Sermon: Oculi - 2019

24 March 2019

Text: Luke 11:14-28 (Ex 8:16-24, Eph 5:1-9)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Some people don’t know who Jesus is.  It’s our job as the church to tell them.  For me, especially as a preacher and teacher, I am specifically called to do this. 

Some people don’t know who Jesus is because they have never heard of Him.  Some have only heard distortions.  But there are others who know very well who He is, but refuse to believe that He is God in the flesh, that He came to rescue us from the devil, from the world, and from our own sinful nature.

This latter group is hostile to Jesus.  And rather than submit to Him, that is, rather than to submit to the Truth, they create an alternate “truth” in their own minds.  That is, they cling to a false narrative, one in which good is evil, evil is good, and each individual defines reality for himself.  In other words, where anyone can “be like God.”  And in this diabolical “did God actually say?” narrative, Jesus is not Lord, not Savior, but is rather some kind of fraud or magician.

In this false narrative, Jesus casts out demons by means of demons.  In this diabolical story, Jesus is more like the Pharaoh’s magicians who replicate some of the signs of Moses by means of tricks or by summoning dark spiritual forces.

To those who don’t believe in Jesus – for whatever reason – but whose minds are open, and whose hearts are held captive to the truth (wherever it may be found), to such people, Jesus is gentle.  He tells parables to teach the truth.  He quotes Scripture to prove who He is.  He teaches in some ways like Socrates.  For He is the Divine Logos, the very Logic of the universe that He created.  To such people, Jesus is the patient teacher.

But to those who know the truth but rebel against it, to those who choose the narrative of the alluring lie over the confession of the inconvenient truth, to those who call good "evil" and who call Jesus the lord of the demons – Jesus is not gentle.  He makes no attempt to win them over with parables, but rather condemns them in the language of those same parables.  To such people, he quotes Scripture as damnation, and rather than guiding the willing toward the truth, He lays bare the truth that enrage His hostile opponents.

In other words, He treats them the same way that He treats the demons: as their master, without mercy, and in such a way as to protect those who are willing to submit to the truth by casting out those who refuse to believe the truth.

Why wouldn’t Jesus just be nice?  Why can’t He just let people believe whatever they want to believe? 

Our Lord drops a line that could be described today as “trolling.”  That is, He says something deliberately offensive to those who are attacking Him: “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?”  This term “finger of God” was used in our Old Testament reading.  Moses was bringing the judgments of God upon the Pharaoh – who believed himself to be a god.  Pharaoh’s priests and magicians complained that the plagues happening to the people of Egypt were caused by the “finger of God.”

Pharaoh wasn’t just innocently ignorant of the true God.  Pharaoh was “hard-hearted” that is, willfully stubborn and in rebellion against the Word of God.  And so the plagues escalated until finally, death itself would force Pharaoh to release the children of Israel from slavery.  But even then, Pharaoh did not repent.  Pharaoh sent chariots to attack the unarmed Israelites who were trapped on the beaches of the Red Sea. 

And in the process of this attack, the finger of God opened the waters, and Pharaoh’s world-class imperial army was wiped out, horse and rider drowned in the sea.  Pharaoh’s false narrative of divinity was indeed pointed out by none other than the finger of God.

And Jesus is telling His heard-hearted deniers of truth that He is casting out the demons by the very same finger of God that condemned Pharaoh.  The hands of Jesus, the hands that were to be pierced by nails at the cross, are the very hands that created the universe, the hands that reach out to us to save us, and are also the hands that will cast the devil and his adherents into the lake of fire.

“Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters.”

Dear friends, what you think about Jesus matters, and matters eternally.  Jesus is not vain Pharaoh or ambitious Caesar.  Jesus is not the megalomaniac Napoleon or the madman Hitler.  Nor has Jesus come into our world to teach us to be virtuous.  You already know the Ten Commandments.  Jesus has come into our world to point the finger of God at the demons to cast them into hell, and to use the finger of God to point us to salvation and eternal life – by means of Truth, by means of Himself.

And anyone who calls Jesus "evil" is not merely misguided or mistaken, but is rather malicious, doing the work of the evil one, advancing the lie instead of confessing the Truth.  Our blessed Lord has no patience for demons and their Pharaohs, past or present.  In fact, Jesus has come to cast out the demons from us and to drown our Old Adam and his self-serving “Did God actually say?” narrative in baptismal water, so that a New Man might emerge, the redeemed sinner who looks to where the finger of God points, confesses this as truth, and follows that Truth wherever it may lead – even to the cross.

And that truth, dear friends, also leads to eternal life, life as God planned it, before we chose the lie over the Truth, before we sided with the demons who invade us over the angels who minister to us.  Our eternal life, dear friends, is a life of paradise, without sin, without suffering, and without death – according to God’s will, by means of His love.  The life delivered to us by the finger of God in Jesus Christ, by means of His blood shed upon the cross, delivered through His blessed Word and sacraments – is the life of love about which St. Paul speaks to us again.

“Walk in love,” says the Apostle, “as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”  That eternal life, dear friends, is a life of love, of truth, and of conformity to what God created us to be when He fashioned us with His own hands.  “Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.”  We were not created for “filthiness nor foolish talk, nor crude joking.”  We are not to engage in idolatry, sexual immorality, and covetousness.  We are not to associate with those who do.  We are called to repent, to leave the narrative of the lie and to confess the eternal and saving truth.

The reason that hard-hearted people reject Christ is because they reject the life to which Christ calls us, the life by which the finger of God leads us by the Holy Spirit.  The hard-hearted enemy of Jesus, of the Church, of the Scriptures, has an agenda of sexual immorality, covetousness, and idolatry – even as Pharaoh expected submission of others to himself, rather than  himself to the truth, that is, to God.  We are to repent of such things, and by means of our Lord’s cross, we are forgiven of all of them.

Jesus has come to cast out the demons and to save those who genuinely seek the truth.  And as merciless as He is to the demons, He is merciful and compassionate beyond measure to one who cries out to Him for salvation, for one who is willing to submit to the truth.

For even the demons know who Jesus is.  Even those most hostile to Christianity, who call good "evil" and evil "good" – know who Jesus is.  Let us confess Christ as the God who created us, as the Redeemer who saves us, and as the One who casts out demons and restores us to eternal truth.  Let us follow where the finger of God points, for it points to our Lord Himself.

And indeed: “Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.” Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.