[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints of God, the text takes us back 1,987 years and a few months to a debate between
Jesus and the scribes and the Pharisees in the temple in Jerusalem.
You guys can say to me, now Pastor, don’t we have enough debates now to worry about?
I mean, aren’t there enough debates happening at this very moment for us to give our attention
to in Washington, at the Supreme Court, just down the street at our own Capitol and in
our own city?
Aren’t there enough fights happening now that we don’t need to go back to this old fight?
Don’t we have enough to worry about with the pandemic and with fires and floods and elections
and nominations and civil unrest and the great sort of reshuffling of the world that we’re
experiencing right now, well, I want to suggest to you that this fight between Jesus andâ¦
and the Pharisees, this argument, what they’re fighting about is⦠is more important than
any of our current fights. And the winner of this debate matters more than any debate
that we might have in the upcoming weeks.
What was it about?
The Pharisees were challenging the legitimacy
of Jesus’ ministry.
They said, by what authority are you doing these things?
Now, what are they referring to?
They probably still have in their mind
the events of two days previous, or one day, the day before,
when Jesus came into the temple and overturned the money changers, that was, excuse me, not
on Palm Sunday. That was on Holy Monday, the day before. They probably have in mind when
Jesus drove out all the sellers with a court of whips and said, you’ve turned my father’s
house into a den of thieves, which should be a house of prayer for all nations. That’s
Remember, it notes in the text after the, especially after the Sermon on the Mount,
it notes that Jesus, the crowds marveled because Jesus taught as one having authority,
not like the scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus in his preaching would say,
you’ve heard it said before, but I say to you, Jesus acted as if his words were God’s words
because, after all, they were God’s words.
And so the Pharisees asked,
by what authority do you do this?
By what authority do you claim to stand in the temple
and teach God’s word?
By what authority do you cleanse the temple?
By what authority do you act as if your words were God’s words?
Now Jesus answers,
and we see the answer is a little bit of a riddle.
We see it’s, in some ways, a trick question that Jesus asks. He says, before I answer
your question, you’re going to have to answer my question. The baptism of John, was it from
God or was it from man? And they didn’t know how to answer. The crowds, remember, loved
John the Baptist. It’s maybe one of the things that we ought to remember about the Scriptures.
We sometimes lose this, that John the Baptist was probably, in his day, more popular than
Jesus Himself. I mean remember when St. Paul went to Ephesus 30, 20 years after the crucifixion,
he found disciples of John the Baptist there in Ephesus, this city there. So the word of
John the Baptist had really spread. He was wildly popular, and the crowds loved John
the Baptist, and they all considered him a prophet. So Jesus says, John the Baptist,
was he a prophet or was he not? Was his baptism legitimate or was it not? And the Pharisees
and the scribes are stuck. They don’t know how to answer. They don’t want to give John
any legitimacy because after all, John pointed to Jesus and said, behold the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world. So they don’t want to give any legitimacy to John,
but nor do they want to deny that of John because they knew how popular he was, and
they knew that the crowds would revolt, and so they simply refused to answer the question.
They say, we don’t know.
The baptism of John, was it from heaven or was it from earth?
And they said, they discussed it among themselves, saying, if we say it’s from heaven, he will
say to us, why then do you not believe him?
But if we say it’s from man, we’re afraid of the crowd, for they hold John was a prophet.
So they answered Jesus, we don’t know.
And Jesus said, then neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
But, but, here’s the thing I don’t, I want, I want us not to miss.
Because we all, I think we read this like a trick question.
Like Jesus says, if you’re not going to answer my question,
then I’m not going to answer your question.
So you’re out of luck, buddy.
I’m not going to tell you guys anything.
But in fact, Jesus does answer their question
with his own question.
When Jesus says, John’s baptism,
was it from heaven or was it from earth?
Jesus is saying, my authority to do these things
comes from John.
I was ordained by John. John the Baptist, the last of the prophets of the Old Testament,
is the one who put me into the office of Messiah.
In other words, Jesus is pointing to his baptism and saying,
my authority comes from that moment.
When the Holy Spirit descended from heaven,
that is when Jesus was anointed, christened as the Christ,
messiahed as the Messiah and put into the office of the Savior of the world so that
the things that Jesus does, His teaching, His miracles, His works, His suffering, His
death, and His resurrection are all done rightly.
He has the office, the calling from God to do these things.
Now this is important. One of the problems that we face in our own day, and even inâ¦
and well, maybe also let me just speak for myself for a couple of minutes. One of the
difficulties I have, and I think it’s⦠I’m a child of my own age. I grew up when
I grew up, and I lived where I lived, and one of the results is that the idea of office
doesn’t matter as much to me as it does in the Bible. The idea of being called to do
something doesn’t matter to me as much as it ought to, according to the Scriptures.
I think, well, if someone can do it, then they ought to do it. It doesn’t matter if they’re
called to do it or not, you know. But that is not the mind of God, and it is not the
thinking of the Scriptures. It’s not the thinking of the church. I remember reading
this very powerful discussion by Martin Luther. It’s how he starts his commentary on Galatians.
And he says, one ought not to preach or teach unless they’ve been called to do so. Luther
says, even if I have the ability and the capacity to go to a town next door and to preach the
gospel to them and to save them and rescue them from the lies of the devil and from the
corruption of false doctrine. Even if I could do it, I should not do it unless I’m called
to do it. Because unless you have the calling of God, unless you have the certainty of being
put in the office, you cannot have the confidence that God will bless the work. And so this
question from the Pharisees is in fact a legitimate question. Jesus, do you have the
authority to cleanse the temple, to teach the people, to be the Messiah? And the answer
that we have here is yes.
Maybe one quick parallel. We’ll finish with this idea. One of the questions that I’m often
asked as a pastor when people will visit other places, for example, for the Lord’s Supper,
Supper, and something will be funny or strange about the way that the church celebrated the
Lord’s Supper, and so I’ll be asked, pastor, was it really the Lord’s Supper? Was it right?
Was it valid? Was it true? I remember, well, I remember my mom called me one time. She
went out of the service and pretended like she was going to the bathroom and called me
and said, is it really the Lord’s Supper or not? Trying to figure this out. Is it valid
or not? This is a question. Is the baptism valid or not? Is the preaching valid or not?
Is the Lord’s Supper valid or not? Is the absolution valid or not? Well, this text takes
us right to the cross of Jesus and said, was that valid? Did Jesus have the office? Was
He doing what He was authorized to do by God the Father? And the answer that we have is
Yes, Jesus is truly the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the one put into the office
by God the Father through his baptism in the Jordan River so that all that he did is true
and it is true for us.
His suffering, his death, his resurrection, his ascension to the right hand of God the
Father, all of these things are true and valid and good so that we can rejoice that Jesus
is truly the Christ of God, the Messiah. May God grant us this confidence that as we see
the work of Jesus unfolding, that we rejoice that that is also for us. May God grant it
for Christ’s sake, amen.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding,
guard your hearts and your minds
through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.
