Second Sunday After Pentecost (A) 2017

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: Matthew 9:36
Theme: A Shepherd For The Sheep

Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

Prayer is the continuous voice of the faithful petitioning the ears of the Almighty. Prayer has cadence and rhythm, peaks and troughs, but it is never stilled. The Lord places a yearning in our hearts and we speak it back to Him. The cessation of prayer means the end of mortality and the commencement of eternity. It means all the answers have been made and all the blessings have been given. Today, Jesus tells His disciples to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His fields. A harvest is ready to be reaped and there are too few to do it.

So, today Jesus gave the Twelve authority over evil spirits and the power to heal people of their ailments. These gifts were a powerful sign that the kingdom of God had arrived in the person of Jesus. Christ is master over all the consequences of a corrupted world. He gives sight to the blind, recovery of movement to the disabled, and restoration of health to those with terminal illness. Still, the core business of the disciples, who were sent out by the Lord of the harvest, was not the alleviation of temporal suffering. Jesus Himself, didn’t heal everyone in one fell swoop. Renewal of mind or body always served the restoration of the soul.

The mission of the church is always holistic. People are complex spiritual and physical entities. Yet, whether the particular aspect of the mission involves compassion, charity, teaching, or warning, it should always reflect the humility of Christ and point people towards Him. Charity apart from Christ is philanthropy, kindness without Him is humanitarianism, admonition is social consciousness. Christians are freed to serve others and make sacrifices not in the hope of gaining recognition or reward, but because they believe God provides all things in Christ. We can risk, we can sacrifice, we can make ourselves vulnerable because God is trustworthy. We do not have to promote ourselves to Him. Unbelief cannot comprehend the confidence the Spirit gives to the faithful. It is a peace the world cannot understand.

Remember, Satan's schemes are spiritually-focused. He cares little about the offences of unbelievers against God or people. He already has them on side. The devil expends his energy on Christians. Every falsehood and half-truth he propagates has the common purpose of planting seeds of doubt about God's reliability. He makes every effort to discredit the Scriptures or disconnect us from them. Without the Scriptures, we cannot have saving knowledge of the true God. Human opinion, regardless of how rational or practical it seems can never be an infallible guide for faith and life. True knowledge of God was lost with the fall into sin. That knowledge is recovered only in the revelation of the gospel.

You cannot lift yourself up to God. He reaches down to you. Jesus described the crowds today as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”1 We’re no different until the Holy Spirit reaches us with the gospel, until He cleanses us with baptismal water and kindles faith in our hearts. It’s not healthy people that need a doctor, but those who are sick. If we were righteous on our own we would have no worries before God. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”2

We can’t opt out of original sin. No one can decide not to be a sinner. Certainly, you can and should be determined not to commit sin. We should pray that the Holy Spirit would shape our thoughts, filter our words, and govern our actions to the end that we might not offend God or harm our neighbour. The regenerated person, the person converted from unbelief to faith, seeks to walk in step with the Spirit. Still, we remain sinners in reality and in truth. We stand in need of grace…always. The soul always needs to be fed with His sacred food. Perhaps you’ve heard it said that when we approach God in the Divine Service we shouldn’t be saying, “I, a poor helpless sinner,”3 as we do in the confession of sins? Perhaps you’re tempted to question whether we deserve punishment “in time and eternity.”4 Such thoughts seem quite rational. How could God be so harsh as to condemn a person who tries their best? And haven’t our sins been previously forgiven anyway?

Dear friends, we need the forgiveness of sins with the same regularity we eat food and breathe air. If we don’t attend regularly to our personal hygiene, we’ll soon notice. Or, at least, others will! The same is true for our spiritual lives. The moment we think forgiveness is optional, unnecessary, or redundant is the very hour we are in danger. Who are we to throw down the challenge before the Almighty? Who are we to question His justice? We are the mortals. He is eternal. He is not vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the cosmos. He upholds the very fabric of the universe.

We have no negotiating power before Him. We bring nothing to the table. But, dear friends, we do not stand before Him alone. There is One who is more than worthy to speak on our behalf. There is One who lived in perfect obedience and died in perfect sacrifice. The Scripture says, “We have One who speaks to the Father in our defence- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”5 We stand in the grace of Christ. Still, we yearn to have the promise of His absolution comfort our souls. There is no contradiction in these realities.

Today, Jesus had compassion on the crowds. Can we measure the compassion of Christ? St. Paul prays for the Christians in Ephesus asking that they, “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”6 The mercy of Christ, His unconditional sacrificial love can only be grasped by faith. Otherwise, He appears at best by human reason to be a benevolent martyr. But an example of altruism doesn’t begin to characterize the work of Christ for us and for our salvation. His terrifying death on the cross and glorious resurrection from the dead express to us Good News that simply cannot be overstated. Sin, death, Satan and hell are defeated by the Lamb of God slain for the sins of the world. Whatever other enemies we have besides these are insignificant in the end. The Saviour says, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”7

Therefore, we are content, but we are always yearning. It’s similar to having true peace in a chaotic world. Remember what the apostle said today, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”8 He will not disappoint us. He will gather His harvest. Amen.


+ In nomine Jesu +

Second Sunday After Pentecost
18 June 2017
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 Matthew 9:36
2 Romans 5:8
3 LH page 6
4 LH page 6
5 1 John 2:1-2
6 Ephesians 3:18-19
7 John 10:28
8Romans 5:1-2