Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Jesus was the man to whom the prophet Isaiah refers when he writes: He was despised and rejected. (Isaiah 53) And Jesus was despised and rejected no more strongly than among His own people. In the very city of Nazareth, in which the Son of God grew up as Mary’s Son, He received one of the worst welcomes. They thought of Him as the “kid who lived down the block.” They could not accept the miraculous wonders that came from the Words of His mouth and the laying on of His hands. Only a few people, perhaps they were desperate for help, but they were the ones to whom God gave faith to receive His healing. So Jesus speaks His rebuke: “A Prophet is not without honor (‘not without’ means He is well-liked), except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”

He says this not so that you’d feel sorry for Him. The Gospel according to Mark tells us Jesus marveled at His fellow Nazarenes’ unbelief, but this isn’t like it hit Him unawares. He knew, He even decreed through the ancient prophets that many would reject Him, even those people He might have thought He could trust for support. He was the one who told Ezekiel, I am sending you to the stubborn and obstinate people of Israel. They will refuse to hear you, but you are going to preach to them anyway. Although it won’t look like you’ll have success, you’re going to give them My Word. For Jesus, the Prophet above all other prophets, the One who gave the Holy Spirit to all the prophets of the Old Testament, He is still not without honor. This means that He will receive the honor that is rightfully due to Him, just not from the place you would think.

Instead, Jesus receives honor from the weak, the desperate, and the sinful. They are mentioned even in the Bible account merely as a parenthesis: as if it were to say, the whole population of Nazareth rejected Jesus, oh, and by the way, He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. Now, important people can give honor, but these people who barely get a mention have little more honor than a stray dog. But I tell you—these people are the ones we should pay attention to! Those who believe in Him are not the ones who think they can have it their own way. They understand that Christ came as a doctor not for those who pretend they are healthy, but for those who acknowledge that they are incurably sick. They’re desperate for healing and nothing else matters to them.

That is who you are. You regularly admit here in this place that you are a poor miserable sinner. You know you have no choice but to confess that you have the bad habit of lashing out in anger or frustration against your friends and the loved ones in your own family. Perhaps it’s just in your thoughts or online communications. You realize that, because of your sins, you have no claim on the Lord, no reason why He should love you as He does, except that the Lord Himself came to rescue you from your debilitating sin. And by that, He is honored.

For Jesus Christ, Son of God and the Son of the Virgin Mary, set aside all His heavenly honor and power and humbled Himself, but not just when He became a human being. For He could have come as a mighty king, arrayed in finer wealth than King Solomon and Bill Gates combined. All honor in heaven and earth could have been laid at His human feet while sitting in glory on every earthly throne—and it still would have been a humbling experience for the Eternal Son of God the Father. But, He humbled Himself further than just becoming a man—He became a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53) He became the lowliest of men, the miserable, suffering servant of all people. He not only set aside His eternal crown as King of the Universe, but He also replaced that crown with a crown of thorns.

And finally, it is on the cross that you see your Lord who is worthy of all honor. Christ crucified; this is your Lord in all His ironic glory. It is also the glory and honor that He chooses to give to you. It may not be His will that you are successful in earthly things. He may have other plans than for you to get that job or promotion that you’ve been hoping for, that big goal that you’re setting your heart on. But that doesn’t mean that you didn’t pray hard enough or that He doesn’t love you. He can say to you much like He said to the Apostle Paul, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. And His will is going to continue as it has in this dying world even if our magnificent plans never materialize, whether it’s a revived Sunday School or a standing-room-only church attendance, or offering plates overflowing. That doesn’t mean that our Lord would not bless these things and use them to do His will in spite of sinful people like all of us, myself included, who love to meddle and put in our two cents’ worth. Reports from the mission field in places like Madagascar amaze us at how God’s work is being done among millions of Lutherans in a whole different-looking way than it is over here, but it is no more and no less the will of God in either place. We also rejoice in the fact that the far-flung mission field has saved us the travel trouble and has come right here in our own area!

You see, Christ does not need us in order for Him to receive His honor. Following His death on the cross, by which He destroyed the devil and murdered death itself, He rose from the dead in magnificent glory and almighty power. And then, when He comes straight to you, the sinner, He holds out His nail-marked hand and says, Your sins and your rebellion against me are all forgiven! Be free, and allow me to fill you with my flesh and blood and make you my holy temple. I will revive and restore your sin-sick body and soul with my glorious and vibrant resurrected body and Spirit. And for you simply to receive such a gift from your Lord Jesus is really to give Him all honor in heaven and on earth. For it is not your holiness and good deeds nor your involvement in worship that renders Him honor, even if you were the holiest and most pious. Instead, He is truly honored when you say Amen, it shall be so, Amen, the gift is received.

And so, you too have the honor that belongs only to Jesus, because He dwells in you and you in Him. You have His honor because you have His Word, His all-powerful Word. It is the same Word that He gave to those disciples whom He sent out to teach right after the story of His rejection. You would think that those twelve preachers would be discouraged right after that negative encounter happened in Nazareth. And no doubt that those apostles faced plenty of rejection themselves. Many of them would suffer the ultimate persecution of martyrdom, not long after Jesus ascended into heaven. But they had God’s Word on their lips and in their hearts. And right away Christ was accomplishing through those men the same things He was doing Himself. So you, as God’s holy people, have that same powerful Word entering your ears this very day. And as you receive that Word and all the forgiveness, life and salvation that that Word brings, your Lord is honored and glorified.

God continues to give His Word into the mouths of His New Testament prophets and servants of the Word. Many new pastors are being ordained this summer. They too will learn that honor will come from the most unlikely of places, but most of all it springs from the Word that they will have no other choice but to preach and from the Holy Sacraments that they must administer following the commands of Jesus. Without this, they would have no honor, even from the poor souls they seem to help, because without the Word of God they would be no better than missionaries of the devil. But through all the trials, and despite the many and various “thorns in the flesh,” they may have to suffer, Christ’s honor and power will be made complete and perfect in the weakness of this world. As a despised and rejected Christian who boasts not in yourself but in the power of God hidden in weakness, you too will be not without honor.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:

Isaiah 53 Surely He has borne our griefs

Ezek. 2:1–5 you shall say to them ‘Thus says the LORD God!’
Ps. 123 as the eyes of the servants look to the hand of their masters, … So our eyes look to the LORD our God,
2 Cor. 12:1–10 a thorn in the flesh … My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.
Mark 6:1–13 A prophet is not without honor…out two by two