The Lutheran Hour
-
"Precisely My Point"
- Download MP3 No bonus material MP3
-
Text: Mark 2: 5-7
-
Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! To those who doubt; to those who deny, the word of resurrection says that Jesus is the Savior who heals our hearts; who forgives our sins. Jesus Christ, with His blood-bought sacrifice makes right our wrongs.
Have you ever been wrong? I mean really wrong, embarrassingly wrong? Most of us have. When President Nixon was elected to his second term of office, 61 percent of the American people who voted, voted for him. That’s an unbelievably big percentage; it’s what the political commentators call, “a landslide.” Still, before the end of those four years, Nixon had become the butt of comedians’ jokes, the center of criticism and a man who was left standing pretty much alone. Most in his party deserted him; those who wanted favors from him disappeared. Because of some of the things he had done wrong, even some of Nixon’s friends, his staunch supporters, his steadfast associates became scarce. Back in those days I couldn’t find anyone ready to confess that they had voted for him. Internally, mentally, most of those folks were saying, “I was wrong, embarrassingly wrong.”
Have you ever been wrong? I mean really wrong? The year was 1870, and a bishop from the Church of the United Brethren in Christ made a visit to a small college, staying in the home of its president. Not surprisingly, the bishop and the educator got involved in all manner of pleasant conversations concerning matters ethical, educational, and theological. During the course of one of those cordial conversations, the bishop voiced his firm conviction that the Bible promised that nothing new could be invented. The educator, almost instantaneously, disagreed. His dissent was so strong that he made the bold statement: “Why, in 50 years I believe it may be possible for men to soar through the air like birds!” The bishop was visibly shocked. No longer was the conversation entirely amiable and affable. With a stern tone, the bishop said, “Flight is strictly reserved for the angels.” Then he added, “and I beg you not to repeat your suggestion lest you be guilty of blasphemy!” I wonder if that bishop, Bishop Milton Wright, ever confessed he had been wrong, embarrassingly wrong, when, less than 35 years later, his sons, Orville and Wilbur, made the first heavier-than-air flight over the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Bishop Wright is not alone in being wrong. As I look back on my half-century plus, I’m confronted by a multitude of moments when I said, or thought something I shouldn’t. There was the time I asked a lady when her baby was due. She informed me she wasn’t pregnant. That was the last time I saw her. There was the time a young couple asked me to do their wedding. After running them through a battery of personality and compatibility tests, I concluded: “These kids don’t have a chance.” Still I couldn’t find a good excuse not to perform the service. Reluctantly, regretfully, I officiated at the wedding which I knew was the beginning of a disastrous marriage. That was 28 years ago. From the day they said, “I do,” that couple proved to be an ideal husband and wife team. They radiated love: love for the Lord; love for each other; love for their children; their church, total strangers, and even love for me.
Have I been wrong? Have I ever! Probably my worst memory comes from way back when I was still learning how to be a pastor. I was sent to work at a church for an entire year in Owatonna, Minnesota. The local hospital called the church office and said one of our members had been admitted. Since the pastor was gone, the secretary assigned the visit to me. My very first hospital call. I got directions and made my visit. Kind of. Although I waited in my member’s maternity ward room, I never got to speak to the patient. When I asked about the church member at the nurse’s desk, I was told everybody is doing just fine. So, without having made face-to-face contact, I left a note and a prayer on the nightstand. Since this church was in the maternity ward, the next day, at Sunday church, I did the pastoral thing and had a “motherhood prayer.” You who go to church, might remember that prayer, or one like it. It goes something like: “Lord, we thank Thee that Thou hast delivered this mother from her peril and pain and gladdened her heart with the gift of a child.” What I didn’t know was the town’s hospital was small, and our congregation’s member, admitted with an appendicitis and not a baby, had been put in the hospital’s only empty spot… a bed in the maternity ward. Some in the congregation still remember when I prayed for an 82-year-old man who had given birth.
There, now you’ve heard my confession about my wrongness. How about you? Have you ever been wrong? Don’t be shy. You can fess up. No, don’t give me the line, “I was wrong once, but afterward I found I’d been mistaken.” Being wrong is part of the human condition. Adam and Eve were the first to find out about wrongness when they conversed with Satan, thought they could be as good as God, and ate from the forbidden fruit. From that day, until now, every person who has ever lived has done and thought things that were wrong. Abraham thought God couldn’t fulfill His promise by giving him an heir. Jacob was wrong when he showed preference to a few of his children. Moses was wrong in thinking he could do a miracle more dramatically, and better, than God. David was wrong when he allowed his eyes to wander toward another man’s wife. The disciples were wrong when they doubted, when they tried to stop people from coming to Jesus, when they argued about which of them was going to be the greatest in God’s kingdom. Search the Scripture and you will find yourself hard-pressed to find a page that doesn’t contain some story of a sinner saying or doing something which is deceitful, dastardly, dishonorable, disgraceful, dreadful, or despicable. Read through Holy Writ and you will see humanity without pretense or façade. We are people who do and say things which are wrong, really wrong, embarrassingly wrong, even damnably wrong.
The second chapter of the Gospel of Mark gives us a good example of humans saying, and doing that which is wrong. The story begins with Jesus in the city of Capernaum. Now Capernaum was a fishing village that sat on the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee. It was there, or near there, that Jesus preached powerful messages of repentance and the forgiveness which God wishes to bestow upon humanity. It was in Capernaum that Jesus made manifest His might through the performance of a multitude of miracles. With Jesus spending so much of His time in that city, it’s not surprising Capernaum quickly became known as the place where a person should go if they wanted to meet the Savior. In the opening words of his account, Mark tells us that so many people had gathered to hear Jesus preach the word that “there was no room left, not even outside the door.”
Any speaker will tell you that having SRO, standing room only, is usually a good thing. Usually. That was not the case this day. The Gospel of Luke adds this crowd had a great many Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. If you know anything about the story of Jesus’ life, you know the pious Pharisees didn’t like the Savior and the teachers of the Law actually loathed Him. Although most people today see Jesus as being an institution, even downright boring, these men saw Him as a radical rabbi, a rabble rouser, a preacher of dangerous doctrines. They had come to check Him out; to accumulate accusations; to put together a case to condemn Him.
That’s why, when a paralytic was brought to Jesus, they didn’t move to let the man’s stretcher in. They were on what they felt was a mission from God, and they weren’t going to budge. “We were here first. Let the cripple fend for himself” was the unspoken thought. You remember, I said all of us have done and said things which were wrong. Well, that opinion applies to these suspicious Pharisees, and intolerant teachers of the law whose hatred blinded them to the needs of a man who had been brought to Jesus for help. Lest you get too upset with them, ask yourself; have you not, at times, been envious of the person who gets a handicapped parking spot at the mall? Policemen have told me, especially at Christmas time, healthy people borrow the cars of their handicapped relatives so that they can get close to the door of a shopping center. Yes, all of us have done, or thought, wrong things.
It’s to the credit of the men who were carrying the paralytic that they were not put off by the rudeness of the people who were already settled in to hear the Savior. Showing great love for their friend and an equally great faith in the Christ’s power and love, these stretcher bearers, somehow, someway, managed to get their pal up on the roof, make a great hole and slowly, carefully, lower their friend, still on his mat, until he was laying there right in front of Jesus. Mark tells us Jesus, seeing the faith of these men, looked at the paralytic and said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus gave that man, as He has given so many others over the centuries, the one thing that was needed: the forgiveness of sins. The need for forgiveness is greater than a blind person’s need to see; it is more important than the restoration of hearing to the deaf; more essential than the need of a paralytic to walk. The forgiveness of sins is what you need. After all, all of us have done or said things wrong. Look at your list. How horrible are the horrors that lay lodged within your heart? Which of us listening to me would dare speak aloud the black sins which stain your soul? Each of us, the best of us, the most noble, caring, and considerate of our species have said and done things, disgraceful and dishonorable things, which bring a blush to our cheeks and make us hang our heads in shame.
So that all of us, the worst of us, the most evil and envious, the most despicable and despised among us might be forgiven, is why Jesus stepped down from heaven’s high throne and was born in Bethlehem. God’s innocent Son became one of us… lived like us; was tempted like us; was challenged like us, was despised and rejected like us. But, unlike us cruel, condemned creatures who cannot escape sin and punishment no matter how hard we try, Jesus did not break God’s laws; Jesus was not caught up by Satan’s snares, He did not slip upon the world’s stumbling blocks; nor could He be captured and contained by death. So that we might be forgiven, Jesus took our place, carried our sins, endured our punishment and died our death. So that we might hear our divine judge declare us innocent of all our wrongs, Jesus was maligned and misunderstood, despised and rejected, condemned and crucified. To those who know Jesus as Savior; to those of us who have, by the Holy Spirit’s power, been brought to faith in Him as their suffering substitute, the blood-bought words, “Your sins are forgiven” are blessed healing for our hurting hearts; living water for our parched souls; and life-giving bread to our starving spirits.
“Son, your sins are forgiven.” That’s what Jesus said to the paralytic. And what was the reaction to those words of spiritual healing? I don’t have to guess. Mark tells us: Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” You see, like many of us who have said and done things wrong, these men were put off by the uninvited interruption of their investigation. Like many others of us who have said and done things wrong, these men thought the paralytic probably had done something which had caused God to punish him through his spirit of infirmity. Like many others who have said and done things wrong, these men thought that Jesus was way out of line, usurping God’s authority in sharing the forgiveness of sins.
Please understand, what I’ve just said is not an exaggeration. The world may accept Jesus as a teacher, a philosopher, a moralist, an example, an inspiration, a conveyer of platitudes; but it doesn’t want Him to be God’s Son or hear Him say, “Your sins are forgiven.” God’s Word tells us that we are sinners. Our consciences accuse us of wrongdoing, but the world doesn’t want to admit its transgression. In delusion and denial, the world clings to the idea that everyone is OK, self-sufficient, self-actualized, self-improving, and self-healing. The world doesn’t want to come to the Savior on bended knee and confess, “Lord, be merciful to us poor sinners.” It refuses to hear the Savior’s words, the words of forgiveness that it so desperately needs.
This past year we’ve all seen countless examples of how the world wishes to play down the Savior’s sacrifice; how it tramples under foot His terrible death and erases His resurrection victory. This Lord’s day, we’re roughly at the half-way mark between the Sunday we remembered the Savior’s birth, and the Sunday we will recall His resurrection from the dead. This past Christmas, I was amazed at the great corporations who, even as they were depending on Christmas to bring their books into the black; even as they made a great and glorious profit on the day which celebrates the Savior’s coming, forbade their staff from wishing customers a “Blessed Christmas.” How long will it take before a corporate suit realizes the words “Happy Holidays” are just another way of saying, “happy holy days”… holy days made happy because of the good news of great joy which comes through the Savior’s birth?
This past Christmas I was shocked as countless colleges and schools who number their calendars by the year which counts from Christ’s coming, have tried to be inoffensive by calling Christmas vacation a “winter break.” I was amazed that so many legislators who bend over backwards throughout the year to be politically correct; who agonize over the fine points of separating church and state, make sure that their people, and all government employees, get time off on December 25th. Why is all of this necessary if Jesus is only a good guy, a regular Joe, a conveyor of kindly thoughts and pious platitudes?
In a few weeks, albeit on a lesser scale, the world will repeat the whole process again. As the church celebrates the resurrection of the Savior and the promise of eternal life in heaven which His sacrifice has won, the world will tell you to buy an Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it; it will tell you it’s time for a new suit, a new dress; they will fill their stores with candy; they will stock up on eggs and all the dyes and colorings which can be slapped upon a cold, white egg shell. But the world will not tell you that the new clothes are a symbol of the new robe of righteousness that Christ’s resurrection guarantees. The world will not tell you that the candy is a tasty treat which symbolizes the sweetness of life that is found in the forgiveness Jesus has won by His sacrifice. The world will not tell you that the egg which appears so cold and dead, yet brings forth unexpected life, is an earthly symbol of Jesus’ grave which could not hold the living Lord. Truly, the world does not want Jesus as Savior from sin.
When Jesus said, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” the skeptics and scoffers tried to minimize His might and put down His power. Right now some of you may be doing the same. If so, please hear the rest of the story. Jesus, knowing what these doubters and deniers were thinking, asked, “Which is easier: to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Get up and walk'”? Without waiting for an answer, Jesus added, “Gentlemen your doubts precisely prove My point. So you may know I have the authority to forgive sins, watch this…” Then turning to the paralyzed man, Jesus said, “Take your mat and go home.” Mark reports, the man “got up… walked out in full view of them all.” And what was the reaction? It was far better than that which happens today. Mark writes: ” (and) everyone…. praised God, saying, ‘We’ve never seen anything like this!'” And they hadn’t. Nor have you. See Jesus for who He is: the Savior of the world. Look as hard as you want, anywhere you want. I encourage you to do so. But after you have looked, I guarantee you will find Jesus to be unique. Jesus is the only one who can say, “Son, daughter, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus is God’s Son; His words are good news for people like me, like you who have said and done things which are wrong, really wrong. Embarrassingly, damnably wrong.
It was well over a century ago that Dwight Moody was sharing the Savior’s story of salvation in East London. An unbeliever by the name of Bradlaugh heard of the crusade and he encouraged all unbelievers and atheists to attend. They came from all over. They laughed when they were asked to sing a hymn. They prepared themselves to be amused when Moody began to preach. But Moody told them of their sin, Christ’s salvation, and the forgiveness the Savior offers. After the sermon, Moody asked all who believed in Christ to say, “I do.” One man, a leader of the atheists, quickly responded, “I don’t. ” Moody countered: “Men you have your champion. Now I ask those who need and believe in Jesus to say ‘I do.'” By the Holy Spirit’s leading, 500 men, having realized their previous beliefs had been wrong, terribly wrong, embarrassingly wrong, sprang to their feet, shouting, “I do, I do.” It is my prayer that all you who hear my voice, this day, by the Spirit’s power, may be convinced and confident that Jesus, your Savior has the power and already has forgiven your sins. If you believe, I give thanks. If you are not sure, then I encourage you to call us at The Lutheran Hour. Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for February 19, 2006
Topic: Didn’t we pray enough? (part two)ANNOUNCER: Now, more on the subject of prayer with Pastor Ken Klaus. I’m Mark Eischer. Last week, we started talking about some questions that relate to the recent mining disaster that took place in Tallmansville, West Virginia. You told us to go back to the basics and you showed us how God wants good for us and not evil. And we had just begun to deal with the second question when we ran out of time. So we pick up with that question this week.
KLAUS: It’s absolutely right that we do that, Mark. Would you give a quick synopsis of that question that we’re talking about today?
ANNOUNCER: Be glad to. You’ll recall that after the initial false report that the miners were still alive, someone said, “I guess this shows we prayed enough.” But when it turned out that those miners had, in fact, not survived, does that mean someone “didn’t pray enough? ” You said, “Absolutely not.” But that’s where we had to leave it last week.
KLAUS: Right. Shall we begin?
ANNOUNCER: Before you do, let’s throw one more thought into the equation, OK? Wasn’t it Jesus who said, “I tell you the truth, My Father will give you whatever you ask, in My name.”
KLAUS: You know, I think it’s that “whatever” that leads people to conclude, if a prayer isn’t answered the way they expected, either they didn’t pray hard enough, or God simply isn’t keeping His promises to them. That kind of logic and that kind of conclusion leaves you either disappointed in yourself, or disappointed in God. And that’s not much in the way of choices. Mark, I think there’s a third option, it’s an option that we’ve talked about before.
ANNOUNCER: And what would that be?
KLAUS: When it comes to prayer, God gives us what we ask for, or He gives us something better. God, as our loving heavenly Father, promises to answer our prayers the way we ask… or, if He deems it best, He will give us something which is better. For example, Paul asked God to have His thorn in the flesh removed, but God said, “No. Paul, you’re going to learn My strength will be made perfect in your weakness.” Not only did Paul find the ability to keep preaching, He also ended up having a deeper faith.
In regard to this mining disaster, and so many other tragedies of life, it often seems that when things don’t turn out the way we want, we conclude that either our prayers weren’t good enough or God simply doesn’t care. That conclusion has led an awful lot of people to stop praying or believing. It’s a wrong conclusion. The truth remains, God gives to His people what they ask for–or something better.
ANNOUNCER: But, from the standpoint of those who lost someone they loved in this accident; what could possibly be better than to restore a father to his children, or a husband to his wife?
KLAUS: I don’t know, Mark. None of us can see the future as completely as does the Lord. Maybe new laws are going to be enacted to prevent such accidents from happening again and thousands of other miners who might have been lost will now be saved. Maybe some people who have fallen away from God because of past disappointments, will hear what we’re saying here and be reintroduced to the Savior’s love. I just don’t know. I do know God loves those grieving families and He loved those men who were trapped in the mine. That’s one of the basics we talked about last week.
Here’s one other thing, Mark. It’s absolutely necessary we cling to this: God gave His Son’s life as the price that needed to be paid to ransom us. Because of Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection, the separation that comes with death is temporary, but the rescue Jesus has given believer’s souls from hell… that’s permanent.
ANNOUNCER: So, it wasn’t anyone’s lack of praying that made the difference here?
KLAUS: No. God doesn’t measure prayers by the pound… a critical mass which must be reached before a prayer is considered worthy of answering. God graciously hears our prayers because Jesus is worthy.
ANNOUNCER: Anything else, you’d like to say?
KLAUS: Yeah, Mark. Some of these people may think that God stopped caring for them, and He’s deserted them. That was not… is not… the case. In all of history, God has only forsaken one person… His Son as He hung on the cross, dying to pay the price for our sins. Several of those miners left good-bye notes. One said, “See you on the other side.” That’s faith. We need to cling to the fact that God allowed His Son to die so that these husbands, fathers, sons, and all of us might know that the grave is not the end, and the resurrection is a reality because of Christ!
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“Just As I Am” arranged by Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
“Jesus Sinners Will Receive” arranged by Henry Gerike. Used by permission
“Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ” by J.S. Bach. From Orgelbüchlein & More Works by J.S. Bach by Robert Clark and John David Peterson (© 1997 Calcante Recordings, Ltd.)
“All People That On Earth Do Dwell” by David Cherwien. From Hymn Interpretations, vol. 1 by David Cherwien (© 1992 Summa Productions)