Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity: October 10, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

The very fact that you are here today, the reality of your sitting in this holy place in the presence of God is truly a miracle. More likely than not, the fact that you have faith in Jesus Christ and are not lost in despair and unbelief is in some way due to the efforts of others. It all started with your parents, for they heeded the Divine command to protect life even as that life, your life and body, was forming in the womb. Perhaps also it was those same people who trusted in the salvation of their Lord that is found in the waters of Holy Baptism. Because of the faith that the Holy Spirit created in their hearts, they brought you to the font so that you would receive that same washing of rebirth and renewal for yourself.

Perhaps, though, other people besides your natural parents were involved, and because of their love for you and their desire for you to have faith, that’s what made it possible for you to be near Jesus. A few of you may have wandered and strayed from the Christianity you had embraced as a child, and thanks in part to a devout and faithful mentor, Christ your good Shepherd brought you back into His fold.

What could you possibly owe these spiritual fathers and mothers in thanksgiving for such a great and lasting gift? Nothing, really. For it was God working through them who did everything. He was the one who gave you the faith that receives His gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation. They were His instruments. Of course, because of their faith in Christ, they prayed for you, and took time and other personal resources so that it all could come about, but they could not believe for you. Really, all they needed to do was to bring you near Jesus and He did the rest.

For this is exactly how God’s kingdom comes among us, it is how He gives us His Holy Spirit so that by His grace we believe His Holy Word and lead godly lives both here in time and hereafter in eternity. This does not happen automatically, there is no angel dropping down out of heaven to cram salvation down your throat.

Nor is it because of your personal choice, as if God would leave your eternal fate solely up to your own decision. In His Word, in Baptism, in Holy Communion, your Lord is with you, drowning the sinful Old Adam that you are and raising you back to life as a new creation. He gives the gifts and He creates the faith in your heart that receives these gifts. His salvation is truly yours, full and free from the mouth of Jesus.

And those who brought you near this Jesus, this wellspring of salvation, they may never even realize what God did through them. I would guess that a few of you can think of at least one time when you were surprised that you actually “got through” to someone whom you were carefully and prayerfully working on. Whether you are aware of it or not, your heavenly Father has created you to be His instrument to bring others into His presence. He has placed you in your specific calling and vocation in life to do this very thing—whether you are a mom at home, a student at school, a worker on the job or a retired grandparent. Every day, God sets people in your path as it were for you to bring them near Jesus.

Has there been a time when you failed to bring someone before the Lord when you had the chance? Maybe it seemed too hard or you were just too busy to take the time necessary. Your prayers for people such as these have often wavered and eventually you forget all about them. Perhaps you felt that they didn’t deserve your constant attention. They were unresponsive to your efforts or ungrateful one too many times and rather than recognizing your concern, they treated you like dirt and so you decide it’s all right now to give up on them; all the while telling yourself that it’s not worth the effort anymore.

Attitudes such as these are part and parcel of your sinful human nature, your flesh that would follow your own lead rather than submit to God’s will. As a sinner, standing on your own before God you are not like those four men who opened the roof of that crowded house and lowered their friend to Jesus. You are instead the paralytic, unable to overcome the sin and doubt that renders you unable to move. You can do nothing to change your debilitated situation. Even if you are helpful and do good things for others, the pride in your heart puffs up and you remain spiritually crippled. You can try to lead others to believe that you are righteous, caring, fully committed to your church and family—and you may convince them. But to God, who sees all and will judge all on the Last Day, you by yourself are able to please Him and keep His commandments just as much as that paralytic is able by himself to break the world record in hurdles. It’s simply not going to happen.

However, it is to a paralytic such as you that your Lord Jesus speaks these healing words: “Your sins are forgiven.” Who can forgive sins but God alone? Indeed Jesus Christ is God alone. Only God alone, the Son of Man, can make the paralytic walk again. He is God who alone lived a perfect life in total obedience to the Father’s will. He is God alone who was fully committed to rescue you in your sorry state. He is God who went to the cross—alone—and took the full punishment for sin that you had deserved—He is God alone.

And so, He alone has authority on earth to forgive sins, and following His resurrection from the dead, He proclaims that daily He has compassion on you, He treads your iniquities under foot, and He casts all your sins into the depths of the sea. Each day you die and are buried together with Him in Baptism, and each day you arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. His forgiveness is healing even for you. You are no longer paralyzed in your sins, but freed from them. You are free to do what you’ve been created to do: that is, love God and serve your neighbors, thinking of their every need, and bringing them near the healing hand and life-giving mouth of Jesus.

Whenever you hear the healing word of Jesus, He is near. If you hear in this place that your sins are forgiven, then I urge you to believe it, because Jesus is here speaking with all His authority behind it. If you hear that the bread you eat is the Body of Christ and the chalice you drink pours forth His precious Blood, then say Amen to God’s promise and His gift.

The Son of Man’s authority to forgive sins is exercised in this place on earth up to this very day, and God willing, it will until the Lord returns in glory on the Last Day. As Jacob said after his vision of the ladder to heaven, this truly is none other than the house of God, the very gate to heaven. We find out later in the Bible that this ladder, this connection between God and Man, is Christ crucified Himself.

And so give thanks to Jesus for those faithful believers in your life who brought you near Him. Give thanks for our church, our schools and other organizations whom God uses to do this sort of thing on a regular basis. And remember, your Jesus heals you with His forgiveness. He who is able to give life and strength to the paralytic bids you arise, sins forgiven, your disease taken away.

He did not let the sun go down on the Father’s punishing anger that Good Friday without achieving full reconciliation with you. That anger has turned away, now all God has toward you is love, you have put on the new self, and you now have an ever-renewed love for your neighbor. And as the paralyzed man went home that day healed and renewed, you will be sure one day to go to your home in heaven, and gladly await your own resurrection.

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

Readings:
    Gen. 28:10–17 a ladder was set up…its top reached to heaven
    Psalm 84 O LORD of hosts, Blessed is the man who trusts in You!
    Eph. 4:22–28 put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man
    Matt. 9:1–8 which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’?