Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Tuesday of Lent 3 (St. Patrick) – 2020

17 March 2020

Text: Mark 9:33-50

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin,” warns our Blessed Lord, “it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”  For indeed, He “took a child and put him in the midst of them,” and said, “Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent Me.”

With the current viral epidemic, we are reminded of the need to protect the most vulnerable: including the very young and the very old.  Spiritually, this is also true, as the very old may be tempted to lose their faith in the face of their mortality, and the very young are still undergoing spiritual formation.  We especially protect young people from sin, as they may not yet understand the consequences, or are so young as to not be able to physically resist one bigger and stronger, especially those they trust.

In our degraded culture, children are special targets for abuse, and to our dismay, we learn that often those most in a position of trust, be they clergy, scout leaders, teachers, and even relatives, are the ones causing these little ones to sin.  

We must learn to see sin like we see the current virus.  Some demographics are much more susceptible to sin, and sin spreads like a virus from person to person.  Young people who grow up confused about gender and sex issues were very often abused as children.  And what’s more, they often grow up to commit similar abuses themselves.  

And like diseases of which there is no cure and no vaccination, we must look to prevention.  We are called upon to resist sin.  Our Lord puts it figuratively when He says: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.  It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.”  Better to quarantine ourselves from sin by cutting off temptation and not placing ourselves where the virus of sin can multiply and spread.  We should put procedures in place to protect everyone from abuse.  And just as we should wash our hands frequently in these trying times of the Corona Virus, we should also remember our baptisms frequently, pray, study God’s Word, and fortify ourselves with the Medicine of Immortality, that is, the Lord’s Supper. 

We honor St. Patrick today, who was captured from Britain and enslaved in Ireland as a teenager.  He escaped and turned to Jesus for help.  And rather than respond with hatred, he returned to Ireland, this time as a missionary and bishop, bringing the Irish to our Lord Jesus Christ.  He wrote the hymn we sang today that is still used to cast out the devil in exorcisms.  We bind ourselves to the Trinity, the name in which we were baptized, the name by which sin, death, and the devil have been conquered!

We will not eliminate sin in this life and this fallen world, dear friends, but our Lord urges us to repent, to hear the Gospel, and to serve our neighbors, especially children, in actively resisting the devil.  And thanks be to God we have the ultimate antidote to sin, even Jesus Christ our Lord!  Amen.

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