“HARD TRUTHS”
Saint Mark 7: 15-23
8th Sunday After Trinity: 17 July Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
The Mohammedans sometimes talk about Jesus and they “say” that they consider Him a great prophet. They are pagan followers of Satan and will be damned to hell. The same hard truths apply to Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses. The casual hearer; the lukewarm social Christian—the one who is called the C/E Christian—who champions “niceness” and personal “faith” as if it were a Golden Calf may also be a pagan follower of Satan headed towards Hades. The Lord doesn’t care what you “think” His Word means or what your “opinion” is about Scripture and Theology and Truth (and I certainly don’t). What matters is that you believe, teach, and confess, the Creeds. For in confessing The Creeds you are testifying in both heart and mouth (maybe soon blood) the Christian Scriptures and The Christ Himself. When you confess Christ you speak back to Him that which He has given you—His Person and His Work.
The pews of “churches” fill up week after week in ELCA, Methodist, Romanist, Baptist, non-denominationalist, etc. parishes with people who may not be Christians because they do not confess the real Christ but only a nonjudgmental and friendly construct of their own self-loving imagination. And believe this: The LC-MS has people in this same lost and dangerous condition as well.
To the question: “who do men say that I Am,” every individual stands by himself, not corporately, but as a solitary lost lamb. The real evil is in false teachers and heretical Bishops. Every pastor by virtue of his (His, not his and hers; the pernicious heresy of female clerics is both a non-thing as well as a possibly damning thing) Office—in the “stead and by the command” of The Lord Jesus Christ is a prophet—a “God speaker.” Every pastor as a successor to both The Apostles, and the Apostolic successors themselves (Titus, Timothy, Barnabas, Mark) looses and binds in Christ’s Name and by His authority. Every pastor re-speaks the Lord’s own still-echoing and still sounding Verba during The Sacrament. Every pastor Baptizes using Christ’s formula. Every pastor teaches during the preachment, the homily, the very Words and Power of Christ’s full counsel, rightly distinguishing and dividing Law and Gospel. To be sure, most pastors, all pastors, are deficient and clumsy at times, on occasion even missing the mark and mucking everything up. But they must be held to their ordination vows and to the Symbols…which means held to Christ and His Scripture. The will of The Father, your Father who art in heaven, is that you believe on His Son, your Savior Christ Jesus. That you believe and confess Him as He gives Himself to you to be confessed in His Word and in His Supper. The will of The Father is that you cling tightly to Messiah through thick and thin, through blood and iron, and through the long dark night of the cross. The will of Your Father is that you admit your sin, and your sins, with true contrition; that you repent and turn away from all your daily trespassing; and that you keep your eyes of faith and your ears of faith on the Forgiveness of Sins that is spoken to you by Christ in His Gospel…in His Gospel administered to you by His true prophets.
You will be judged by your faith. Not your faith as a separate entity but by your belief as a gifted instrument of reception. That means you are judged by Jesus’ Mercy and absolution—Grace. His cross is your judgment and its fruit will soon by your Meal at Mass.
The pastor, the prophet, as also a member of the fold, as an individual lamb, is judged the same way…but…there is an added burden placed upon such who have been called and placed under orders.
The pastor is judged by the fruits of his own preaching, teaching, and care of the flock. May God have mercy upon His soul.
Grace gives faith. Faith receives Christ and His Body and Blood. Eat, drink, and hold on to Him with all that He’s given you to do so with. Only this kind of faith, faith in ALL His Word and deeds matters. “Many will say to Him in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name, and in Thy Name have cast out devils; and in Thy Name done many wonderful works?’ And then Christ will profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity,” i.e. you who do not Confess My Love and receive My Mercy. Judas raised the dead and now burns in hell.
You have been made the good tree that bringeth forth good fruit—Faith and Confession by He Who on a tree overcame sin, death, and the power of the devil; Who from that Tree bleeds into your font, chalice, and onto your lips—Peace! You are raised from the dead and feast at His Table.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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