Sermon for September 21, 2024

A Sermon on Mark 9:30-37 - September 21, 2024

Gospel for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen

As our text begins, Jesus and His disciples were passing through Galilee, but He didn’t want others to know this because He had much to teach His disciples. He could see many of their weaknesses.

For example, we heard last week that the disciples were unable to cast out an evil spirit from a young boy. Earlier, when Jesus had sent them out on a mission trip, two by two, He gave them authority over all the evil spirits (Mark 6:7, Luke 9:1) in His Name. They came back so excited that they were able to cast out many demons ( Mark 6:13, Luke 10:17-20). Jesus had to remind them, though, that they should be rejoicing even more, that their names were written in heaven through Jesus and His heavenly Father’s plan, which Jesus was carrying out for them.

The fact that Jesus had to remind them that the demon “could not be driven out by anything but prayer” (Mark 9:29) might have been an indication that they had been trusting too much in themselves and their abilities to deal with the demon, and not in Jesus and His power, and calling upon Him and His power, in prayer.

Don’t we do the same all too often? We have a problem or difficulty and try to do everything we can think of to deal with it - and only later, sometimes much later, remember to take it to the Lord in prayer for His gracious and very needed help.

In today’s text, Jesus especially wanted to teach His disciples about His most important work, providing forgiveness and salvation to the world through His suffering, death, and resurrection. This was predicted in the Old Testament and pointed out in our Old Testament lesson for today. The Lord revealed to the prophet Jeremiah that because he had faithfully shown the King and people of Judah their great sin of worshipping false gods and making offerings to the false god, Baal, many of the Jews now wanted to kill him, like a gentle lamb, led to the slaughter. From what we know, Jeremiah did not die in this way. But when God’s own Son, our Lord Jesus, came into this world, John the Baptist said of Him, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29,36). This is the primary reason why Jesus had been sent to us.

Earlier, in Mark 8:31-33, Jesus had taught about suffering and being killed and rising again, but Peter began to rebuke Jesus, saying that He should never talk about such things. Jesus had to tell Peter that He was not thinking the thoughts of God but the thoughts of sinful man.

On another occasion, Jesus had talked briefly about suffering many things and being treated with contempt, and yet rising from the dead. Again, the disciples did not know what all this meant, especially the rising from the dead.

And again, in our text, Jesus said very clearly, “The Son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, And when He is killed, after three days He will rise.” Again, the disciples “did not understand this saying of Jesus, and they were afraid to ask Him about it.” Most likely, they just didn’t want to hear what Jesus had to say. Their minds were on other things, as we will see as our text goes on.

When Jesus and the disciples reached Capernaum and likely the home of Peter, Jesus asked them what they were discussing along the way. It was obvious to Him that they were having a lively and heated disagreement with one another. The disciples kept silent, though, because they were arguing with one another about who was the greatest among them. Jesus was talking about His own suffering and death, and all they could think about was themselves and which of them was the best and the greatest and should be honored the most.

We hear then that Jesus sat down. Among the Jews, a rabbi or teacher would sit down if he had something really important to teach. Jesus then called the twelve, those close disciples, and said, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” As one commentator wrote, “Instead of urging ambition for high position and power, Christ knows of only one valid reason for fame before Him and His Father - humble, unpretentious service, without a thought of reward.” And to make that even clearer, Jesus took a child, a pretty small child, as He could take him up in His arms, and said, “Whoever receives one such child in My Name receives Me.”

Imagine that! If we help a little child in the Name of Christ, we are helping and serving Christ Himself and receiving Him. And Jesus adds, “Whoever receives Me, receives not just Me, but Him Who sent Me" (God the Father), and as we read on in the Scriptures, we also receive God the Holy Spirit, Who comes to us and works in us, through Christ and His Word.

What always gets in the way, though, is our own human pride and and way of thinking and our desire for greatness on our terms. Another commentator suggests that when we read a Scripture passage like this or the Epistle today, where James says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6) - we should write down the word PRIDE. Right in the center is the letter “I.” It is so easy to focus on my human thinking and my wishes and my desires, what I want instead of what we know as believers should always be at the center - the wisdom from above in Christ our Lord and His Word and will.

As we’ll hear in the coming weeks in Mark’s Gospel, this was so hard for Christ’s disciples to remember and learn. They and we fail so often. That’s why Christ Jesus came: to teach us God’s will but also to live it out in a perfect way for His disciples and for us, too. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” James came, he said, “not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many”( Mark 10:45). Only He could do this perfectly for us. That’s why Jesus had to keep repeating the Words in our text: “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him.” That is how He would pay the ransom price for the payment of all the sins of His disciples. And the Scriptures also say, “Christ died for all” - for every man, woman, and child, big or small. And that includes each of us here tonight, too.

And Jesus predicted, “When He is killed, after three days He will rise” - with victory over sin, Satan, and death for all of us who have come to faith through Baptism and trust in Him - and with everlasting life ahead. And once we are Christ’s, we are strengthened constantly by Him, as we are gathered around His Word and Sacraments. Jesus said, “If you continue in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32) - free from continual pride in self and the messages of a very sinful world, and free to follow Christ in a better way and to serve others.

As Paul wrote, “We also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the Word of God which you received from us, you accepted it not as the word of Men, but as what it really is, the Word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thessalonians 2:13). And as Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who works (through that Word) to give life; our human flesh is no help at all. The Words I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life” now and forever (John 6:63).

Stay close then to those sacred Words and Writings, which many of “you have know from childhood, which are able to make you wise” (not in human worldly wisdom) but “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15ff).

Please rise: Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen. (Philippians 4:7)