19th Sunday after Pentecost (B)

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost (B)
October 15, 2006
Text: Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29; Mark 9:38-50

We humans are always restless and anxious. We are never happy with the way things are. When it’s Spring, we think of Summer. In the heat, we long for the Autumn chill. And when it snows, well… Winter comes all too soon and doesn’t leave us soon enough. We always think about the good old days. Hard times have a way of disappearing from the memory like a dissipating mist, while we romanticize the past. It’s called nostalgia. If only it could be the way it was back then.

If this restlessness is true of us in view of things temporal, how much more so in things eternal? We are never satisfied. Our Lord gives us the Gospel that truly satisfies, but we ignore it and continue to look in all the wrong places. Like the Hebrews in the wilderness, we long for the fleshpots of Egypt. We remember the days of old, before our Lord freed us from the bondage of sin and death, when at least we had meat to fill our bellies and an array of delights to gratify our every pleasure. We don’t remember how difficult it was to be a slave. We only remember that it was easier and more pleasant to serve the great god of self than to serve the God who bids us deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him.

The devil knows our weakness for the past. He dresses up the Old Adam in us so that he looks better than the New Man. “Remember how much freedom you had as the Old Adam?” whispers the wily serpent. “Remember how much fun it was to have sin as your master? To taste the delights of a thousand sinful pleasures? Not to have to worry about your neighbor’s welfare, but always to look out for yourself? To make sure you always had what was coming to you, not caring if your neighbor’s lot came up short? Ah, but this Jesus is a stick in the mud. He never wants you to have any fun. He wants you to deny yourself. He wants you to be willing to die for Him and die for your neighbor. What good does that do? Jesus knows that if you taste the forbidden fruit, you will become like Him. You will be lord of your own destiny. You will be your own incarnate god.” So goes the temptation. It’s the same as it was in the Garden of Eden. And so often we are all too ready to listen.

But don’t listen, dear friends. Repent. Cast off the sin that so easily entangles you. The serpent is deceiving you. He has been a liar from the beginning. When sin was your master, it took full possession of you. When you worship yourself as a god, you are not free, but bound. Satan is your taskmaster, and death your lot. Repent. Turn from yourselves. Turn from your Old Adam. Drown him daily in those pristine baptismal waters. And live in the New Man, Jesus Christ, who is in you.

For our Lord Jesus Christ has freed us from bondage to sin, death, and the devil. He took our sin upon Himself on the cross, dying our death, suffering our punishment. He has led us out of slavery in Egypt, on an exodus through the wilderness where we can make pure sacrifices of worship and thanksgiving to God. The resurrected Lord goes ahead of us to lead us into the Promised Land. Don’t look back. Only slavery and death remain behind you. Follow your Lord. He guides you through the wilderness. He makes His eternal covenant of blood with you. He engraves His Word in stone before you. He is the Rock from whose riven side flows the water that quenches your thirst. He feeds you with His manna. And though the host of enemies between you and your eternal inheritance be strong and imposing, do not fear. Our Captain fights for us. He goes before us and wipes out our enemies with His strong arm and with His mighty hand. What is ahead of us is so much better than what has been left behind. The flesh looks back to the land of slavery. But faith looks forward to the Land of Promise.

Now we are in the wilderness. We have passed out of bondage in the Egypt of sin through the Red Sea of Baptism. We are God’s covenant people, the New Israel, the people of His New Testament. But the devil tempts us always to look back, and the picture he presents is not accurate. How serious this temptation is, Jesus makes clear to us. 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. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43-48; ESV). Now, before you start gouging out your eyes and amputating your hands and feet, understand, Jesus does not want you to literally mutilate yourself. But temptation is serious business. Your hand was not made for sin. Cut it off from its evil intent. Your foot was not made for sin. Do not let it lead you in paths of unrighteousness. And those eyes that keep looking lustfully at the array of pleasures before them, turn them away. Avert your gaze from the things of bondage and focus them rather on your Savior who frees you.

Yes, dear friends, focus your eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of your faith. Look to Him with childlike trust. He protects His own as dear children. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,” says Jesus, “it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea” (v. 42). Thus it is for all the enemies of the cross who would tempt you away from your Lord and His salvation. You can trust your Lord Jesus. Nothing, and no one, can snatch you from His hand.

So do not look back, look forward. Do not offer your bodies as living sacrifices to the idols of this age; power, money, sex, vainglory, etc. Rather, offer your bodies as living sacrifices to God, in thanksgiving for the sin atoning death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so you will be the salt of the earth. Your neighbors will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. They will see you looking forward to a freedom that is beyond this present wilderness. You will be to them Joshua and Caleb, who in the midst of the multitude who tempted the people to go back to Egypt, boldly proclaimed, “do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us” (Numbers 14:9).

Dear friends in Christ, keep your eyes focused forward to the Promise that is waiting to be revealed at the coming of Christ Jesus. Then there will be no more temptation to look back, for God tempts no one. Then all temptation will be defeated and cast into the lake of fire along with the devil and all his evil minions. Our Lord Jesus has won the victory for us on His cross, freeing us from bondage to sin. For all of us who have eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree, the cross is a life-giving tree for all who believe. For all of us who long for the good old days of bondage when our bellies were full, or so we mistakenly remember, Jesus gives us to feast on His very Body and Blood this day, the very fruit of the cross, the holy Body and Blood of the Lord of Glory who was crucified for us men and for our salvation. This is the bread that really satisfies. This is the drink that really quenches our thirst. This food, this heavenly manna, strengthens us in our walk through the wilderness. It strengthens us for the day we enter the Promised Land. And on that Day we leave the dust and heat of the wilderness behind forever, to live in a new Heaven and a new earth, a land flowing with milk and honey, the reward prepared for us from the beginning. Lord, keep us faithful until that Day. Lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.