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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. Pastor Wolfmuther here. This is the Sunday drive to church for January 28, the year of our Lord, 2024. I'm still getting used to that, 2024. I keep writing 2021 for some reason. Anyhow, it's the fourth Sunday after Epiphany. Remember, we're in this season of Epiphany, which is that manifesting of Jesus, especially to the Gentiles. It begins with the visit of the wise man that men. It ends with the transfiguration of our Lord. That's going to be the Sunday before transfiguration?
[00:00:30] No, the Sunday of Transfiguration, which is the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday this year, by the way, is Valentine's Day, February 14. I'm tempted when Pastor Davis and Pastor Leblanc come forward to write a big heart on their foreheads. We'll see how that goes. Anyhow, today we're continuing to work through the Gospel of Mark, the beginning of the gospel of Mark, and we have the account of Jesus going into Capernaum, preaching in the synagogue, rescuing a man from an unclean spirit. So that really sets the theme of the day. So looking at the bulletin, we have a beautiful medieval fresco from this church in Austria that's there. It's Jesus healing the unclean man. In fact, I think if you look on it, you see Jesus in the middle, the crowd on the right, the disciples on the left, the man on the bottom, and it looks like an unclean spirit coming up out of his mouth. It's a pretty impressive image. The collect is a beautiful one. It follows that traditional form of the colic that we've been talking about. The address, the rationale, the petition, then the conclusion with the doxology.
[00:01:43] It's really a prayer that the Lord would carry us, that it acknowledges that we're weak.
[00:01:54] In fact, you know how normally in the collect, the rationale part of the prayer talks about an attribute of God? It does. In this collect as well. It says, you know, but then it really talks about what God knows about us. You know, that we live in the midst of so many dangers, we can't stand straight up. So carry us through all dangers and temptations. It's a beautiful prayer that would be a good one to cut out and take with you. Here it is. We'll pray it together. Almighty God, you know, we live in the midst of so many dangers that in our frailty, we cannot stand upright, grant strength and protection to support us in all dangers and carry us through all temptations, through Jesus Christ. Your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:02:48] By the way, a little note on the language of temptation.
[00:02:53] When we hear that word, think of that allurement to sin. But it's important for us to remember that in older theological writings. So Luther, the church fathers, anything liturgical, that temptation really has a broader meaning. It's not just that enticement to sin. It means really all of our life of affliction. That's all temptation. So our life of suffering here below our bearing the cross. That's what that means. All right, I'm turning into the service and looking at really four texts. We have psalm 111. We have deuteronomy 18. What a passage. Deuteronomy 18, verses 15 to 21, corinthians eight, verses one to 13. We're in that lectio continuum, that continual reading through one corinthians for the epistle, and then the gospel lesson. Mark, chapter one, verses 21 to 28. I might comment on the hymn of the day, but most especially on the closing hymn, o morning star, how fair and bright. But beginning by looking at psalm 111, that's our opening psalm that we're going to be singing today. I think psalm 111 is a psalm of David, but I don't know why. I think that it's something in my mind, but it's not here in the text. Psalm 110, psalm of David. But it doesn't say it at psalm 111. It's a ten verse psalm. And I think the reason I think that is because verse ten says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all those who do his commandments, his praise endures forever. And that's really the theme of the book of proverbs from Solomon. But I think Solomon learned that from David. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's good for us to remember that when the Bible talks about fearing the Lord, it's not saying, here's the Lord, and what we should do is fear him.
[00:04:46] It really starts the other way around. We're already fearing. Our hearts are fearing, loving and trusting instruments. It's what the heart does. It's always looking for something to be afraid of, looking for something to love, looking for something to trust. And the scriptures come along, the commandments come along and say, well, you know, the object of that fear is God. That's what it should be. That's why I think the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. The end of wisdom is love for God, and the heart of wisdom is faith toward God, or maybe the other way around. Fear is the beginning, but maybe love is the heart of it and faith is the end of it. But those three things, to fear and to love and to trust, that is our wisdom. And that's what the first commandment teaches us. Remember the small catechism? What is the first commandment? You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. So our hearts, the fear of our heart is directed towards the Lord and to nothing else. We're not authorized to be afraid of anything else. This psalm eleven praises the Lord for his spiritual gifts and his temporal gifts. It says, for example, he has given food to those who fear him. He will remember his covenant forever. He has made known to his people the power of his works and giving them the heritage of the nations. So the Lord provides for us, both spiritually and physically, all that we need. The Old Testament lesson is Deuteronomy 18, verses 15 to 20. And you'll notice a repetition in this text. Verse 15 and verse 18 are a repeating of almost the same idea, the same promise. And this is really amazing. Okay, so DeutEROnOMy, the fifth book of Moses, the last book of Moses, and it's a sermon of Moses. Deuteronomos means the second deuteronomos law. And so the whole book of Deuteronomy is really Moses last sermon. Moses was supposed to lead the people through the wilderness into the promised land. But because when the Lord said, speak to the rock, he struck the rock the second time when they were complaining about having no water, and he strikes the rock in disobedience to God. Now the Lord says, you can't go into the promised land. So the Lord brings Moses right up to the edge of the promised land. And now it's going to be Joshua and Caleb who's going to bring him in. So Moses stops there and he preaches this sermon, which is Deuteronomy, and he's re giving the law. Remember the first generation that came out of Egypt and came to Mount Sinai and received the ten commandments and all the instructions? They all died in the wilderness. And now the second generation is going to be the generation that's going to go into the promised land. So Moses is repeating all of this, and this is going to come up in the text, which I want to point out a couple of things to you, but just by way of context. Now, here's the other very interesting thing. We remember that Jesus is in the Old Testament in three different ways, by promise, by picture, by presence. So by promise we have these messianic promises of the Messiah, of the Lord Jesus that will be born in Bethlehem, that they will look upon him whom they pierced, that he will ride the donkey into Jerusalem, that he'll be born of a virgin, that he will be stricken, smitten, and afflicted, that he will be forsaken, that they'll look on him. They'll count all of his bones, that they won't break his bones. All of these promises are there. The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. And from the seed of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Judah, the messiah will come. If you just start in the beginning of the Bible and you start reading through Genesis, you come across those promises of the coming Messiah all the time. I mean, beginning with Genesis 315 and then Genesis twelve, repeating in Genesis 15 and 16 and 18, and then again 22 Ish, and over and over and over. This promises is given until you get to the end of Genesis, chapter 50, the scepter won't depart from Judah. And then I don't think that you have any promises of the coming messiah from Exodus, chapter one, verse one, until you get to our Old Testament verse, deuteronomy 18, verse 15.
[00:09:08] One exception might be the prophecy of Balam about the star when Balak is trying to get him to prophesy against the Israelites and he refuses. And he has a prophecy of the king there that might be referencing Jesus. But other than that, Moses gives no promises about the coming Messiah until this verse. And it really stands out. I think I remember one time I read through the books of Moses in a couple of days, and it really stands out how there's all these promises right in Genesis and then none until you get to this one. And so this just jumps off the page at you. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen, just as you desired of the Lord your God at horeb on the day of the assembly.
[00:09:57] So here's the promise that the Lord will raise up the Messiah like Moses, prophet like Moses from among you. Listen to him. That's what God the father says at the transfiguration. He quotes this verse. This is my beloved son. Listen to him.
[00:10:14] That's the language that's here. And then Moses mentions the moment at Horeb. Remember, Horeb is another name from Mount Sinai. And when all the people were gathered to Mount Sinai, and there's the pillar of cloud covering the mountain in the middle of the day. And the Lord says, don't touch the mountain. And the people, instead of being drawn to the mountain, they shrink back from the mountain. God gives them the Ten Commandments, and they no, no, Moses. We don't want to hear what God says. You go talk to God and you tell us what he says so that the people say, we don't want to hear directly from the Lord. Why don't you go and talk to him? It's too horrible for us. Well, now, in this verse, God is reflecting on that moment.
[00:10:59] He says, just as you desired of the Lord your God at horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord, my God, or see this great fire anymore, lest I die. And the Lord said to me, they are right in what they have spoken.
[00:11:16] The people are right when they say, no, we don't want to get God's voice directly from him. We need a mediator who will stand between the glory of God and us. They're right to be afraid. They're right to ask for another. And so then the Lord promises, this is deuteronomy, 1818. Look at how close it is to verse 15. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.
[00:11:40] I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
[00:11:46] So the Lord says, you're right that you shouldn't get my glory straight. I'm going to hide my glory in the flesh of a mediator. And that is now what God is promising here. Deuteronomy, 1815. Deuteronomy, 1818. And that is fulfilled in Jesus.
[00:12:05] It's amazing.
[00:12:07] This is one of those texts that we need to underline and understand, to understand the Old Testament again. All right, now, that's connected directly. I'll skip over the epistle, because, again, the epistle is kind of. We have this continual reading of the first corinthians, and so it doesn't really necessarily match up with the gospel lesson. It seems like the Old Testament and the gospel match a lot more closely than the epistle. So we go over to the gospel, mark 21 21 to 28. And this is Jesus coming into Capernaum. Now, Capernum is a city that's on the north, maybe northwest coast of the sea of Galilee. So it's up north. It's the hometown of Peter. And in fact, there's a little church there now over the ruins of a house, well over the ruins of a church. That was built over the ruins of a house that is thought to be the house of Peter. Now you go into the house of Peter. Remember, Peter's mother in law is there. So Peter had a wife and his wife had a mom. That's how you get a mother in law. And Jesus heals. Peter's mother in law. There's also a synagogue in Capernaum. In fact, if you're goofing around sometime on Wikipedia and you look up Capernaum, you can see the pictures. It's pretty amazing because all the ruins of the homes in Capernaum are these dark stones, kind of volcanic stones, but there's these big white, I don't know if they're limestone or marble, but they're a completely different kind of stone that the synagogue is made out of. And it's a huge and beautiful place. You can visit it. It's really quite wonderful. The sea breezes are there. And they found all in the ruins. They found all this kind of fishing stuff. Well, that's where Jesus was. How amazing to be able to pin it down on a map. And he goes into the synagogue on the sabbath and he's teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching. They always were, because he taught as one having authority. You can notice in the gospel lesson how the word immediately comes up so many times. That's one of these famous marks of the gospel of Mark. They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the sabbath he entered the synagogue. Verse 23. Immediately there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. Note also how the gospel writers will identify the different. They'll identify people with trouble, with the demons in different ways. Sometimes they'll talk about the demons. Sometimes they'll talk about spirits. Sometimes they'll say unclean spirits or evil spirits, all the different names for the demonic realm. And this demon seems to know, like the demons always do, who Jesus is more than anybody else. What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the holy one of God. But Jesus rebukes him and he casts him out and he convulses with a loud voice. And he's rescued and delivered from this demonization. They were all amazed. What is this? A new teaching? With authority. He commands the unclean spirits, and his fame spreads throughout Galilee. So we have this exorcism in the synagogue in Capernaum. And the resulting fame of Jesus, who speaks and things are, and things are made right. Jesus comes with restoration.
[00:15:25] It's really great. In fact, the hymn of the day, son of God, eternal savior, captures that idea. It says that in his incarnation, he's exalted humanity.
[00:15:37] Here's the words. It's him.
[00:15:40] 842. It's a pretty new hymn. I think it's 1893, something like that. How about this? You can think about this. This hymn is two years newer than our congregation. 1890. 118. 93. Son of God, eternal savior, source of life and truth and grace, word made flesh, whose birth among us hallows all our human race.
[00:16:08] You our head, who throned in glory for your own will ever plead. Fill us with your love and pity, heal our wrongs and help our need. That idea that Jesus is the one who hallows all the human race, that when Jesus becomes a man, that humanity becomes holy, is a really profound thought. And that's what's being showed or demonstrated in Jesus rescuing this man from the unclean spirits. This is what Jesus comes to do, to set us free from the kingdom of darkness and to transfer us into the kingdom of light, of the love of his son. While we're on the hymns, the hymn of the closing hymn, o morning star, how fair and bright. I don't know if you all have picked up on this already, but this is our closing hymn for the entire season of Epiphany, and I'm pretty excited that Jonathan has given it to us this way. O Morningstar Hal far and bright is one of the two great hymns by Philip Nikolai. He died in 16 eight. So let's see, I'm looking at the hymnal here. 1556 to 16 eight.
[00:17:18] He got his theology degree from Wittenberg in the mid 15 hundreds, probably not long after Luther died. But he was a pastor for a little while then a court preacher. I think he was in Spain for a bit and then went back to Germany. He wrote two of the most famous lutheran corrals. In fact, his two hymns, o morning star, how fair and bright and wake awake for night is flying, are oftentimes called the queen and king of corrals. This one, O Morningstar, is the queen of corrals. And then the hymn that we sing on the last Sunday of the church here, wake awake for night is flying. That's the king of corrals. Both beautiful hymns. In fact, I remember one day I was talking to some pastor and he was talking about a Sunday or a text, and he says, we read that text on the Sunday that we sing, wake awake.
[00:18:18] It was so connected in his mind. The last Sunday of the church here, and wake awake for night is flying. That that was the Sunday, when we sang that hymn. That's pretty cool. So, Morningstar, how fair and bright is the great queen of corrals that we sing in epiphany. And Jonathan has made it the hymn of the season. We've been singing it two stanzas of this hymn for the last four or five weeks, for the whole season of Epiphany. I think week one, we sang stanzas one and two, then one and three, one, four. Today we're singing stanzas one and five. I bet next week it's one and six, which means we've been singing this stanza one for long enough that you should have it memorized. Maybe try today to sing it without looking at the hymnal or just taking a glance. O morning star, how fair and bright. This is a hymn to Jesus. You shine with God's own truth and light a glow with grace and mercy of Jacob's race, King David's son, our lord and master, you have won our hearts to serve you only. Lowly, holy, great and glorious, all victorious, rich in blessing, rule and might, or all possessing. What a hymn. And then we'll sing stanza five. O let the harps break forth in sound our joy be all with music crowned, our voices gladly bending, for Christ goes with us all the way today, tomorrow, every day. His love is never ending. Sing out, ring out jubilation, exaltation. Tell the story. Great is he the king of glory. Wa what a hymn.
[00:19:58] Last thing is the epistle lesson. That's one corinthians, eight verses, one to 13, it seems like. Remember when Paul's writing to the corinthians? He is in Galatia. Yes, I believe he's living over in Galatia setting. No, not. Yeah, no, in Ephesus. He's living over in Ephesus. He's setting up the seminary and the church there in Ephesus, and he gets a report of how things are going across the sea in Greece at Corinth, and it's not so good. I mean, there's a lot of trouble, there's a lot of complaints, there's a lot of things going wrong, and there's a lot of questions. So one of the questions that they asked was, what are we supposed to do with food offered to idols? Now, here's the context. In the ancient world, I mean, meat was not as abundant as it is now. And meat, especially for the pagans, meat and blood was to be poured out in service to the demons, to the idols. So all these cities, where did we see this last? We were in some ancient ruins. And you could see this real clearly. Pompeii had it like this. There's a city square, and at the head of the city square, there's a temple to the pagan God, whatever pagan God is hanging around. And then on either side of the temple, you have the meat market, the places where the animals were slaughtered. So they'd be slaughtered at the pagan temple. They'd be offered to the pagan gods, and some of the entrails would be burned and the blood would be poured out. And then they'd take the meat and they'd take it across the street right next door, and they'd cut it up and they'd sell it. It was the butcher shop. So you could kind of kill two birds with 1 st. You could appease the gods and you could also have some meat to eat.
[00:21:54] Something similar would have happened in Jerusalem. The priests would offer the sacrifice and then they would eat of the sacrifice. So not all the offerings were whole burnt offerings. That's a holocaust. A whole burnt offering where the entire sacrifice is burned, most of them. Only part of the sacrifice, part of the animal is offered, and the rest could be eaten by the priests. Well, these ancient pagan cities had these altars to the false gods, and they would offer the sacrifice of the meat, and then they'd bring the remaining meat next door and you could go and buy it. The question that they were asking Paul was, well, what are we supposed to do with that? Can a Christian eat the meat that was sacrificed to the idols? And Paul answers in a really wonderful way, because he answers both theologically and practically.
[00:22:42] Theologically, he says, well, yeah, of course, because there's only one true God. The idols are nothing. They're demons. So it's not a real thing that they're doing. It's a mockery of a thing. So, yeah, eat the meat, that's fine. But he says, if someone's conscience is burdened by it or troubled by it, then don't eat the meat. You are free to eat the meat, but you're also free not to eat the meat. And you should consider the conscience of your brother. He says, eating a food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence, that there's no God but one. And although there's many so called gods in heaven or earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there's one God, the father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge. Some, though with former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We're no worse off if we do not eat, no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours, that's the word exusia. This authority of yours to eat or not eat does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak, so that what we can do and what we should do can be very different things that we have to consider not only what's true and what's right, but we also have to consider what's helpful, and that helpfulness is a right consideration as well. And Paul wants to teach us that. He says, therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I'll never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. So we have to make sure that we don't abuse our christian freedom to harm our neighbor.
[00:24:29] It's a really important passage, this one, corinthians eight, one to 13. All right, we will be studying today in Bible class, Hebrews, chapter five. I can't remember exactly where we are, but we've made this move into the Melchizedek section so that, how is Jesus a high priest? He's not of the order of Levi. He's of the Order of Melchizedek. Well, what does that mean? We got to go back to remember who Melchizedek was. We got to see how David in psalm 110 talks about Melchizedek. So we're going to be doing that in Bible class as well. So I hope you're on the way. And by the way, the podcast, I got it changed over to a real podcast thing. So if you listen to podcasts on iTunes or Spotify or whatever podcast provider, you should be able to subscribe to the Sunday Drive to church podcast now. And it should just come up automatically, should be in your feed. You shouldn't have to go to the church website to find it and to listen to it there as well. So hopefully that is a very helpful change for you all. All right, drive safe. We'll see you soon. That's a Sunday drive to church. Bye.
