We Are Blessed in What We See and Hear :: Luke 10:23-37
And behold, [a Torah expert] rose up testing [Jesus] out, saying, ‘Teacher, what must I accomplish to inherit eternal life?’ Then [Jesus] said to him, ‘In the Torah, what has been written? How do you read it?’ In his answer, [the Torah expert] said, ‘You will love the Lord your God out of the wholeness of your heart, and in the wholeness of your soul, and in the wholeness of your strength, and in the wholeness of your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’ Then [Jesus] said to him, ‘You have answered with orthodoxy. Do this, and you will live.’ But [the Torah expert], desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ (vv 25-29)
Please now turn to Page 321 in your service book and join me in confessing our faithful doctrine on the Fifth Commandment. What is the Fifth Commandment? You shall not murder.
What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.
It is not enough to know that the Scriptures are the Word of God. It is not enough to read the Scriptures every day. It is not enough to have a small encyclopedia of passages memorized. Nor is it enough to know that every jot and tittle of the Scriptures are true in every way. Unless we know why the Scriptures were written, we will invariably try to justify ourselves with them.
To illustrate this truth, Jesus tells us what we often call, famously, the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus did not tell us this to teach us how to become good. Our reading from Luke 10 isn’t designed to exhort us to help our needy neighbors, although it does remind us that we should. Such narrow interpretations turn a beautiful passage of Gospel into condemning Law.
Today’s reading was written to lead us to Christ. The Old Testament points us to Christ. The New Testament reveals Christ. Everything that God has to say to us here is fulfilled in Christ. Jesus Christ is True God and True Man ... The God in The Flesh. When you see Christ in the Scriptures, you see and hear the Word of God Made Flesh. When you see and hear Christ in the parable, you hear and see the Word of God Made Flesh. The Scriptures are the Word of God ... not only because God gave the biblical writers the words to write ... the Word he wants you to hear ... but these things are written so that you will believe Jesus is The Christ, the son of the Living God and that in believing you will have life in his name. Jesus is the subject of the Holy Scriptures from “in the beginning” to “amen.”
As Jesus told his disciples privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see the things you see, and did not see it, and to hear the things you hear, and did not hear it (v 23). Jesus is talking about himself.
The disciples of Jesus were blessed because they saw in Christ, Immanuel, a name that literally means “With Us is God.” They saw him heal, and teach, and walk on water, and live, and suffer, and die, and rise in the flesh on the third day. Talk about a blessing!
They heard his words of everlasting life. They received his sacraments with joy. Talk about a blessing! Ultimately, Luke will tell us, they would come to recognize that in the breaking of bread, Christ is actually with us. Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see!
Prophets and kings had heard these days were coming. They longed to see Jesus and to hear Jesus, but they could not. They longed to be witnesses of Jesus, to be blessed by Jesus, but they would not. God fulfilled his promises of Christ in the fullness of time ... when Jesus was born into this world, when Jesus lived without sin in this world, and when Jesus was traumatized and died for the sins of the world on a cursed cross before being buried and then rising from the dead on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Though we do not see him now ...
YOU WHO ARE HEARING, SEEING, AND BELIEVING JESUS IN WORD AND SACRAMENT ARE, THEREFORE, BLESSED
This is our theme. Like the disciples in our reading today from Luke chapter 10 ...
I) Those who do not have ears to hear and eyes to see only see and hear that they have to go do something, and that condemns them. ... II) But those who have ears to hear have further teaching from Jesus about his death and resurrection, they are blessed.
I
Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we saw and heard last week, God has come to visit his people. He has come to the place where you are ... in your midst, in your muck, amid your sin. The Creator has joined his creation ... and continues to come ... in flesh and blood to be seen and heard in Word and Sacrament so that you will receive your inheritance: the forgiveness of sins.
Do you believe this? Those who DO NOT have ears to hear and eyes to see ONLY see and hear that they have to go do something. They in turn go and pass by another way. That is what’s at the root of the two questions given to Jesus today to test him.
A man schooled in Torah asked, Teacher, what must I accomplish to inherit eternal life (v 25)? And who is my neighbor (v 29)? Sometimes ... you just have to wonder why we would ask such questions. In fairness to the man who did ... a man who clearly couldn’t hear or see and was seeking a new way to justify himself ... you need to know: He is a νομικός. Some might translate that word as lawyer, but that isn’t fair to lawyers. The word really describes a man who is schooled in Torah, a Hebrew word that often is translated as Law, but is better understood as instruction. He is a leader of the Jewish people who thinks he knows how to dot his Is and cross his Ts according to Torah. In other words, he is a moralist. He thinks the answer to his questions is that the way of Torah is “The Way of life.” By his thinking, when you obey God’s commands, you have life. The problem is, it is all too easy to moralize the Torah, as did many Jews.
Instead, when we read the Torah as the book of God’s grace which shows us our sin and our need for a savior ... and not as a how-to book about earning merit before God ... we are blessed. When we lose sight of the primacy of God’s grace in Torah, then the focus shifts from the inheritance God gives in Christ to the deeds people do.
An inheritance is a gift. You can’t do anything to earn a gift. Gifts are given. But since the man wants to do something to try to justify himself, to improve his standing before God, Jesus gives him something to do. He asks the man what the Torah says.
Everyone can get this answer right: You will love the Lord your God out of the wholeness of your heart, and in the wholeness of your soul, and in the wholeness of your strength, and in the wholeness of your mind, and your neighbor as yourself (v 27).
Kudos to the man for knowing that we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. But then he mixes up Gospel and Law by asking who then is my neighbor?
Brothers and sisters in Christ, you know who your neighbor is ... whether you like him or not. Everyone is your neighbor. They are not just the people you love. They are the people you are frightened of: drug addicts, thieves, adulterers, and the immoral. They hate you and curse you.
To illustrate that Jesus says: A man was going down from Jerusalem into Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who, having stripped him and having set a plague upon him, left him half dead. [It just so happened] that a certain priest was walking down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other parallel of the way. Then, likewise, also a Levite, having come to the place and seen him, passed by on the other parallel. But one Samaritan on a journey came because of him, and when he saw him, he had compassion. And having come, he bound up his trauma, pouring oil and wine. Then, having mounted him upon his own animal, he led him to a receiver of all and was caring for him. And the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the receiver of all and said, Have care upon him, and whatever more you spend, in my return, I will give back to you (vv 30-35).
II
This passage is entirely about Jesus. It isn’t a story designed to inspire you to live like the Good Samaritan, although you should and can and will. Even the Bible expert knows that. This story isn’t telling you that you should NOT be like the priest or Levite. Jesus is showing us he came BECAUSE OF you. He came to you who are sinners. Jesus is the one who sees you dying, and hurting, and traumatized and plagued by sin. Jesus sees that sin has you left half dead alongside the way. Jesus is the man who has compassion on you. He comes to you to soothe the trauma of your sin. He comes to bear up your burdens, your anxieties, the plague of your self-love. He comes to gather you in the place we all need to be ... in the receiver of all ... the church ... which if you wish to call it an inn, so be it.
Jesus has carried you here so you can hear and see him in Word and Sacraments, which are like two denarii that provide all we need for this day and the next because we have faith that man lives on every word that comes from the mouth of God. It is his Word that is enlightening you. It is his Sacraments that are sanctifying you nurturing your faith into the future.
Blessed are the eyes that recognize Jesus in this passage. Blessed are the ears that hear that ... Jesus came and was beaten and broken and bloodied for you along the side of the road ... that he died on a cross for you. Blessed are you when you see and hear this. And because he is the righteous one, God raised him from the dead. He is now risen! He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah! And on account of this we can now repent and rest in the hope of everlasting life.
I pray that you will see and hear Jesus delivering the forgiveness of sins through faith in God’s Word and Sacraments. Here we see and hear that he has actually given what we don’t deserve ... life and salvation. Now we can bring our friends to the receiver of all too, in his name.