Quinquagesima,
the Fiftieth Day
before the Resurrection
February 15th, A+D 2020
Our
Redeemer and Our Savior’s
Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
Faith Alone –
Eyes to Trust in Christ
Crucified and Resurrected
Luke 18:31-43
Audio of the sermon available HERE.
You
gotta believe. It is absolutely
necessary to have faith. But, it is
difficult to believe, at least, it is difficult to believe in Jesus Christ for
salvation.
For three weeks, during these oddly named “Gesima” Sundays, we have been considering the three instrumental “Solas” of Christian faith, the three “Alones.” Salvation is in Christ Alone, as we sang in our opening hymn. The three Solas, the three truths that bring us to Christ Alone are these: salvation is given to us by God’s Grace Alone, through Faith Alone, based on and empowered by Scripture, or God’s Word, Alone.
We have considered
Grace Alone, that we are saved because God is gracious to us, He favors us. Salvation comes to us as a Gift, worked
entirely by God, because His nature, His character, is generous and loving,
even towards sinners like us. Last
Sunday we explored Scripture Alone, that God’s Word is both the authority from
which all the teaching of Christ is received, and also the means, the chosen
instrument through which God works salvation.
By His Word Alone, the Holy Spirit recreates hearts, changing sinners
from rebellion and opposition to God to thankful agreement and obedience to
Him.
Today we
come to Faith Alone, which rejects the lie that by our own good works we can
and must earn, in whole or in part, our own salvation. No, only faith in Christ saves, not our
works. Faith Alone also teaches us that
saving faith is a very particular faith, faith in just one Man who lived an
entirely unique life, in order to gain salvation, for us. We are saved from eternal rejection by God and
punishment for our sins not by anything we do, but when we trust
in who Jesus of Nazareth is, and what He has done to forgive our sins and restore
our relationship with God.
Everyone believes something,
about life and death, about our relationship to God, or some higher power, be it
Mother Earth, or Reason, or Allah. But
to be saved, you gotta believe in the suffering, death and rising of God’s
eternal Son, Jesus. There are as many
variations of false faith as there are souls who do not trust in Christ Alone. But, just about all of these have in common
the same lie, the lie that says, to some degree, a good life and a positive destiny
after we die depend on us humans, on our efforts, on us doing enough good things. Faith alone rejects all of that, and points people
to Jesus of Nazareth, who has done all things well, for us.
Salvation is in Christ
Alone. Nevertheless, despite traveling
and living and learning from Jesus for years, at the beginning of today’s
reading from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ twelve chosen disciples, His most intimate
followers, could not believe. Even though these future Apostles, the foundation
stones of the Christian Church, had heard the Gospel directly from the mouth of
God made man, the incarnate Christ, they could not believe it.
Jesus declares Good News to them:
"See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written
about the Son of Man by the prophets will be finished. “For he will be delivered over to the
Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. [33]
And after whipping him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will
rise." [34] But they understood none of these things.” The
good news of the Resurrection was hidden from their eyes. They were blinded by the horror that Jesus declared
would come first, and so the Twelve could not comprehend the Good News on the
other side of the Cross. They certainly
could not place their hope and trust in this strange prediction. They could not see their own salvation.
Faith comes by hearing, so somehow Bartimaeus
had heard and believed that this wandering teacher, this man, Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Mary and, supposedly, of Joseph the carpenter, was truly
the Son of David, the anointed Savior the Lord God had been promising for
thousands of years. Bartimaeus knew that
Jesus was the Messiah, or the Christ, that One special Descendant of the great
King David, the Servant whom the Lord God had promised would restore Israel,
and rule over all the nations, forever. The Holy Spirit had sent His Word about Jesus
to Bartimaeus, opening his eyes to the fact that the Messiah, the Savior of
Israel, was Jesus of Nazareth. So, when
Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by, no one could stop him from crying
out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"
Thus, we
begin to learn the particular content of salvation by Faith Alone, which God in
His grace has revealed to us through the Word of Scripture. You gotta have faith,
but not just any faith. Certainly
not a faith that is merely a self-generated emotion with which we try to motivate
ourselves, like the faith in victory ginned up at a High School pep rally. No, Christian faith is received, it is a gift,
and it has an object: saving faith trusts in a particular story of a particular
Man, Jesus of Nazareth. The soul that trusts
in this Man, who is also God, receives countless blessings from its object, from
the One in whom it believes. For Jesus
Christ is the Source of all good things.
The
faith of Bartimaeus still needs to grow.
Like the Apostles and all of us, he needs to see Jesus suffer, die, and
rise again. But, even though he is
blind, that day in Jericho, Bartimaeus was looking in the perfect direction:
the eyes of his heart were fixed on Jesus, who was only days away from His
suffering.
The
Spirit’s work of conversion in Bartimaeus reminds me a bit of cataract
surgery. My brother James and several
members of our congregations have had cataract surgery recently, in which a
surgeon removes the cloudy, damaged lenses that block the eyes’ ability to see,
and replaces them with new ones, which allow the patient to see more
clearly. Our fallen nature is like a lens
that distorts our faith. We may be led
to see God as a taskmaster, who only and ever demands more and more from us. Or perhaps our bad faith lenses lead us to
believe in a made-up God, or to deny Him altogether. But then, by His powerful Word, the surgeon Spirit
cuts out our bad lenses, and gives the eyes of our hearts new ones, lenses of
true faith that allow us to see in Christ Jesus the grace, mercy and
love of God, and to trust in Him alone.
The Twelve
should have believed Jesus' prediction about His Cross and Resurrection. They had seen and heard so much in their time
with Jesus, astounding miracles, teaching with authority, remarkable compassion
displayed again and again. They should
have recognized that everything their Master said was right and good, even if
it seemed strange, or horrible. They
should have believed. But they just couldn't
see it.
Bartimaeus,
the blind man, completely dependent on the generosity of others, reduced to
begging to survive, unable to physically see the great works of the Lord, was
blessed in his humility. The Spirit
opened the eyes of his heart to see, to trust, to believe in Jesus, and to
rejoice that his Savior was passing by. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on
me!” And Jesus granted his request: "Recover your sight; your faith has saved you."
The
crowd was rightly astonished by this visible miracle, praising God that Jesus
restored the blind beggar’s sight. Still,
as impressive as this was, the crowd missed the greater miracle, the miracle
that saves: Bartimaeus believed that the
man Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of David and the Son of God, who
came down from heaven, to save sinners.
So… what
about us? Are we like Bartimaeus, or are
we more like the Twelve, or the crowd? We, who in our sinful nature still believe the
apple seems good to eat, despite the Lord's warning that it is poisonous, how
do we see things? We would
certainly be amazed to see a blind man suddenly regain 20/20 vision! Something so spectacular would greatly
strengthen our faith, or so we think. But
what about hearing our friend and teacher describe the horrific and shameful
details of His imminent death? Even now,
2,000 years after the Resurrection, words about the Cross make us uncomfortable. Even worse, hearing about Jesus’ suffering reminds
us of our sin, our guilt. Please, we so
often say, let's change the subject. Let’s
not talk about the crucifixion. Please.
Jesus of
Nazareth can work miracles today, wherever and whenever He wills. But miracles that move physical mountains will
cease; they are not eternal. More
importantly, such miracles cannot save. Instead
of focusing on the hope of seeing an amazing, visible miracle, the Bible
instructs us to focus on love, which is to say, first of all, to fix our eyes
on Jesus. Fix your eyes on Jesus, who
endured the Cross, despising the shame, because there on Calvary we see the
greatest display of love, ever. For this
reason, Sacred Scripture teaches us to proclaim the Lord's death, until He
comes, for the sake of our own souls, and for the life of the world.
The
Cross must be our center. But, it is hard
to focus on the Cross, for the Cross of Jesus reveals our guilt. Very few people claim to be perfect, but by
our nature we like to think we are pretty good people. The Cross reveals a different reality: the
seriousness of human sin, our sin, is so great that the Cross was necessary to
pay the debt we owe. This is hard for us
to take, and so we naturally tend to minimize it. We avoid talking about it. But to ignore the Cross creates a big problem:
apart from Christ, crucified and resurrected, we cannot receive the love of
God. Without the Cross, we have no eternal
hope. The joy of the Resurrection can
only come after the darkness of Good Friday.
True,
enduring, saving faith knows that the greatest miracle of all is the love
poured out from the Body of Jesus, hanging in shame on a Roman cross. We are fools if we ignore or distort this
strange but good news. When we make
comfort and pleasure in this life our highest good, we begin to lose connection
to the only Savior. When we seek visible
and spectacular miracles instead of focusing our eyes on the Suffering Servant,
we hurt ourselves. When we trust in
human institutions or political leaders, when anything takes our eyes off of
Jesus, our faith loses its Object, the Power from which it lives. Starved of Christ crucified and resurrected,
our faith will begin to wither. Lord
have mercy, do not let this happen to us!
It is
necessary for us to wrestle with the truth of the Crucifixion of Jesus. But, as you wrestle, never forget this: hidden
under the guilt and shame, the main message of the Cross is God's
eternal love for sinners, love which sets you free from guilt and shame. Your sins are forgiven, in Christ Alone.
Jesus
willingly suffered all, out of love for His Father, and out of love for
you. Separated from this mystery of
God's love, a cross is only a sign of death, and nothing more. But when we proclaim with confidence that the
death of Jesus is the revelation of God's love, and the source of eternal life,
then a cross, even a crucifix, reminds us that Calvary Hill was the true place
of mercy, the true throne of God, where our salvation was guaranteed, once and for
all.
Bartimaeus,
the blind beggar, should be our guide, because he cried out to the man Jesus,
desperately, perhaps, but also with confidence. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me,”
is a phrase that the Lord always loves to hear, because He has mercy. Jesus has mercy, forgiveness and love, more
than enough, for every sinner, no matter how long or how far from God we may
have wandered.
The Holy Spirit has preserved and brought
this message to us, so that the eyes of our faith may be focused where true joy
and real life are found. This bloody victory
is delivered to us today through simple and outwardly unimpressive means: Word,
water, wheat, and wine. God has promised
to come to us, today, through these humble things. Although invisible to our physical eyes,
Jesus comes to us today just as much as He came to Bartimaeus in Jericho, so
long ago. For Jesus has promised to
always be with the Church of His Apostles, unto the end of the age.
We are
not better than our neighbors; apart from Jesus, we are all guilty sinners. In and of ourselves, we are no more worthy of
God’s kingdom that anyone else. And, we
all struggle with the same temptation to remove the Cross from its rightful
place in the center of our lives. But,
by divine mercy, we cling to the love and forgiveness of Christ, which make us
alive in Him. God’s love also encourages
us, and moves us to love our neighbors, as God in Christ has loved us, even
though we didn’t deserve it.
God
through His Word will even move us to humbly seek opportunities to share the strange
Good News of the Cross. Like Bartimaeus,
when our eyes are made to see that we have been healed and restored by Jesus, we
are then set free to shout His praises.
As we sing the praises of Christ, we are also pointing others to Him, our
family, friends and neighbors. Everyone
needs to look to Jesus, because in Him, and only in Him, is there forgiveness
and life for all of us sinners. Jesus of
Nazareth is the infinite, inexhaustible source of God’s forgiving love, which
creates and sustains our saving faith. Thanks
be to God for His gracious gift.
I urge
each of you to focus intently on Jesus and His suffering and death. Come and commune with Him in the places where
He has promised to be present to bless you with the victory of His Cross and the
Empty Tomb. Jesus will then go with you
and work through you as you serve your neighbors, always ready to give the
reason for the hope that is within you.
Let us give
thanks to God who has gathered us here today to nourish our faith in Jesus of
Nazareth, the Son of David, who has perfect mercy for sinners. In Him you have forgiveness, life, salvation,
and you have peace - the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, which
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, unto life everlasting, Amen.
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