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Some of you may remember the radio and television ad campaign from several years ago for a company called Nationwide Insurance. With all the shakeups, mergers, and failures in that industry in recent years, I’m not sure they’re even in business today, or at least operating under the same name. Like any human creation, companies come and companies go. Cars and houses, clothing and computers, nations and church bodies, sales and ad campaigns—all these things of mankind’s doing will sooner or later pass away. Even heaven and earth will pass away, Scripture tells us. Only the Word of the Lord—that is, what He has promised to us and to all people—will last forever.
The ad campaign for Nationwide Insurance was memorable not just because it had a catchy little tune to its jingle, but also because of the words that went along with it: “Nationwide is on your side.” It appealed to the very real, very human need in all of us to have an ally, an advocate, someone to care for and support us in a world where danger and disaster lurk around every bend in the road. We want some want to step in and help when we cannot help ourselves, and to speak up for us when we are at a loss for words.
Today’s Gospel lesson describes two miracles. Jesus performs these miracles for people who cannot speak for themselves. The first is a demon-possessed daughter, and the second is a deaf man. In each case someone has to intercede for them. The first account focuses on the conversation which takes place between Jesus and the mother of the demon-possessed daughter. The second account focuses on the means through which Jesus gives hearing and speech to the deaf man.
These two accounts have something else in common—something subtle but very, very important. The Holy Spirit inspired Mark to include in these accounts an itinerary of Jesus’ travels. This helps us understand that Jesus meets these two people in Gentile territory. Mark tells us that the woman who pleads for her demon-possessed daughter was a Gentile, a Syro-Phoenician by birth. In the second portion of the lesson, Jesus is in the in the region of the Decapolis when He restores the man’s hearing, so it is very likely that he too is a Gentile. These two accounts—along with His clear command later to go to all nations and make disciples—show us that Jesus did not come just to serve and save the Jews, but also to serve and save Gentiles, including you and me.
There is much to learn from the account of the woman who pleads on behalf of her daughter. Jesus wants her to learn more about the great gift of faith that she had received from the Holy Spirit, so He tests her faith. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” With these words, Jesus not only tests her faith, but He also gives insight into the cruel attitude that many Jews had toward the Gentiles. It is very likely that some of the people following Jesus agreed with His words and hoped that the woman would now be discouraged and leave.
Those people did not know about the kind of faith that the Holy Spirit was supporting in this woman. She was not going to give up. She answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” The Holy Spirit had created a deep faith in this woman, and He continued to preserve it. If the Lord said she was a dog--well, then she would willingly take a dog’s share of the Lord’s blessing. She would gladly and humbly take whatever crumbs the Lord sent her way.
When Jesus drove out the demon that possessed this woman’s daughter, He was not just driving out a demon. He was opening salvation to people of every tribe and nation. He identified many of the barriers that we have in our lives. Then He broke them down. He was saying that He was for all people in all times and in all places. For if, by grace through faith, He would drive sin and evil out on behalf of this one Gentile, the constancy of His love and holiness would do so for all people by grace, through faith.
From our point of view, a deaf man might not be as dramatic as a demon-possessed daughter. Nevertheless, the man’s inability to hear was still the result of sin in the world. The devil knows that the Holy Spirit plants faith by the Word of God. That same Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write: [Romans 10:17] “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Since the deaf cannot hear the proclamation of the Word of Christ with their ears, they must hear it with their eyes. Someone must make the proclamation of Christ’s Word visible for them. Deafness is one of many barriers that our sin places between us and God.
The true tragedy for people who do not hear is not in those who are physically deaf, but in those who are spiritually deaf. Many people have physical hearing that is just fine, but they choose not to hear God’s message anyway. The excuses for this vary. Some people think they already know everything God has to say to them. Others just don’t care what God has to say. Still others are afraid that they might discover that what they think God’s Word says is not what it actually says; they are afraid that they might discover that they don’t agree with God’s Word. There are many, many other excuses, but there are no good reasons to ignore God’s Word.
Ultimately, spiritual deafness comes from the unholy trinity of the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature. These forces of evil want to separate us from God’s Word so that they can separate us from God—for it is through that Word and only through the operation of that Word in our lives that we become connected and remain connected to God.
The evil within and around us hopes to destroy our faith, and the faith of our children. Their weapon in this war is to keep us away from God’s Word and Sacraments.
But you heard in last week’s Epistle lesson and in Pastor Nuckols’ sermon of the tremendously powerful weapons with which God has equipped you for this battle. Most of them are protective weapons—helmet, shield, breastplate, and so on. They will—for a while, but only for a while—help keep you from injury and from being lost and becoming eternally captive to sin, death, and hell. Yet only one of those weapons of God allows His people to fight back: The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. We can’t lift and wield that sword alone, however. It must be given to us, and it must be proclaimed to us.
Thankfully, God has promised that He will always provide faithful people to proclaim His Word. These people are like the friends of the deaf man who brought him to Jesus or the mother who pleaded for her daughter. These people might be faithful parents who bring their children to baptism and then daily share the teachings of Christ as their children grow up. They might be friends and associates who confess their faith as they live out their vocations in this world. The Holy Spirit works through parents, teachers, friends, neighbors, co-workers, sometimes even through a faithful husband or wife to an unbelieving or wavering spouse, to proclaim God’s Word and so bring people to Christ—once and again, and again, and again. For we all stumble and fall.
There was a time in each of our lives when God worked through others to bring each of us to Christ. As these people confessed their faith to us, Jesus’ words worked in us as they did with the demon-possessed daughter and the deaf man. In the case of the demon-possessed girl, a simple word from Jesus drove the demons from her. In the case of the deaf man, Jesus combined His word with His fingers in the ears and on the tongue to give hearing and speech to the man.
For us, God places His Word in our ears. He touches us in Holy Baptism and continues to keep us in our baptisms as we repeatedly confess our sins and unceasingly receive His forgiveness. He actually comes to us and gives us His own body and blood in the bread and wine of His Supper. God uses these means to which He has bound Himself and His promises to give us forgiveness, life, and salvation. These and these alone are the means through which the Holy Spirit bestows Christ’s gifts.
The Holy Spirit uses these means because these means all connect us to the cross of Jesus Christ. The crucifixion of Jesus happened almost two thousand years ago and more than six thousand miles away from us. No matter how much we might wish or try or pray, we cannot surmount the barrier of time, distance, or culture that separate us from that cross and what the death of sinless Jesus accomplished upon it. Nor can we break down the barrier of our own sinful nature. Just as Jesus broke down the barriers of culture, separation, and communication in today’s Gospel, so God breaks down all the other barriers that stand between us and God. The Holy Spirit uses these external means of Word and Sacrament to transcend these barriers, so that the benefits of the cross—and the empty tomb which followed it—can be yours and mine.
The Holy Spirit eliminates barriers with the Word and tells us of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross. As the Holy Spirit works through the Word we learn that our sin separates us from God, but that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross takes away our sins. We learn that His resurrection from the dead opens for us the way to everlasting life. Through the Word, Christ reveals Himself to us. In that revelation, He also reveals the Father and the Holy Spirit and shows us God’s salvation. The Holy Spirit uses this knowledge to make that salvation personal through His gift of faith.
When the Holy Spirit joins the Word to water and drowns us there, He joins us to Christ’s death, too, so that the price He paid for sin is credited to us. Joined to Christ’s death, we are joined also to His resurrection. We become brothers and sisters of Christ and children of God. We have the privilege to come before God, confess our sins, and receive the enduring comfort of the forgiveness of our sins. We become heirs to eternal life and princes in the kingdom of heaven.
When the Holy Spirit joins the Word to bread and wine, Jesus Himself comes to us in the body He gave for us and in the blood He shed for us. As we take Him into our mouths, He feeds our souls. He strengthens our faith in Him. He has promised us that this sacrament is ours for the forgiveness of sins, and with the forgiveness of sins comes life and salvation.
Through these means, the Holy Spirit brings forgiveness, life, and salvation directly from the cross to us. Without these means, we would have no faith, no forgiveness, no salvation, and our eternity would be more terrifying than anything you could possibly imagine. How thankful we can be that the Holy Spirit works through God’s people—through you and me—to bring the word to others, and to administer these means. As Isaiah was inspired to write: [Isaiah 52:7] How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
God’s process for sustaining Christ’s church in this world is amazing. Just as the mother pleaded for her daughter – just as friends brought the deaf man to Jesus, so also God works through His people to bring His Word into our lives. He brings this word to our ears. He uses the wet Word of Baptism to join us to Christ. Then the Word made flesh comes to us at the Lord’s Table. The Holy Spirit works constantly through this Word to work faith in us and bring us into the Church.
As the Holy Spirit sustains us in the one, true faith, He sends us into the world to confess the faith he has given to us and so in this way to spread His Word throughout the World. We also live out our faith in love and in good works, as St. James’ epistle teaches us today—not because these works save us, but because they demonstrate what God’s love does in the lives of His people.
As we confess and live out our faith in word and deed to family, friends, associates, and all the other people in our lives, He has promised to use our confession to bring others before Christ for healing – the healing that produces faith and delivers forgiveness.
In this way—in this amazingly crazy, incomprehensible, but true and faithful way—Jesus has promised that His message will travel through the entire world, and that His church will grow. In this way, He will bring many from all over the world into heaven to live with Him forever. Amen.
And now may the peace of Christ, which surpasses all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
