“THE SAVIOR SEED SAVES”
Saint Luke 8: 4-15
Sexagesima: 4 February Anno Domini 2018
Father Jay Watson SSP
“Awake, why sleepest Thou, O Lord? Arise, case us not off forever.” Wake up God! Where are you when I need you! Are you throwing me to the ground?
Sinful man when things are going well puts his/her trust in the things that they “do,” that, you do. And then, when you have everything turn upside down: sickness, wasting disease, loss of loved ones, failures of marriages, jobs, friendships, old age, depressions…you still resort to your own efforts as long as you can. Too many times The Lord is the last resort rather than your constant daily stay, your mighty fortress, your still + waters, and table of nourishment. This is why the analogy of the seed is so true.
Parables are deeper than mere fables and myths. Parables are the absolute truths about God’s person and work. They are how Christ reveals Himself to His own while befuddling the stiff-necked and hard-hearted hypocrite who wants to work, earn, decide, choose, and apprehend knowledge and wisdom his “own way.” Parables can be condemning Law to the unregenerate. But to those who are brought into the Kingdom as babes desiring the pure milk of The Word, these sometimes, cryptic comments, give Christ.
This is why The Lord tells the “12” and His other disciples “unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.”
From a purely systematic, dogmatic, and theological analysis…or from the Small Catechism as well, you know that these mysteries are the “oracles of God,” i.e. the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures as well as the Evangels and Epistles of the New Testament Greek Scriptures. You know that these “mysteries” are also the Sacraments—The Word attached to earthly elements (“stuff”) for the forgiveness of sins in visible, audible, tactile, solid delivery. The mysteries are located as the Blessed Trinity concentrates everything for you in the Person of The God/Man Christ Jesus: Emmanuel!
The reason fallen sinful natures don’t like the Sacraments, or a Liturgical set-form order of worship, or solid word-based preaching of Law and Gospel wedded to an historical lectionary is the same reason people, all of us, don’t like seeds. They are inchoate, they are incomplete, there even as to be a full-color picture of the eventual crop or flower on the seed package that you purchase at the nursery, to, to give you something. But there’s no immediate sensual payoff. A seed goes into the ground and then…what? One waits. One must simply trust and rely on the seed to do what the seed will do. When you receive Holy Absolution from the pastor as from Christ you hear only his voice…no razz-ma-tazz miraculous apparitions. When you receive The Body and The Blood of Jesus you taste only bread and wine and receive no emotional/electrical god-jolt of energy. The Word of God is seed. It goes where Jesus the Sower places it through His appointed means; His selected delivery methods and then does His bidding. The seed grows and works the way He desires when He desires. It takes all the cooperation out of your blackened hands. It takes all credit and bragging rights away from you. It is free. It is grace.
Jesus and His Word of forgiveness from His mouth and from His Body and Blood are Salvation Seed. Jesus allowed Himself to be thrown on the way side of the world’s desert of sin; to obey and keep the Law. Jesus battled the fowls of the air—the demons who are in service to Satan, the Prince of the air [Eph. 2.2] The Seed of the Trinity Himself the Rock of Ages had the stones of the Commandment placed upon His back, driven into His hands and feet and He lacked moisture as He sweat and bled His life away for all of you. His back was furrowed and his blood drop became the true seed from the cruciform Tree of Life. He was choked with the crown of thorns and the thorns of your daily trespasses. But this Good Man, this God/Man, this Christ kernel was planted in the earth to redeem the earth and to redeem the earth man, Adam, all earth men, for He bloomed to Lily Life on Easter morn the first fruits of all who are buried with Him in their Baptisms. You have been given His good heart. You will drink its good Blood in a moment. He places His Word, The Word, in you and keeps it and keeps you in it. He is patient and He will do it. Go in Peace. Come now in Peace.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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