Trinity 18
This sermon is from Oct. 11. We had a Baptism on this day. The Gospel was Matthew 22:34-46.
I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Try Jesus.” The Lutheran in me immediately thinks of the Catechism question, “What does this mean?” But let’s just make it simpler. “Try Jesus”? Why? Why should I?
To “try Jesus” is the language of marketing, or advice. It’s pragmatic. And worst, it’s subjective. It worked for me, maybe it’ll work for you. There’s no one truth – just whatever feels right to you. Oh, you’re using the Schick razor? Try Gillette! Coffee too hard on your stomach? Try tea.
Jesus isn’t a product that you “try.” We must not be Christians, or even Lutherans, because it’s what most comfortable to us, what we’re used to, or what seems to be working. We should be Christians because it’s true. We should be disciples of Jesus because He is the truth.
It’s not easy. From our experiences in this life, it might not seem to be working at all. Being a faithful Christian might cost you a friendship, a job, your marriage. Can you imagine interviewing the martyrs throughout Christian history just before they were burned, beheaded, or thrown to wild beasts, and asking them, “Why should I be a Christian?” Do you think they would answer, “Because you’ll have your best life now!”? When the fire is lit, when the lions are released, it might seem that Christianity doesn’t “work.” Who wants to try something that might get you killed?
If Jesus was selling a product, He was a terrible pitchman. He fed 5,000 men, plus women and children, and attracted an enormous following. And then He said, “But wait, there’s more!” “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” This, it turns out, was not savvy marketing. “Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” And the large crowd dispersed. They went away. St. John tells us, “They walked with Him no more.”
But Twelve stayed. The thousands were gone. The people who wanted to make Jesus king had turned on Him. It must have seemed a completely failed effort. Only Twelve left.
I heard a mission guru speak recently. He said we can’t start a new church unless there will be at least 200 in attendance at the first service. Anything less, statistics supposedly show, is doomed to failure.
What would the mission gurus have thought about Jesus’ sermon about eating His body and drinking His blood? Highly impractical. And when His following drops to Twelve, it’s certainly time to withdraw funding. Bring in an entrepreneur, someone who knows how to draw a crowd and keep them happy.
So Jesus turns to that ragtag band of former tax collectors and fishermen, and says, “Do you also want to go away?” And Simon Peter responds with stunning words, one of the most important utterances in the history of the world: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” [Jn. 6:68-69].
Note what Peter’s words are based on: He needs someone to go to. Someone who can help. Someone who can save. Save from death. From hell. It’s not a matter of trying Jesus to improve your life now; it’s a matter of clinging to the One who has “the words of eternal life.”
Jesus is that One because, as Peter confesses, Jesus is the Christ. Christ means Messiah, Anointed One. This morning Seth was anointed, christened, “Christ-ened.” Baptism joined Seth to the Christ.
That’s why the question Jesus asks the Pharisees in today’s Gospel is so vitally important: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” If the Christ is just the Son of David, then he is just a man. The son of a great man, to be sure – a king, a musician, a poet, a general, a giant-slayer – but still, just a man.
But David, the Scriptures say, also prophetically called the Christ his Lord – God in the flesh. The Christ who would come from David’s line would be both David’s son and David’s LORD; both the Son of Man and the Son of God; true man, born of the virgin Mary, and also true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity.
We need that kind of Christ, that kind of Messiah, because neither we, nor any man, could ever do what God demands in the Law. We cannot love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, mind; we love ourselves far too much, we give in to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life far too easily. We do not love our neighbors as ourselves, for again, we put ourselves first, look out for our self-interest above all.
That’s why we bring a child like Seth to the font straightway when he is born. He needs the Christ now, just as much – no, more than he needs food and drink, clothing and parents. Most things parents give their children are for this life only; but by Rob and Kathy bringing Seth to be baptized, they are saying in essence, “Dear Father in heaven, there is something we cannot give our child, something he needs most of all – he needs to be accepted and embraced by You; he needs the salvation found only in Your Son, Jesus the Christ. Lord, to whom shall we go? Only in your Son is eternal life, and this we ask that you give our son, all by your grace.”
So how do you answer the question, “What do you think about the Christ?” How do you answer the question, “To whom shall we go?” How do you answer the question of Jesus, when things get tough, “Do you also want to go away?”
There is only one thing to say. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. You are the Christ, true man and true God. I have not loved You with my whole heart. I have not loved my neighbor as myself. But You died on the cross and rose from the grave for me. In Baptism You forgave my sins and joined me to Yourself. You give me Your body to eat and Your blood to drink, and so You will raise me up at the last day. There is nothing else I need, nothing else to try. There is nothing else to be done, for You have done everything already.”
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