Isaiah 35:5-8; 2 Timothy 4:5-18; St Luke 10:1-9
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
God has a strange way of fighting His peoples’ battles. While most commanders build on their strengths, God prefers to build on weakness. He prefers the odds to be against Him.
Consider His strange tactics agains the vicious and mighty Midianites. They were making life a living hell for God’s people. They had destroyed their vegetation, swiped all their livestock, and drove them to live underground in caves (Judges 6). Into that misery God sent Gideon, a most unlikely general. He even gave him 32,000 troops. But to make it an even fight, he needed 100,000 more.
But there would be surge strategy here. Instead, God whittled that tiny army down rom 32,000 to 300 and armed with jars, torches, trumpets and faith. An embarrassing joke of a fighting force. But the joke was on the Midianites. For God won in a route (Judges 7).
Consider His odd way of going toe-to-toe with the harsh Philistines. They had so thoroughly defeated God’s people that 3,000 of them partied hearty on the rooftop of their god’s temple (Judges 16). But there, in prison, betrayed by Delilah, bound with shackles, God has His man. Weak Samson, who had lost his hair, lost his strength, lost his eyeballs, and lost his dignity as he was made to dance while the enemy mocked him.
But weak Samson limped forth in faith. Stretched out his arms against the two pillars of the temple. Prayed to the Lord for strength, and the Philistines hope for dominion came tumbling down (Judges 16).
You heard it today in the Gospel - Jesus continues these strange methods. He appointed and sent out 72 of His disciples into a world held captive by the fiercest and harshest enemy of them all, Satan. He sent them out, as He says, as lambs in the midst of wolves. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
Oddly, though, there were to be no recruiting stations. Only prayer. The mission was urgent and full of uncertainty. It would have seemed wise to load up on provisions. But Jesus insisted they travel light, with only their mouths loaded and ready to speak His Word. It was a mismatch only God could love. And sure enough, the demons were soon submitting and Satan was falling like lightening from the sky (Lk 10:17-21).
St Luke was not an Apostle. But tradition holds that he was among those 72 appointed and dispatched by our Lord Jesus Christ. Himself a Gentile, the only one among the authors not only of the New Testament but the whole of Scripture, St Luke rejoiced that the fulfillment of the old covenant for both Jew and Greek, was coming to every town and place where Luke himself was about to go. He was sent to heal the sick. St Paul once called Luke the beloved physician (Col 4:14). Some medical knowledge and experience would be beneficial for all pastors, I suppose.
But St Luke wasn’t giving checking temperatures and giving vaccines. For all his medical knowledge and skill, there was still no way for him to create or preserve life. Those good and gracious works remain the divine prerogative of God alone. But, as an Evangelist, recording the Word and works of Christ Jesus, our heavenly Physician, St Luke was given the blessed privilege to offer healing and life and eternal salvation in the Cross and Resurrection of his Lord.
Indeed in this way, St Luke held an even higher calling than an earthly doctor. He was called to be a seelsorger, a Doctor of the Soul. He accompanied St Paul on some of his missionary travels. As you heard in the Epistle this morning. He interviewed the Blessed Virgin Mary, recording her eye witness accounts available only in his Gospel. Counting this, along with Acts of the Apostles, St Luke wrote, by divine inspiration, nearly a third of the New Testament.
From St Luke you learn the beloved canticles of the divine liturgy. In the Gloria in Excelsis you sing the song of the angels with the heavenly choirs. Having received the same Christ Child under bread and wine that Simeon held in his arms, you take up his words as you sing the praise of Him who came as a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel.
What delight and privilege it must have been for St Luke to record, then, those precious Word of Jesus, This is My Body. This Cup is the New Testament in My Blood. For here is the Medicine of Immortality, which the crucified and risen Lord Jesus shares in Table Fellowship with sinners. He gives you His Body to eat. He pours out His Blood for you to drink, that you should life forever with Him.
These words from the Gospel according to St Luke and the preaching of these words to you this day, are the living and active Word of Christ Himself, our Beloved Physician of body and soul. For He continues to send out His messengers with His promise: The one who hears you hears Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me, and the one who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me (Lk 10:16).
For this Divine Doctor of the Gospel has already gone so far as to lay down His life for you. He took your place on the Cross and made His bed in your tomb in order to remove all of your sickness and death. In sobriety of mind He endured suffering. He fulfilled His ministry. For Christ Jesus is the Drink Offering and the Grain Offering. The Peace Offering and the Guilt Offering. Thus is St Luke often portrayed with a winged ox, that Old Testament beast of sacrifice. For Christ is the final Once for All Sacrifice.
Risen from the dead, He now comes to visit you with Word, with His own Body and Blood, in order to heal you with His mercy and forgiveness. And to feed you with Himself unto Life immortal. This practice of teaching and table fellowship is well established in St Luke’s Gospel. It is the pattern of our Lord Jesus Christ and of those He sends out in His Name and with His Word. Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace be to this house!” And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide.
In the Acts of the Apostles, St Luke points to the continuation of this healing work of Jesus in the Ministry of His Gospel-Word and Sacraments within His Church on earth. All that He began to do and teach and accomplish, by His nativity in the flesh, by His life, His Cross, His Resurrection and Ascension, He now continues to do and teach through the ministers of His Word.
And this must be the case. As Jesus says to His disciples following His Resurrection, it is divinely necessary that repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached in His Name to all the nations. The Church as a Hospital of the Sin-sick, must remain open. For the Gospel must be delivered to all the world. As it was by the Prophets and Judges, as it was by the Apostles, as it is to this day in Gospel of St Luke, so shall it be to the close of the age through the Office of the Holy Ministry within the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church.
And wherever this Ministry of Christ in His Word and Holy Sacrament is found, there is the Divine Physician continuing to open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf. There does the lame man leap and the tongue of the mute sing for the joy of sins forgiven. For here, within the order of Word and Table, the Divine Service, does our Lord return you to the waters of your Holy Baptism and set you again on the Way of Holiness. That is, on the route after Him in the exodus of your salvation through the Blood of the Passover Lamb.
Thus does He continue, in a strange and seemingly weak way, to preach peace to this House. For it is in preaching that the Kingdom of God comes near as His Word and Sacraments are applied for the healing medicine of the sick. In this way, by His Word, will the Lord rescue you from every evil deed and bring you safely into His heavenly kingdom. To Him, together with the Father + and the Holy Spirit, be glory forever and ever. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
God has a strange way of fighting His peoples’ battles. While most commanders build on their strengths, God prefers to build on weakness. He prefers the odds to be against Him.
Consider His strange tactics agains the vicious and mighty Midianites. They were making life a living hell for God’s people. They had destroyed their vegetation, swiped all their livestock, and drove them to live underground in caves (Judges 6). Into that misery God sent Gideon, a most unlikely general. He even gave him 32,000 troops. But to make it an even fight, he needed 100,000 more.
But there would be surge strategy here. Instead, God whittled that tiny army down rom 32,000 to 300 and armed with jars, torches, trumpets and faith. An embarrassing joke of a fighting force. But the joke was on the Midianites. For God won in a route (Judges 7).
Consider His odd way of going toe-to-toe with the harsh Philistines. They had so thoroughly defeated God’s people that 3,000 of them partied hearty on the rooftop of their god’s temple (Judges 16). But there, in prison, betrayed by Delilah, bound with shackles, God has His man. Weak Samson, who had lost his hair, lost his strength, lost his eyeballs, and lost his dignity as he was made to dance while the enemy mocked him.
But weak Samson limped forth in faith. Stretched out his arms against the two pillars of the temple. Prayed to the Lord for strength, and the Philistines hope for dominion came tumbling down (Judges 16).
You heard it today in the Gospel - Jesus continues these strange methods. He appointed and sent out 72 of His disciples into a world held captive by the fiercest and harshest enemy of them all, Satan. He sent them out, as He says, as lambs in the midst of wolves. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
Oddly, though, there were to be no recruiting stations. Only prayer. The mission was urgent and full of uncertainty. It would have seemed wise to load up on provisions. But Jesus insisted they travel light, with only their mouths loaded and ready to speak His Word. It was a mismatch only God could love. And sure enough, the demons were soon submitting and Satan was falling like lightening from the sky (Lk 10:17-21).
St Luke was not an Apostle. But tradition holds that he was among those 72 appointed and dispatched by our Lord Jesus Christ. Himself a Gentile, the only one among the authors not only of the New Testament but the whole of Scripture, St Luke rejoiced that the fulfillment of the old covenant for both Jew and Greek, was coming to every town and place where Luke himself was about to go. He was sent to heal the sick. St Paul once called Luke the beloved physician (Col 4:14). Some medical knowledge and experience would be beneficial for all pastors, I suppose.
But St Luke wasn’t giving checking temperatures and giving vaccines. For all his medical knowledge and skill, there was still no way for him to create or preserve life. Those good and gracious works remain the divine prerogative of God alone. But, as an Evangelist, recording the Word and works of Christ Jesus, our heavenly Physician, St Luke was given the blessed privilege to offer healing and life and eternal salvation in the Cross and Resurrection of his Lord.
Indeed in this way, St Luke held an even higher calling than an earthly doctor. He was called to be a seelsorger, a Doctor of the Soul. He accompanied St Paul on some of his missionary travels. As you heard in the Epistle this morning. He interviewed the Blessed Virgin Mary, recording her eye witness accounts available only in his Gospel. Counting this, along with Acts of the Apostles, St Luke wrote, by divine inspiration, nearly a third of the New Testament.
From St Luke you learn the beloved canticles of the divine liturgy. In the Gloria in Excelsis you sing the song of the angels with the heavenly choirs. Having received the same Christ Child under bread and wine that Simeon held in his arms, you take up his words as you sing the praise of Him who came as a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel.
What delight and privilege it must have been for St Luke to record, then, those precious Word of Jesus, This is My Body. This Cup is the New Testament in My Blood. For here is the Medicine of Immortality, which the crucified and risen Lord Jesus shares in Table Fellowship with sinners. He gives you His Body to eat. He pours out His Blood for you to drink, that you should life forever with Him.
These words from the Gospel according to St Luke and the preaching of these words to you this day, are the living and active Word of Christ Himself, our Beloved Physician of body and soul. For He continues to send out His messengers with His promise: The one who hears you hears Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me, and the one who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me (Lk 10:16).
For this Divine Doctor of the Gospel has already gone so far as to lay down His life for you. He took your place on the Cross and made His bed in your tomb in order to remove all of your sickness and death. In sobriety of mind He endured suffering. He fulfilled His ministry. For Christ Jesus is the Drink Offering and the Grain Offering. The Peace Offering and the Guilt Offering. Thus is St Luke often portrayed with a winged ox, that Old Testament beast of sacrifice. For Christ is the final Once for All Sacrifice.
Risen from the dead, He now comes to visit you with Word, with His own Body and Blood, in order to heal you with His mercy and forgiveness. And to feed you with Himself unto Life immortal. This practice of teaching and table fellowship is well established in St Luke’s Gospel. It is the pattern of our Lord Jesus Christ and of those He sends out in His Name and with His Word. Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace be to this house!” And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide.
In the Acts of the Apostles, St Luke points to the continuation of this healing work of Jesus in the Ministry of His Gospel-Word and Sacraments within His Church on earth. All that He began to do and teach and accomplish, by His nativity in the flesh, by His life, His Cross, His Resurrection and Ascension, He now continues to do and teach through the ministers of His Word.
And this must be the case. As Jesus says to His disciples following His Resurrection, it is divinely necessary that repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached in His Name to all the nations. The Church as a Hospital of the Sin-sick, must remain open. For the Gospel must be delivered to all the world. As it was by the Prophets and Judges, as it was by the Apostles, as it is to this day in Gospel of St Luke, so shall it be to the close of the age through the Office of the Holy Ministry within the one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church.
And wherever this Ministry of Christ in His Word and Holy Sacrament is found, there is the Divine Physician continuing to open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf. There does the lame man leap and the tongue of the mute sing for the joy of sins forgiven. For here, within the order of Word and Table, the Divine Service, does our Lord return you to the waters of your Holy Baptism and set you again on the Way of Holiness. That is, on the route after Him in the exodus of your salvation through the Blood of the Passover Lamb.
Thus does He continue, in a strange and seemingly weak way, to preach peace to this House. For it is in preaching that the Kingdom of God comes near as His Word and Sacraments are applied for the healing medicine of the sick. In this way, by His Word, will the Lord rescue you from every evil deed and bring you safely into His heavenly kingdom. To Him, together with the Father + and the Holy Spirit, be glory forever and ever. Amen.
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