*“Violence vs. the Victor”*
Festival of the Reformation (Observed)
St. Matthew 11:12-15
October 27, 2013
22nd Sunday after Trinity—5th Sunday in Angels’ Tide
*IN NOMINE JESU*
“These are troubling times in the kingdom.” We’ve heard this
line for a couple of years on a quirky car insurance commercial. I could
go into all sorts of details in analyzing the advertisement, but I won’t.
I’d much rather be faithful to the text for our meditation this day than to
be progressive. I’d much rather stick with the words of our Lord than to
go with the flow of trying to be cute or clever. One cannot do what one is
not. But that line from that commercial certainly applies to our text, as
well as to the Church today. Jesus said, “From the days of John the
Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent
take it by force” (v. 12). It is certainly troubling when the kingdom of
heaven suffers violence. It is most troubling when the Church is subject
to violent attacks. And it is most definitely troubling when the people of
God are persecuted on account of their faith. The Church was under attack
in the first century, she was under attack in the days of Martin Luther,
and she remains so now in the 21st century.
Even before the earliest days of the Christian Church (when the
Holy Spirit came at Pentecost), the people of God faced persecution and
suffered violence. Do you remember hearing Moses plead to Pharaoh, “Let my
people go”? Jesus lamented over the violence His prophets received at the
hands of the forefathers of the Pharisees: “I send you prophets, wise men,
and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you
will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on
you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of
righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you
murdered between the temple and the altar” (Mt. 23:34-35). John the
Baptist was beheaded. Eleven of the twelve Apostles were martyred, and
John was exiled. The earliest Christians, if captured by the Romans, were
put to death. The Roman Catholics condemned Luther and his writings and
placed a bounty on him. Under communism, many churches were seized and
believers arrested. We could go on and on with the examples of the
violence the Church has suffered through the ages, but we have plenty of
examples from the present time to cite. Look at the Middle East. What is
happening to the Church there? Christians are murdered; church buildings
are desecrated, ransacked, and destroyed—all by adherents to a false,
hypocritical religion that gives lip service to peace and tolerance but in
its writings calls for the slaughter of so-called infidels. Yes, that is
Islam, the Muslims; in Luther’s day they were called the Turks. We could
rant about the persecution Christians have faced here in America, both at
the hands of political correctness and of political policy. Whether at
home or abroad, Christians suffer for their faith, but little is reported
on their suffering. You may be asking yourself why this is so, and the
answer is quite simple: the world doesn’t care. This sinful world doesn’t
care about Christians, Christianity, or even the Christ. This unbelieving
world doesn’t care about God—that is, the one true God, the Triune God:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is because the world is in league with
the devil…and with our sinful nature.
You heard me correctly: “…and with our sinful nature.” We are
no better than they were. We are just as guilty as they were. We too have
done violence to the Church. The violence we have committed we have done
by our silent assent. How active have we been in decrying the violence the
Church has suffered in our day? Or have we kept quiet and shown no concern
for our persecuted and suffering brothers and sisters in Christ? Have we
spent time in prayer, imploring God to ease their burden and to bring their
persecutors to repentance? Do we grieve for those who have died for the
sake of Christ and for the sake of the Gospel, or do we shrug our shoulders
and roll our eyes because it’s not happening to us? We do violence to the
Church when we show no care for our suffering, persecuted, and even
martyred brethren. We do violence to the Church when we do not hear the
Word of the Lord. Just as the Jews in Jesus’ day would not hear John the
Baptist, the Elijah of the New Testament, and his call to repentance, we do
not hear our Lord when He calls us to repent of our sins, including those
sins against His Word—despising preaching and His Word, and not gladly
hearing and learning it. We can sit through a sermon and not get anything
out of it because we don’t bother paying attention to what the pastor, as
God’s prophet here, is saying to us. We get mad because we don’t like what
we do hear: namely that we are sinners who deserve eternal death on account
of our sins, and that there is nothing we can do to satisfy God’s wrath.
We don’t like to hear God’s Law. We also don’t like to hear God’s Gospel,
because we don’t like to hear that Someone else has done the work of saving
us and that there is nothing further we need to do. We don’t like the
Word. That’s because we don’t like Christ, and we don’t like God the
Father Almighty. We as sinners are enemies of God and want nothing to do
with Him and nothing from Him. We do violence to the Church by doing
violence to our own souls, for there is nothing more violent than being in
the eternal fire of hell, forever tormented by the devil.
We want nothing to do with God and we want nothing from Him.
That’s the Old Adam in us doing the talking. We don’t want God, but we
need Him. The new creation wants God in his life and craves what God
desires to give us, the gifts Christ freely gives. What does Christ seek
to freely give us? The gifts He won for us when He died on the cross in
our place. God desires that all people be saved, and to that end God sent
His Son, who knew no sin but became our sin, and died, taking away the sin
of the world, so that we would live with Him in paradise the blest. You
see, there can be no more violence done to the Church than what Christ, the
Head of the Church, the Church’s Bridegroom, suffered for her—that is, what
He suffered for you and for me. There your Savior was, upon the cross:
stricken, smitten, and afflicted; crucified, dead, and buried. He bled and
died for the Church. He bled and died for you and for me. He suffered
violence at the hands of sinful men, so that our burden of suffering would
be lighter, for He knows our burdens, the heaviest being that of our sins.
And just as He forgave those who physically nailed Him to the cross, He
forgives us of our sins that put Him there. He has risen! He is alive!
He is here! He has absolved us. He brings us words of comfort. He feeds
us. In a moment He will feed us on His very body and blood. In a world
full of violence, Jesus comes and brings peace to our souls. When Jesus
comes to us in His Word and Sacraments, He brings heaven down to earth and
brings His gifts to us and for us. When Jesus comes with His gifts, these
are truly glorious times in His kingdom, a foretaste to His glory that
awaits us in heaven, thanks be to God! Amen.
*SOLI DEO GLORIA***
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