Sermon: Trinity 19 – 2023

15 Oct 2023

Text: Matthew 9:1-8 (Gen 28:10-17)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The first commandment is: “You shall have no other gods.”  And as we know from our catechism: “What does this mean?  We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”

And, of course, we know that we should trust in God, because we believe that He cannot lie, and that His will is perfect.  And we know that we should love God, because He gives us everything we have, and has even forgiven our sins.  But why should we fear Him?  Doesn’t the “fear” seem a little out of place?

But look at the reaction of Jacob when he has a vision of the ladder reaching to heaven, with “the angels of God ascending and descending on it.”  He hears God Himself speak, making him a promise that his children will become a nation that will bless the entire earth.  And God even speaks great comfort to Jacob: “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go,” and, “I will not leave you.”  Jacob wakes up, saying, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it,” and “he was afraid.”

We see the same reaction to our Lord’s healing of the paralytic and forgiving his sins: “When the crowds saw it, they were afraid.” 

We see this in other places in scripture too, such as when Peter was cleaning his fishing nets after a working all night and catching nothing, and along comes Jesus telling him to try again.  And after he reluctantly does so, catches so many fish that the boat begins to sink.  His reaction was also one of fear.  For he suddenly realized that he was in the very presence of God.

There are many other examples of this fear of God in the Old Testament, when people encounter angels.  One minute, people are going about their ordinary lives: working, eating, doing chores, taking care of family – and then the next minute, an angel appears.  And when they realize that God is present, they are afraid.  Sometimes the fear is sheer terror, to the point where the angel has to say, “Don’t be afraid.”  And in fact, we see this same reaction of fear when Jesus raises the widow’s son from his coffin on the way to the tomb.  And again, after His own resurrection, Jesus appears to the Marys (who were afraid) and to the men He will be ordaining as apostles, and giving them authority to forgive sins (and they were also afraid).

“Fear, love, and trust…”

Fear goes along with faith.  For if you believe that what you are seeing is God in His supernatural glory, it is like realizing after the fact that you were very close to a tornado, or to a high voltage line, or that you almost fell off the roof.  You realize that just a few minutes ago, everything was normal – or so you thought.  Then you suddenly realized that you had a vision from God, you saw an angel, you were almost killed except for a divine intervention.  You realize that you just saw God take the form of a man and cure a paralytic, you saw this man forgive sins – meaning that God is in this place, and “this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”  You realize that God in human form has just come to us in a miracle as bread and wine that we can eat and drink, that God’s awesome Word has come to this “house of God,” and that our sins are truly forgiven, that “God… had given such authority to men,” and that our own baptism was a supernatural, universe-shattering event that makes us children of the everlasting, all-powerful Creator and King of the Universe.

And if we believe these things (in other words, if we have faith), we will naturally react with fear.  For one minute, we are sitting on a wooden bench, chatting with friends, smiling at babies and children, and following along an ordinary church service – and the next minute, we realize what just happened here, that this is the “gate of heaven,” that God has “given such authority to men” to forgive sins, and that Jesus is with us, truly and physically and supernaturally, in His Word and Sacrament.  And in our fear, we also love and trust, and we too glorify God.

Notice, however, dear friends, that the scribes and Pharisees have no fear of Jesus.  They do not react like Jacob after he awoke.  They do not fall to their knees like Peter still seeing the miraculous fish in the boat.  They do not respond like the crowds who just saw a dead man sit up in his own casket and speak.  The scribes watched the miracle of a man cured of paralysis, but their reaction is not awe at the wonder of it, not fear of being in the presence of God, but rather a denial of God’s presence.  They don’t fear because they don’t believe.

There is no fear when all you see is a man whom you think is an impostor.  There is no fear when you think it was just a dream, it was just a trick, it was just a guy claiming to forgive sins, it’s just bread and wine, it’s just a bunch of stories from an old book.  Where there is no faith, there is no fear.

But, dear friends, if you do believe this stuff, if you believe there is a God, and that He doesn’t just create you and leave you alone, if you believe His care for you is ongoing, and that the supernatural comes packaged in the natural, you will have moments of fear. 

And this kind of fear is a good thing.  For it means you believe that you are in the presence of God who is righteous (and you are not), and you know that God could rightly strike you down (but He doesn’t).  You hear the Words of Scripture with awe, you receive absolution with joy, you witness baptisms with fear of the power of the Lord, you take the Sacrament confessing that, in, with, and under the ordinary bread and wine, is something incredibly extraordinary and miraculous.  You receive the body and the blood of the Lord, saying with Jacob: “How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

This is what it means to have a God, dear friends, to believe in God.  For faith is not just some kind of intellectual conclusion that God exists – and that He is safely tucked away in heaven somewhere, while we live out our lives untouched by His miraculous presence.  Even the demons have that kind of so-called faith, as James says in his epistle.  No, indeed, to fear, love, and trust in God above all things is to believe what God has promised: that through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would come the Messiah, and that He is God in the flesh, and that He is present even with us here and now in His flesh and blood.  We believe that He is present when two or three gather in His name, and that we have a mystical encounter with Him in a real, flesh and blood way in this “house of God,” and that He comes to this “gate of heaven” to forgive our sins and give us the promise that we will be cured of our own paralysis – even of death itself.

And while we react with fear, we are not terrified.  For we also love and trust in God above all things, that His almighty power is not going to be turned against us, but that He comes to us in grace and mercy.  When He tells His disciples to “fear not,” He is telling them that they are right to react in fear, but because of His mercy, we have nothing to fear from His wrath.  And that is exactly why He gave “such authority to men” – even to pronounce absolution upon you, for forgive your sins, to make you worthy to stand in God’s presence, surrounded by unseen angels, and even to participate in a sacred and supernatural meal.

Yes indeed, dear friends, let us “fear, love, and trust in God above all things,” and to do so in joy.  “How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

Amen.

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