The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity – Sunday 27 August A✠D 2023
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 70:1-2a;70:2b, 4a, 5b;34:1-2;81:1
✠ Lection: Isaiah 29:17–24;2 Corinthians 3:4-11;Mark 7:31-37
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Disabilities that plague the human body and mind are not uncommon among us. In quite humbling ways, they become scenarios through which God teaches us to love one another, for it is He Who has first loved us as He looked upon us all who are burdened with the corrupting disability of sin. By the new heart that He gives, what were once only thoughts of I would hate to be that person when looking at a couple who has a child with down syndrome or is confined to a wheelchair, such thoughts fall find hardly any room in the mind when we become those parents and we’re thrusted into the position of trading in much selfishness for selflessness, all for the sake of another and fulfilling their needs that we take for granted day-by-day. When we hear or know of wife or husband whose spouse comes to no longer be able to recognize the person to whom they said, “I do,” because of dementia or Alzheimer’s, we pity them with thoughts of how we ourselves could never, and hope to never, go through such a deep-wrenching challenge in life. This life is hard, especially if we look to such circumstances as the measure of why we should be content, or worse, using them to determine if God loves and favors us. Even without experiencing either of these two scenarios of a disabled loved one, He in Whom you have faith remains the same yesterday, today, and forevermore and into such hope, blessedness, and certainty He brings you through His Beloved Son; yes, even by such harsh roads. The Lord’s promises do not change with your circumstances nor does His relieving you from such suffering mean that He loves you differently than if He doesn’t or even if He adds more trials. His grace is sufficient in all places and at all times.
Similarly to disabilities of mind and body and deeper and more saturating than the very air that we all breathe is the curse of sin that has so corrupted us that we seek to do that which destroys us, loathe what is good, all-the-while suffering daily from sin’s effects. Disabilities are not part of the good creation that God made, but are a product of the Fall and whether it be confinement to a wheelchair, loss of memory, or having rationale limited to that of the level of a young child, these things are all but temporary. The deafness and speech impediment that the man in the decapolis experienced lasts no longer than this lifetime at worst for those who are found in Christ. At better, the disabled man, brought to Jesus the Healer, would receive an actual glimpse of the full re-creation in the Kingdom to come and receive some sort of relief from his impeded ears and tongue. The people could see by God’s design in their own hearing and speaking that this man’s disabilities weren’t what God intended in creation and they begged Jesus to put His hand on him; to make it right, some way, some how, however it is that He does what they have heard that He does. It is because our Blessed Maker has compassion on those He loves that He healed this man while knowing that more trials were to come later in life, maybe dementia, maybe in becoming a grandfather to a child with down syndrome, maybe other pestilence, disease, famine, war, bloodshed, all things not uncommon to this world, and that the man would eventually die a few decades later, even if he was able to hear and speak plainly to his very last breath. His life, this life, would end. It is the same for us all. This will end. Relief in the here and now cannot be our top priority. There is much more to be had. The grace of God and the new creation that He has made you now in Christ Jesus is to prepare you for the time to come and to sustain you in the joy of His salvation here in time and there in eternity. There is much more to life than the decades He gives to us here. Life continues on beyond the grave. Much more important is your healing from sin. Much more important is the forgiveness of your transgressions continually committed against God. Much more important is His sacrifice upon the cross to defeat the destructive root cause of all your suffering: sin. It isn’t the storms, wicked presidents, tyrannical governments, deceitful employers, or stolen freedoms that need to be restored in order for us to have the relief we need. As sinners through and through, we can never make Eden great again. Paradise is lost by our hands but regained by the innocent sufferings and death of the only begotten Son of God and no one else. Look to Him alone as your God for any and all relief, for He gladly gives what you need. Deafness, speech impediments, dementia, down syndrome, depression, anxiety, cancer, influenza, broken bones, heart failure, and every other mental and physical woe of our sin-plagued creation will be around until the End. Yet, you need not fear any of it, because, unlike unbelievers, you have hope in the One Who reigns over all right now and beyond the Last Day and it is He to Whom you belong. He hears perfectly and He speaks plainly the life-giving promises that soothe your soul.
Take up again today’s Gradual and hear for yourselves how plainly and comfortingly your heavenly Father hears and speaks for you and to you in His most precious, inspired Word, beckoning you to the live and speak by faith in Him:
I will bless the LORD at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. (Ps. 34:1-2, KJV)
Before the Epistle, these two verses from the King David are what we chanted. Do not despair when you don’t feel glad or feel like praising or boasting in the Lord. Let your eyes, ears, heart and mind soak up what the Word has to say in the rest of the psalm, repent of your doubt and discontentment in the Lord by what this life is, and trust Him in all your ways. The psalm continues:
O magnify the LORD with me, And let us exalt his name together. I sought the LORD, and he heard me, And delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto him, and were lightened: And their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, And saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the LORD encampeth Round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. O taste and see that the LORD is good: Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. O fear the LORD, ye his saints: For there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: But they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD. What man is he that desireth life, And loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, And thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; Seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, And his ears are open unto their cry. The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, And delivereth them out of all their troubles. The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; And saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: But the LORD delivereth him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones: Not one of them is broken. Evil shall slay the wicked: And they that hate the righteous shall be desolate. The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: And none of them that trust in him shall be desolate. (Ps. 34:3-22, KJV)
Behold your Redeemer! Behold your Savior! Behold your King, Friend, Brother, and every good thing that you need now in the midst of any disability, impediment, or trial of body or soul, and He is all you need and more in the life of the world to come. While we flood our ears with worldliness and both bless and curse with the same one tongue in our mouths, Christ died for those members and the rest of our body as well as the soul within that together make us the people He loves and for whom He gave Himself up.
With full knowledge of all your past sins, and all your future sins, Christ died for the ungodly to deliver you not only from temporary suffering in this life, but more importantly from the eternal suffering that comes apart from Him. With compassion for your suffering under the effects of the Fall, He knew how you’d listen to all the things your sinful ears desire to have whispered into them and tickled with, and out of it and all troubles, He comes to deliver you. He healed your spiritual deafness with the gospel; faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. He loosed your wretched tongue in order that it may now confess with great joy the hope of Christ Who came in the flesh and wept over Lazarus, wept over Jerusalem, and here sighed from within when He healed this man. Jesus is your great and eternal Healer, too. He has done all things well. Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together!
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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