciples
to preach repentance and cast out evil spirits and anoint and heal
people who are suffering from all kinds of sickness. Jesus sends
the Twelve out into a world ruined by sin and subjected to
futility. He sends them to people held captive by the devil and
mired in darkness and unbelief. Our Lord sends the disciples out
as His representatives. He sends them out with His authority.
Mind you, He’s not sending them to a tea party to relax and rub
shoulders with the cream of society. He’s sending them into
combat.
That of course is the identical pattern of the Son
of God’s entry into this world, isn’t it? He came in the flesh as
an invader. He came into a world occupied by the devil and his
legions, into a creation groaning because of its bondage to decay
and sin. He came
to proclaim
good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, and recovery of
sight to the blind. Our Lord was made Man
to set free
those who are oppressed, and
to proclaim
the favorable year of the Lord’s grace and mercy.
In His Incarnation the Son of God went forth to war, to redeem a
people held in bondage to sin, death and Satan. He came among us
to break the bonds of oppression and set us free. He came to set
all creation free from the curse of decay and death.
We easily forget all these things, however. We
tend to become preoccupied with what the Old Adam thinks is
important -- the material things, the things we can buy, the
things we can accumulate, the things that distract us from the
more unpleasant realities of existence in a fallen world. That’s
what we want. That’s what we focus on. And so we make idols of
our homes and automobiles, of our hobbies and pastimes, of our
careers and our social status and stock portfolio. We live for
comfort and pleasure. We make nice with the world and its corrupt
values, and forget how God warns us in James that when we want to
be the world’s friend we make ourselves God’s enemy.
We want a nice, comfortable church, too, and to get
that the Old Adam is happy to sacrifice Biblical truth, correct
doctrine and sound practice. But God is not interested in a
comfortable church. The only comfort God is interested in is the
comfort of forgiveness He freely gives poor penitent sinners
through the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ. We forget that in
this world we’re members of the Church Militant, the Church at
war, not the Church reclining on flowery beds of ease.
The Church Militant doesn’t go about clothed in
pastels and seersucker. It’s clothed in the righteousness of
Christ, won at the cost of our Savior’s agonizing death on the
Cross. The Church Militant doesn’t refresh itself with mint
juleps and dainty watercress finger-sandwiches. It’s refreshed
and strengthened by the water of Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of
Jesus’ Body and Blood. An army marches on its stomach, and in the
Means of Grace the Church Militant has tasted and seen that the
Lord is good. Saved by the Cross of Christ, in this world the
Church takes up her own Cross and
follows in the bloody footsteps of her Redeemer. The Son of God
goes forth to war, and so do those redeemed and saved by the Son
of God.
But Ephesians reminds us that our warfare as
Christians is
not against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,
against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the
spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies.
The world, the flesh, and the devil – that’s the
unholy trinity arrayed against us. That’s the evil triumvirate
that wants to destroy our faith in Christ, our connection to God,
and make us forget that we even need a Savior. World, flesh and
devil all lie to us and want to murder our faith in Christ. Like
it or not, these are the enemies out to destroy us.
A “make-nice” kind of Christianity that appeals to
the Old Adam’s love of comfort and entertainment may be all right
for peacetime, but it’s useless in times of war. And in this
fallen world the Church will always be at war, will always need to
be alert and watchful until the day Christ returns in glory.
Until that day comes, however, we remain on active duty in the
trenches. Until that day, we live under the shadow of the Cross.
Until that day, we are to keep in mind that our struggle isn’t
against flesh and blood, but against the devil and his cronies.
The Small Catechism reminds us of all this. It
teaches us how our Savior Jesus Christ purchased and won us lost
creatures from all sins, from death, and from the power of the
devil with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering
and deathis H. The Catechism
tells how our Baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection worked
forgiveness of sins for us, rescued us from death and the devil,
and gave us eternal salvation through faith in the words and
promises of God. The Catechism teaches us that the devil, the
world, and our sinful nature don’t want us to hallow God’s Name or
let His kingdom come, and that God must break and hinder their
every evil plan and purpose. These aren’t just empty words,
folks. This is reality – a reality greater than what meets the
eye. The world, the flesh and the devil are our bitter enemies.
They hate us and want to destroy us because for Christ’s sake our
sins have been forgiven and we belong to the Triune God. Let’s
put it this way: The spiritual battle we’re engaged in as
believers in Christ makes the Normandy invasion look like a Sunday
School picnic by comparison.
As far as our spiritual enemies are concerned the
Gospel is always intrusive and unwelcome. It always sticks its
nose in where the devil thinks it doesn’t belong. No wonder the
devil instigated Herod to eliminate Jesus by killing all the male
babies in Bethlehem. No wonder that in the wilderness Satan tried
to get Jesus to deny His calling as the Christ, the Son of God.
No wonder the devil incited the people of Nazareth to try to throw
Jesus off a cliff. The devil hates Jesus. He didn’t invite the
Son of God to come into the world as Savior and Lord. He didn’t
welcome Jesus with a brass band and the keys to the city. Our
Lord came as an intruder into the devil’s domain. He came as an
invader.
And He came for you and He came for me. He came to
redeem all the fallen sons and daughters of Adam, to go above and
beyond the call of duty, to pay the supreme price so we could be
forgiven and restored. Our Savior didn’t suffer and die to
maintain the status quo so we could be left in our sin. He died
to save us from a peril infinitely greater than our feeble minds
can comprehend. He came to save us from a hellish fate worse than
a trillion deaths.
When Jesus sent His disciples out into enemy
territory to preach and cast out demons and heal the sick, he was
sending them out to proclaim the message of liberation, to let
people know that the Conqueror was at hand.
Christus
Victor – Christ victorious, Christ triumphant over all
His enemies. Baptized into Jesus we are triumphant too.
Triumphant over the accusations of the devil.
Triumphant over the deadly power and guilt of
sin. Triumphant over the grave.
Triumphant over the hell we deserve. The message of Christ
crucified is a message of freedom and victory in which the whole
of creation will one day share as all things are made new in
Christ.
Where are true freedom and victory to be found?
Only in Jesus, our crucified and risen Savior.
Only in His saving Gospel that comes among us in water and Word
and bread and wine. Remembering your Baptism is to remember that
Christ has set you free. Hearing the Gospel of forgiveness
preached is to have the damning shackles fall away from you so you
can go free. Partaking in faith of Christ’s Body and Blood in
Holy Communion is a feast of victory. Where sin is forgiven for
Jesus’ sake, the world, the flesh and the devil go scurrying away
in a panic. They have no claim on you. By God’s grace, through
faith in Christ, you are forgiven. You have been liberated by
Jesus.
Dear friends in Christ, we must recognize that the
Gospel won’t be welcomed and embraced by its enemies. Those
enemies want to keep you away from the Gospel
present for you in Word and Sacrament. They want to keep
you away from Jesus.
But laugh at those enemies. Show them you despise
them and that you’ll have nothing to do with them. Come to this
house of God to gladly hear and learn God’s Word. Come to confess
your sins and be absolved. Come to partake of your Savior’s Body
and Blood frequently, because as sinners, you and I can’t get
enough of the Sacrament. And know that in Holy Baptism you were
clothed with the righteousness of Christ (you might say the
body-armor of Christ) to protect you from the hellish onslaught of
the enemy. Yes, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is always intrusive,
and thanks be to God for that. It has
to be intrusive, because that’s the only way for God to forgive
and save sinners held captive by sin and Satan and death.
Only through Jesus.
Only through His Cross.
In Nomine Patris. . .
