Sermon from October 19, 2024

Sermon for 22nd Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 10:23-31

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 (Psalm 19:14).

Last week, we heard from Mark, Chapter 10, of a man who came to talk with Jesus and left downhearted and sorrowful because he was trusting in himself and his abilities and his great wealth and possessions and was not about to listen to and follow Jesus and trust Him and His Words (Mark 10:17-22).

Our Gospel lesson for today tells us of the conversation that Jesus then had with His disciples about what had happened. We hear that Jesus “looked around” - maybe to see the reaction of the disciples. Then He said to them, ”How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God.” “And the disciples were amazed at His Words.” The typical attitude of Jews of that time was that wealth was almost a sure sign that you were right with God and being greatly blessed by Him. Jesus seemed to be saying the opposite.

So Jesus repeated His message, using a very vivid image. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.” Some scholars have tried to explain away what Jesus said by saying the camel just represents a thread that could go through the eye of a needle - but that’s not what Jesus said. Others have claimed that there was one narrow and low gate into Jerusalem that a camel could go through only by being forced to its knees and squeezed through. That explanation doesn’t make sense, either.

Jesus had used a camel as a dramatic example on another occasion, too. He told the Jewish religious leaders, who tended to be wealthier and more powerful and were considered and considered themselves better than ordinary people: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you tithe to the temple (give 10% of your spices that you have or grow) but have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness… You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel” (Matthew 23:23-24).

In our text, Jesus then added one more phrase: “Children, how difficult it is to enter the Kingdom of God.” Period! It isn’t just wealth that can become more important than our Lord and His Word and will. It’s a First Commandment problem. “You shall have no other gods” (Exodus 20:3). “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve” (Matthew 4:10). Or as Martin Luther wrote, in explaining the First Commandment, “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”

All things! That includes our possessions and our own wishes and desires and even people around us. Let me give a personal example that I have used before. If you know me very well, you know that I love books and what I can learn from them, especially in studying Scripture. When I theoretically retired more than ten years ago, I kept out books that I thought would be most useful but put many, many more books in storage. I am only now seriously looking through those many books, and my wife keeps saying, “If you haven’t used them for almost 11 years, do you really still need them?” She’s probably right, but it’s still hard to get rid of as many as I should. We all have our weaknesses in one way or another. And in our text, when the disciples heard what Jesus was saying, they were “exceedingly astonished” and said to Him, “Who then can be saved?”

And Jesus looked right at them and said, very bluntly, “With man, it is impossible.” And in the Greek it says, “With men (plural) it is impossible.” And the Greek word for “men” means not just “males” but refers to human beings - men, women, and children. With us human beings, no matter who we are, it is impossible to be saved - by our own goodness and efforts and accomplishments and possessions or anything else we do or produce. The Scriptures say the same thing in many other ways. “All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “There is no one who does good, not even one,” according to God’s perfect, holy standard (Psalm 14:1-3). “No one living is righteous before God” no matter how hard we try (Psalm 143:2). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). And James, in his letter says, “Whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, has become guilty of it all” (James 2:10). If we are guilty, we are guilty.

Impetuous Peter, though, doesn’t seem to like what Jesus is saying and tries to argue with Him, as he sometimes had done before. Peter wants to put the focus back on himself and his fellow disciples and the good they were doing. Peter began to say to Jesus, “See!” Look at us, Jesus, and how “we have left everything and followed You.” Jesus then stops him, but it is likely that Peter was about to add, “Our great sacrifices for You, Jesus, surely earn us some merit and honor and a place in Your kingdom.” The reality was that Peter and the others hadn’t really yet given up everything. Peter and Andrew had a house, and Peter had a family (Mark 1:29ff. and 1 Corinthians 9:5). When Peter needed to get away, he was able to get a boat and go fishing, etc. (John 21:1-3).

Peter and the others were totally missing the message of Jesus and the really Good News, the Gospel, that Jesus had added. “With man, it is impossible to be saved, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” God still loved this very sinful world, even after the fall into sin, and knew that we could never make ourselves worthy of God and rescue ourselves from our sins - just as we heard last week that Jesus loved the rich man who thought he was so good. Jesus sought to bring that man to the truth of his sin and to bring him to the gift of faith, though the man rejected him.

God the Father had sent His only Son, Jesus, into this world to save us, who could never save ourselves. And right after today’s text, Jesus told His disciples for the third time just what He was going to do for them (and for us.). He would go to Jerusalem and be condemned to die by Jewish religious leaders and Gentiles, Roman authorities, and suffer much to pay for the sins of the world and be killed (Mark 10:32-34).

Jesus was fulfilling the final verse of our text when He said, “Many who are first will be last, and the last first.” Jesus seemed to be the last and the lost one when He gave up everything and died on the cross as a common criminal. The victors seemed to be Caiaphus, the high priest, and other Jewish officials, and Pontius Pilate and Roman power. They seemed to be first, and they were, in the eyes of many people. They had won and gotten rid of Jesus, it seemed.

Jesus was a true man, but He was also true God, and as He said in our text, “All things are possible with God.” Jesus saved this world in this amazing and surprising way, dying and rising again - something we could never do for ourselves or for anyone else. The certainty of His winning the victory and salvation for us was in His rising from the dead on the third day. This is His gift, received simply by faith and trust in Him and His already completed work for us. As Paul wrote so clearly, “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

What does Jesus mean, then, when He speaks in the last part of our text of “houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands?” Jesus is not speaking of rewards that Peter and the other disciples would earn from their works and sacrifices. In fact, Jesus also mentions “persecutions,” and eventually, all of the disciples, except John, died for the faith, seeking to share it with others. Jesus is speaking of the growth of the Holy Christian Church over time as the Gospel of Christ was shared and houses of worship sprang up, and more and more people were eventually brought to faith in Christ in many lands and kept in faith by the Lord and His Holy Spirit. The Spirit works through the means, the channels, by which the grace and salvation come, as God’s gifts to us in Christ - through the Word of God and the Sacraments.

That’s why we are here tonight, hearing the Word of God again and receiving His forgiveness and being strengthened by remembrance of our Baptism and receiving the Presence of Christ Himself in the Lord’s Supper. These are the gifts of God, coming through His loving Divine Service to us and for us. As Lutherans, we say that this salvation, justification by God’s grace, received as a gift through faith in Christ alone, is the chief doctrine of the Christian faith. As Jesus said, “With man and our efforts, salvation is impossible, but not with God and His grace. All things are possible with God and His grace.

Unfortunately, that is not what many churches say. In the Roman Catholic Church, we receive some initial grace from God in our Baptism, but we must then do enough good to pay for the temporal consequences of our sins in this life (which Christ has not taken care of), and if we haven’t done enough, which is likely, we end up in purgatory after this life until we have done enough to merit eternal life.

Too many Protestant churches also say that we must initiate our life with God ourselves by deciding to follow Christ as an act of our own will, and then there is much work ahead to be a real Christian. One author described his life in an evangelical church as coming to Christ, but then not hearing as much about Christ, but being told to focus and be centered on his own life - his “yielding more to Christ, his obedience, his zeal, his prayers, his Bible verse memorization, his loving others more, his witnessing more,“ and on and on. These are all good things, but they put the focus on us and what we are trying to do and not on Christ and His saving work already done for us, by which we are saved and continue in the faith, by His grace and work in our lives, and the motivation we need.

Paul says, “To me, to live is Christ” - all wrapped up in Him. Paul says, “You then, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:21 and 2 Timothy 2:1). And we heard in our Epistle lesson for today, “We who have believed (in Christ) enter the rest that God gives… Whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his own works… Let us hold fast to our confession of Christ, the Son of God… For “we have a High Priest (Christ) who sympathizes with our weaknesses (whatever our own struggles)… Let us then with confidence draw near to Christ and His throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need” - not through our efforts, but through Christ and His saving work for us.

Let us pray, “Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, keep our hearts and minds safe, only where they are safe, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.