Thursday in Trinity VII                               11 August 2011

LTS Chapel                                                 Pretoria,South Africa

Psalm: Ps. 16

Hymn: “O Blessed, Holy Trinity” -876 LSB

Mark 9:43-50

Prayer: By Your Word and Spirit, bless the speaking and hearing of your Holy Gospel that we may be kept in body and soul in the struggle against sin and the devil and finally by Your grace brought to the final victory in the resurrection of our bodies to life everlasting for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Dear hearers of the Word of God: One of the great pastors of our Lutheran Church was Wilhelm Löhe who lived and died in the 19^th century. Just two weeks ago Dr. Weber and I were attending a conference in Fort Wayne devoted to the study of this outstanding churchman who though he never ventured far from his home in Bavaria was so instrumental in sending out men who become pastors and assist in the planting of the church in North America and ultimately in other places like New Guinea and Australia as well. Inscribed on Löhe ’s tombstone are those familiar words at the conclusion of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in …the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” How fitting a motto for the grave stone of a disciple of Jesus Christ! The Christian life is lived from the forgiveness of sins to the resurrection of the body to life everlasting.”

Our citizenship is not ultimately in South Africa, theUnited States, orGermanybut in heaven. And as the Apostle Paul writes “from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:20-21). So in this life-even in the face of snares and obstacles along the way- we press forward to that heavenly goal of the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Nothing whatsoever is more worthwhile or important as to interfere with what God has in store for those who cling to Him in faith.

It is in this light that we hear Jesus’ words in our text. These words are admittedly harsh for He speaks in hyperbole, in most exaggerated terms to drive home the point. Even the integrity and soundness of your body is not worth exchanging for the resurrection of the body to life everlasting. Now some have taken Jesus’ words very literally and mutilated their bodies in an attempt to measure up to the demands of discipleship. We think, for example, of Origen who actually castrated himself in a futile attempt to extinguish the desires of the flesh. The Lord Jesus did not come to form a society of amputees, hobbling footless into the kingdom or a pack of sightless Christians stumbling in darkness until they come into the light of the heavenly city. Eyes, hands, and feet are not the cause of sin, but sin’s instruments.

Nevertheless, the Lord Jesus is making a point with his use of this wild imagery that we must take to heart with utter seriousness: There is nothing more tragic than a life that ends in hell. Now I know that hell is not a popular topic in the theology or preaching these days. There are more than a few theologians who consider the teaching of hell as an obsolete and inhuman concept irreconcilable with a God of love and mercy. They think that they know better than Jesus! But we would do far better to listen to Jesus who speaks more often of hell than of heaven in the gospels. He is the Son of God and He knows what He is talking about. He came into the world, taking on our flesh and blood, born of the virgin Mary to suffer and die in order to redeem us not from an imaginary hell but from an eternal damnation where those who do not know Him will suffer unspeakable torment under God’s wrath. The Lord’s language in our text is all too clear as He speaks of an unquenchable fire that burns but never consumes and a worm which will not die. What good is it to have a healthy body if your soul so corroded and corrupted by unbelief spurns the mercy of God in Christ Jesus? It would be better to sacrifice life and limb rather than to fall away from faith in the One who alone is the Resurrection and the Life. Nothing – not even the treasured gifts of bodily health and wholeness- is more precious than Jesus Christ.

The path of discipleship is strenuous for it is the path of the cross, of affliction, of counting all things as lost for the sake of holding fast to the one thing needful, the word of the Lord Jesus Christ whom to know is life eternal. So Jesus says “everyone will be salted with fire.” In the OT, offerings where offered with salt. We speak of putting salt into the wounds as way of indicating the inflicting of pain. Salt purifies and cleanses lacerated flesh so that healing might occur. But salt also stings and burns. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be salted for sacrifice. This is what the Apostle Paul speaks of in Romans 12 when he writes “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1).  Now in the ancient world those words would have struck Paul’s readers as absolutely strange, an oxymoron or a contraction, we might say. Everybody knew whether Jew or pagan knew that sacrifices where dead. The temple inJerusalemlooked more like a slaughter house than a church and the priest more like a blood stained butcher than a properly vested clergyman. But Paul says present your bodies not as dead sacrifices but as a living sacrifice.

You are a living sacrifice because death has already taken place. Jesus died for your sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. Put to death for your trespasses ad raised again for your justification, you have been put to His death in Baptism and as the Apostle says if we share in a death like His we will also share in His resurrection. He has redeemed you in body and soul; He has made your body a living sacrifice. He has salted you so that you are the salt of the earth. Salt which has gone stale, lost its saltiness is worthless-lacking the capacity to flavor, cleanse, or preserve. Only Jesus’ sacrifice can and does restore us to saltiness, making us what He intends us to be. So He says “Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.”

Salted to live as living sacrifices in the world, we are not conformed to the pattern of this world but we are transformed from the inside out to paraphrase Paul in Romans 12. At peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ, we are then at peace with one another. Rather than feuding for positions of greatness in God’s Kingdom, we are content to live as servants one of another, always keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus and the gift He has promised: “the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” Amen.

-Prof. John T. Pless