Trinity 13

Luke 10:21-37 - Trinity XIII - September 2, 2012
Seeing Jesus with the Eyes of Faith

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a great story.  It is impossible not to be moved by what it relates.  It’s a tale of compassion and mercy, of over-and-above service and help all coming from the least likely of characters – a social outcast.  This story puts to shame hypocrisy, self-importance, and the false pretense of holiness—all while exalting such rare and godly virtues as humility, self-sacrifice, and true kindness.  If more people were to take this lesson to heart, the world would be a better place!  It’s true. 

But Jesus did not tell this story simply in order to give us a moral lesson. 

Although it is thanks to such great parables as this that even unbelievers praise Jesus as a wise and ethical teacher.  Even those who despise the Church and what she teaches give fawning tribute to the Church’s Lord for His moral instruction.  But Jesus did not tell this or any of His parables in order to receive honor and accolades from the morally aware.  No, it’s the opposite.  Jesus says in Matthew 13 that the reason He told parables was in order to fulfill these words first spoken to Isaiah: “Go and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’” Jesus told His parables in order to hide from the wise and understanding that which He would reveal to little children.  This is what pleases the Father.  This is what Jesus thanked Him for when He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. 

It’s interesting that we have here in our text the entire Godhead of the Holy Trinity represented.  The Son thanks the Father while rejoicing in the Holy Spirit.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God.   They are one in essence, one in will, one in majesty and power co-equal.  And they share one gracious objective toward you: that is, God’s goal for us and for all mankind is to save sinners from the clutches of sin and from the depths of hell.  This is God’s good will – to make known our salvation.  The Father sends His Son to assume human flesh and so to redeem all men.  The Son gives His lifeblood to fulfill what His own justice required.  The Holy Spirit leads us to know and believe this, and to rely on it.  It is the Gospel.  The Gospel is the best news that you can possibly hear or learn because it reveals God’s love toward you.  This is what God wants.  It is God’s gracious will that you be saved.   And yet – it seems strange – it is precisely this – His gracious will, the Gospel – that God conceals from the wise. 

Now this takes a little bit of explanation.  Does God conceal?  Or does God reveal?  Does God make salvation known?  Or does He hide it from some while showing it to others?  Well, consider this: it is not as though God hides the Gospel from the wise by presenting to them one thing, and then makes it known to little children by presenting to them another thing.  No, God sets forth one and the same message to all – both wise and foolish, both virtuous and iniquitous.  “Go into all the world,” Jesus said, “and preach the Gospel to all creatures.”   The reason it is hidden from the wise is not because God does not want them to know it, or because God fails to show it.  No, far from it!  It is because the wise refuse to see it even when it is placed right before their eyes. 

Just consider the lawyer who approached Jesus – face to face with the Son of God.  Oh, he was wise.  He knew the law as well as, or better than, anyone here knows anything.  These guys were educated!  Not only did he know what Scripture had to say about how to behave, but as a lawyer this man also would have known all the extra rules of the Pharisees that helped one live the life God’s law required.  He was wise.  He came to Jesus.  He called Him teacher.  But he didn’t come to be taught.  He came to test Jesus, not learn from Him. The law teaches us how to love our neighbor.  But this lawyer was not interested in his neighbor.  He was interested in justifying himself.  He was wise.  But in his wisdom, he missed out on what Jesus had to say. 

Jesus told the great story of the Good Samaritan.  It’s a story not only of the love that the law requires of us, but most importantly it is a story of the love that God shows to us.  It is one story.  But by hearing it from two different perspectives, one can and ought to learn from it two different messages.  It teaches the law that exposes our sin, and it teaches the Gospel that forgives us our sin.  It teaches both these lessons.  But all the lawyer got from it was more law\law\law.  Because that’s what he wanted.  And so the message that Jesus wanted him to know – the Gospel – was completely hidden from his eyes.  But Jesus still preached it.  That’s the point.  And He preached it for you.  “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” Jesus said to His disciples.  “For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” 

And what did they see that Abraham did not see?  More law?  No.  They saw Jesus.  And what did they hear that Moses did not hear?  Clearer moral instruction?  Goodness no!  Moses didn’t need this!  He had the Ten Commandments.  But he desired to see Him who would fulfill the law in his place even more than he desired to see the Promised Land.  And what did the disciples see that King David could not?  Better and wiser tips on how to live the God-pleasing life?  No.  This was the very thing that had sunk David into the depths of woe.  This is the law.   But no, David longed to see Him of whom he sang in the Psalms, the Lord his Good Shepherd, the Lord his refuge and strength, the Lord his King who forgave the iniquity of his sin. 

What made the eyes of the disciples blessed was not that they heard a good moral story that illustrated really well what their duties were toward their neighbor.  The lawyer heard that!  And what further blessing could they have reaped from this than what they had already known?  And what blessing is there anyway in the law telling you what you ought to do?  Are we not cursed when our sin is exposed?  But their eyes were blessed, because they saw Jesus.  And not only before their physical eyes, but they saw with the eyes of faith that Jesus was the main character in the story He told.  They saw in the parable of the Good Samaritan not only the love that the law required, but also the love that God fulfilled in Christ. 

Now don’t get this wrong.  Jesus preached the law.  The lawyer asked a law question, and he got a law answer.  What the Good Samaritan did is what is required of each one of us to do.  And Jesus illustrated this very well.  But while you picture yourself striving to be what this Good Samaritan was—while you see yourself failing, and not loving, and not having compassion, but judging, and turning away from your brothers and sisters and from strangers in need—when you see yourself to have utterly failed to be what Jesus tells you to be, then choose a different character in His story.  See yourself instead as the man beaten and robbed of all goodness, and strength, and wisdom, and virtue; see what Satan the robber has done to you, and identify yourself as the one in need of mercy.  See yourself half-dead, spiritually powerless by the side of the road; see what the law does to help you—see the Priest pass by, the Levite pass by—these characters represent the law in all its spick and span holiness, but they do nothing to help you out.  But then see the One who has compassion. See the One who is despised and rejected come to save you at His own expense.  See what Abraham saw; see what Moses saw, what David and Isaiah saw with the eyes of faith.  See your Savior do for you in mercy what you need Him to do.  Jesus teaches much about you in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  But do not fail to see what He also teaches about Himself. 

Do not be wise in your own eyes.  But be a simple little child.  The wise are those who think that because they know the law they can therefore do what the law requires in order to earn God’s blessing.  And so the law serves as nothing but a guide to self-improvement.  Of course, they’re not really wise by God’s standards.  But they sure are wise according to the standards that seem to make the world go round.  It’s a very compelling wisdom – it’s a wisdom that we can instinctively relate to.  There’s blessing in living a moral life, after all.  God says so, and our experience confirms it.  The law offers what people crave: 

Principles of living well, and being the “you” that you want to be (and that you know you can be); advice on raising respectable children, and having a happy marriage, and being a profitable steward of all your earthly substance; biblical tips on living a life of service— This is the so-called practical wisdom that so many churches and religious communities market today.  And you’ll see this in the things that they publish, and you’ll hear it in the things that they preach.  It’s a thriving market.  And Jesus is used as the spokesman. 

And the guidance it lends is certainly not all bad!  No, the law is good.  But Christ is hidden here.  And that’s the problem.  What the prophets longed to see is not there.  Our Savior is hidden when He is turned into a friendly and compelling lawgiver instead of the One who calls sinners to Himself for rest.  God does not reveal His good will toward you by teaching you the law.  He reveals what the law demands.  Yes.  But only in the Gospel does God reveal what true love has done to fulfill the law in your place. 

I read a sermon the other day.  It was supposed to be a Lutheran sermon.  At least it was preached by a Lutheran pastor in a Lutheran church.  It was well crafted.  And it taught a good lesson.  It was based on a text from 1 Kings about Elijah waiting for the Lord to bless him.  He waited and waited for God to answer his prayer.  The sermon did a fine job extolling the virtue of patience, and in trusting in God’s own good timing.  We should.  But the sermon didn’t mention Jesus even once.  It didn’t mention sin or forgiveness or the cross or anything that actually saves us.  Now I couldn’t argue with the message he gave.  It was all plenty true.  We should indeed be patient and more trusting.  But it was all law.  It was advice I want to follow.  It described the goodness I want to see in me, but it had no power at all to make me or anyone else more pleasing to God.  It was the law.  That’s it.  And the law works wrath.  And if this is all that is set before our eyes, if this all we hear, well then our eyes and ears will not be blessed, because they won’t see or hear Jesus.   

People want a practical message.  They want this because they want to do something.  But what is more practical? What you must do, or what God has done for you?  What is more useful for you, a sinner, than the forgiveness of sins?  “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!”  So said Jesus to His disciples.  And He says it to you too.  Because He shows you in the word you hear that His gracious will is not to moralize you, not to burden you with more demands, but to rescue you. And as the Good Samaritan poured wine to disinfect the wounds of the poor beggar, Christ applies the law – it stings, but it kills in you the poison of your sin.  As the Good Samaritan applied soothing oil to the wounds before he wrapped the man up in bandages, so Christ preaches the Gospel that gives you peace, that eases your conscience, and that covers you with the robe of His own righteousness.  As the Good Samaritan brought the man to an inn and saw to it that at his own expense his neighbor would be taken care of, so Christ carries you to His Church and supplies here what He gave Himself into death to win.  And whatever you need, surely He will pay for it.  Whatever more mercy you find yourself requiring, surely He who brought you here will stay true to His word and supply whatever is lacking in you. 

To those who are wise, who seek blessing from the law, and who use the law to serve themselves, Jesus is a moralist.  But to us who see no wisdom, no strength, no righteousness in ourselves, we see Jesus as our Savior.  Those who put their trust in Him, who fulfilled the law in our place, who bore the punishment for us, and who has taught us what true love is, God gives the power to become the children of God.  And so it is to little children that God reveals His power to save.  And so in the preaching of Christ crucified for you, He teaches us properly what it means to serve and love one another.  He does this by serving and loving us. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.