Sunday March 1st 2015 at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine: “When Disciples Are Rebuked” (Mark 8:31-38)
Divine Service: 9:30 am
Bible Study and Sunday School: 11:00 am
Location: Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine: 12500 Sand Canyon Ave., Irvine, CA 92618
Directions: Exit Sand Canyon from the 405 or 5, head East towards the hills, cross Irvine Blvd., turn right on Saint’s Way (this will put you on the campus of Crean Lutheran High School…we worship in the event center/gym)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The Lord bless you as we continue to journey through Lent, today — Saturday, February 28th — being the 10th day of the 40 days. Tomorrow is the Second Sunday in Lent (recall that the Sundays are “in” Lent and not “of” Lent as Sunday always marks the Day of the Resurrection so that Sundays are not counted as part of the 40 days). Nevertheless, the Gospel for tomorrow is rich in the theme of Lent. It is a humbling text! In Mark 8:31-38 St. Peter stands for us all as a true believer, a true disciple of the Living Lord Jesus Christ who speaks in two ways; in two radically different “languages” so-to-speak: Peter spoke words of God and then in practically the same breath spoke words of the evil one. How can this be? It’s seems untenable, illogical, utterly contradictory, and grossly inconsistent! That’s right…and this state of affairs describes us too!
If this is so — and it is — how then can we ever be saved?! We are saved because of the True Disciple and know that He is Jesus Christ. He followed God not for Himself (as He was already perfect and pure), but He followed God for you and for me. This Disciple, THE Disciple followed God so that WE would be saved!
Tomorrow, we will thoroughly get into this fascinating and crucial text that leads us to true humility for our Lenten journey, but don’t worry, it will also lead us to the splendid Gospel that keeps us strong in the grace of God!
Most importantly, we will receive the Blessed Sacrament of our Lord Jesus Christ. At Saint Paul’s we receive Holy Communion every, single Sunday, because this great gift is God’s rich assurance and guarantee that the Gospel is most certainly for us…for you and for me! In this Sacrament of the Altar the True Disciple Jesus incorporates you into Himself so that there is no doubt that in Christ, yes, you do follow God!
This portion of tomorrow’s sermon is all Law and no Gospel, but it is an important catechetical introduction teaching us about “sin” (singular) and “sins” (plural). A teaching that is frequently neglected nowadays:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who suffered and was crucified for us to save us from sin and death. Amen. Today’s Gospel based on Mark 8:31-38 is a stunning section in the Bible. Why? Because St. Peter gave the best answer one could possibly give in rightly, accurately, and gloriously identifying Jesus. Based on his answer: “You are the Christ.” (Mark 8:29), case closed: Peter knew Jesus. But when Jesus went on to the rest of the story: not only verifying WHO He was, but for WHAT REASON He had come, this is where Peter got lost. And not just a little lost mind you, but totally and utterly confused! So much so that when Peter responded to the LORD explaining His mission he did not speak as he had before with words of God, but this time he spoke with words from Satan!
This is the stunning scene: after Peter rightly and boldly confessed Christ’s identity, Jesus – in Matthew’s parallel to our Mark text – actually tells Peter that his confession (his words on Christ) were from God. (Matthew 16:17) Peter had just spoken God’s word, but now in respect to the WHAT of Jesus (as in WHAT would the Christ do?) the LORD makes clear that Peter was now speaking not for God, but for the devil!
Again, this is so shocking a state of affairs that is appears unfathomable; the implications rattle us so that it’s easy to repress its traumatic impact; it is so unsettling that it’s almost as if we ignore the seismic contradiction, the cosmic inconsistency, the duplicitous destructiveness of the situation: the believer – and in this case – the apostle, and not merely the apostle, the leader of the band (even as Peter was assuredly speaking for them all) spoke for God and — in practically the next breath — spoke for Satan. The same guy. One man speaking holy and saving words in the one instance; and in the next instance, the same man speaking destructive and evil words.
How can this be? One reason is that all of us underestimate — like Peter did — the article of the faith on sin. We have this really nasty habit of reducing this article of the faith called “sin” to bad behavior or the lack of good behavior (called “sins”). When we mistakenly reduce our sin (singular) condition with what we do and don’t do – our sins (plural) – we inevitably lose track of our actual diseased condition. How easy it is for us to become blind in any given situation when we feel confident about our actions while forgetting that we still have this horrific problem in us called “sin” (so that in one instance we are speaking the words of God, but in the very next instance we are speaking the words of Satan)?!
Our sin-reductionism puts us in the prime position to do this! Sin is the deeper root problem. It is a disease, a sickness that permeates our nature; it is what makes us sinful – as our Lutheran Confessions state – from “head to toe;” it is what makes us towards God “recalcitrant donkeys.” It is the incurvatus en se condition, that condition of being turned or curved inward. We are turned in and curved in to love ourselves, and turned in and curved in so that we stray away from loving God…in fact our curved in and turned in condition makes us love ourselves and love what we want. As a result, it is not that we simply do not believe in God in this sin condition, but in this state we actually hate Him. Peter hated Jesus so much – though he thought with all his might he was saying the right thing – that he was willing to destroy the very mission Jesus was conducting to save you and me (and Peter) from sin! In truth, we are just like Peter: we do both; we speak for and against our Holy God. This is the stunning part of all of this. This is what we are!
But this is nothing new and we are blessed in our Christian tradition to confess our condition this way every time we start our liturgy; our worship. Notice the wording that we used today. Let’s read it together and I ask you to take note of what parts are about your sin (singular) and what parts are about your sins (plural). We read together:
I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them, and I pray You of Your boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.
Note that in this morning’s confession, we are confessing both aspects: both our sin (singular) and our sins (plural). It is at the very beginning and the very end of this particular confession of sin that we confess our sin (singular)-condition with the words:
- “I, a poor, miserable sinner.” This is a confession of condition. We are by nature sinful and unclean, so that by nature we are poor, miserable sinners.
- “A poor, sinful being.” Our being (singular) is such that we are continuously committing sins (plural).
This is the core of our confession at the beginning of every Divine Service and is part and parcel of properly preparing to receive The Lord’s Supper. And just as it took God The Father to reveal to Peter WHO Jesus is; it takes God the Father to reveal to us what OUR sinful condition is all about. It is a terribly pessimistic article of the faith. It is not what people are looking for. People don’t go looking for churches in hopes that the pastor will tell them that they are an awful, God-hating sinner. It’s not usually on the top of anyone’s list for finding a church home…we want good music and meaty sermons (maybe), but do we actually go out looking for this revelation about our sin?!
Things came to a head with some former members in another congregation. They finally had to speak up! “Pastor, why do we say this about ourselves?! The Holy Scriptures say that we’re born again! The Holy Scriptures say that we’re a new creation! These words about being a poor, miserable sinner no longer apply to me! I was ONCE blind, NOW I see; I WAS Lost, but NOW I’m found! Again, I’m a new creation! In Christ, I’m no longer this despicable image! So why do we still confess this?!” Great question and whenever I get questions like this, I quickly pass them on to the other pastor! <smile>
So I answered the question. Our conversion, our crossing over from death to life, our being born again, and becoming a new creation in Christ are all descriptors of your most definitely receiving a new nature. It’s true! You are a new creation. You now have a living faith, with new thoughts, new desires, and new impulses. This is God’s gift to you through His Word which unites you to the Living Christ. This is a fides viva…a living faith, that is a saving faith and not the so-called “faith” of the demons (James 2:19), which is a cold and dead intellectual faith that is worthless (leaving one to live in fear as the demons do). Your faith, however, is living as you have been enabled by God to trust in Jesus and the forgiveness of all your sins (plural) AND the forgiveness of your sin (singular) condition…this too does the blood of Jesus cover!
Such a faith, such a condition, Peter had. He was a child of God and by the grace of God – again – He was able to accurately and powerfully confess that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Children of God cannot speak this way – genuinely in faith – without the Holy Spirit enabling them to speak this way (1st Cor. 12:3b).
But here we run into being sure that we do not succumb to a logical fallacy called the fallacy of “excluded middle” or an “either-or” fallacy. In this case, the frustrated parishioner was stuck on two options:
EITHER we have ONLY the ONE nature!
OR we have the OTHER nature!
What was missed was a third option. What is the third option? The third option is that we might – and indeed we do – have BOTH! Just like Peter did!
Even Ezekiel’s words of removing the old heart of stone (Ezekiel 11:19) is not an immediate eradication of sin in the life of the child of God, but is the introduction of a new spirit that is enabled to follow God just like Peter did (even as we await the day that is to come when our hearts of stone will be completely eradicated…and yes that day will come, but it is not yet…for now, it is not an “either-or,” but a “both-and.”
Dear One, come to our worship tomorrow and you will hear the Gospel that fills out the rest of the sermon! You are always welcomed to Saint Paul’s!
In Jesus’ Love,
Rev. Alfonso O. Espinosa, Ph.D.