This is the manuscript of the sermon I preached yesterday at Life in Christ. The video was of one of our members and his family celebrating after the Phoenix Suns won their series against the LA Clippers and reached the NBA finals. Sorry that I don't have the video for you to see but suffice it to say, the family was pretty amazed!
Such An Amazing Savior!
Webster’s
Dictionary defines the word “amaze” as to “fill with great surprise or sudden
wonder.” Watch this video for an example
of what I am talking about. (show Logan
Hall video).
According
to the Concordia Self-Study Bible, “the Bible that studies itself,” there are
only two instances in the Gospels where Jesus is described as “amazed.” One of those moments you will recognize
instantly. It is the account of the
faith of the Centurion as found in St. Luke, chapter seven.
You might
remember that the Centurion had a servant who had become seriously ill. Even though he was a Gentile, the Centurion
asked some of the Jewish elders to implore Jesus to come and heal the servant. The elders sought out Jesus, explained the
situation, and the Lord agreed to go with them.
They
were not far from reaching their destination when the Centurion sent some
friends with a message for Jesus. In so
many words, the Centurion said that if the Lord would just “say the word,” his
servant would be healed. St. Luke then
writes, “When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the
crowd following Him, He said, ‘I tell you, I have not found such great faith even
in Israel’.”
The
Centurion’s friends then returned home where, perhaps to their amazement; they
found the servant healed.
Now, today’s
Gospel lesson describes for us a rather “amazing” incident – the rejection of
Jesus by His family and friends in His hometown of Nazareth.
One
would think that the Lord would have received a hero’s welcome, the red-carpet
treatment on His return. Surely, the
people should have been filled with pride.
They had no doubt heard of how Jesus raised the Synagogue ruler’s 12-year-old
daughter from the dead. They must have
been told of the many sick people Jesus had healed. Surely, they had learned about Jesus’
authority over evil spirits. And they
must have known of the parables Jesus taught to his disciples and others.
But that
is not how the Nazarenes, including His own family received Him. To be sure, they were amazed at what they had
heard about Jesus. Astonished is
probably a better word. They asked
themselves, “How is it that He does these great things?”
Maybe
you can understand how they feel. After all,
isn’t He the carpenter’s son, who made a living with His hands? He is Mary’s boy. Mary’s nothing special. And according to St. Luke’s account of this
incident, when Jesus told the Nazarenes that He was the fulfillment of
the prophecy regarding God’s promise of a Messiah, they became offended at Him. Actually, they went bonkers and intended to throw
Jesus over the edge of a cliff. But since
it was not yet His time to die, Jesus used His divine power to simply walk
through the crowd, unharmed.
Now, if
we could turn the clock back about 2000 years and you had I had been in
Nazareth that day, it would have been different, right? If we had been there,
the Lord would have received the homecoming He rightfully deserved. We would have given Jesus the honor and glory
that was due Him. Certainly, we would have
been the Lord’s loyal and faithful disciples, ready to follow Him, wherever,
regardless of the cost.
Or would
we? Would we have eagerly welcomed Jesus? Would we have taken His every word to
heart? Would we have shown Him the devotion and worship He deserves from us?
For example,
Jesus comes to us in worship. But do we
always come to worship with great joy and excitement or do we sometimes see our
time at church as an obligation to be fulfilled?
How
many of us take the time each day for a period of Bible study and prayer so
that we can learn more about Jesus and continue to grow in faith in Him?
Jesus
comes to us in His Holy Supper. But do
we always take the time to examine ourselves, realize that we have fallen short
of what God demands, and then come to the Lord’s Table seeking the forgiveness
and assurance which we so desperately need?
And
what about our prayer life? Jesus commands us to pray. He promises to intercede for us at the right
hand of the Father. But have we gotten lackadaisical
about our prayer life?
How
about our witness? Do we take advantage of our opportunities to tell others
about our Savior when they come our way? Or do we sit silently when others make
outrageous or unfair statements about Jesus or the church?
We probably
do not want to admit it but there are times when our faith life is rather “Nazarene-like.” And that is a fearsome thought, considering
how Jesus’ own family and friends treated Him during His return to His hometown. What happened next? St. Mark goes on to tell
us: “Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village.”
Did
Jesus leave Nazareth in disgrace? Did He give up and quit because His family
and friends rejected Him? The answer is NO! And that is good news for us all.
It shows
that Jesus never gives up in reaching out to us, never withholds His grace when
we really need it, never stops calling us to be His when we feel so unworthy of
His love. What an amazing Savior we
have!
This Sunday,
Jesus brings to us the same message He brought to the Nazarenes 2000 years
ago. He proclaims to us that He is the
Messiah, the Christ, the Savior of us all.
He is the only One who has kept all of God’s commands perfectly – for us. He is the only One able to shoulder the
burden of our sins and suffer the punishment on the cross that should have been
ours. He is the only One worthy of our
complete honor and worship for no one else has loved us that way Jesus has
loved us.
This
Jesus is no ordinary man, a carpenter masquerading as a Messiah. No ordinary man could have paid the penalty
for all our foolish acts and indifferent attitudes. We are forgiven – forgiven of those times of uninspired
worship, indifference to Bible study, complacency toward His Holy Supper, and
listlessness in witnessing to others.
And in
His resurrection, Jesus shows us the full extent of His victory, giving us the
reassurance that true peace and hope are really ours because of Him. Could an ordinary man from Nazareth give up
His life on our behalf and then take it up again, much to the dismay of the
devil? What an amazing Savior we have!
So
amazing that the Father and the Son sent to us the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit’s motivating power, we
receive the faith and desire to find joy in our worship, wisdom and
understanding in our Bible study, power in our prayer life, and confidence to
confess Jesus to others. With the Spirit’s
help, we see Jesus for who He really is – not as a worker of wood, not as a
good man or wise teacher, but our Savior who proclaimed the message of
salvation and peace with God and bids us to do the same.
Perhaps,
the saddest words in our Gospel lesson today are these: “And (Jesus) was amazed
at their lack of faith.” From the
Scriptures we know that some of those in Nazareth that day ultimately came to a
saving, vibrant faith in Jesus. We know
that at least two of the Lord’s brothers, James, and Jude, became leaders in
the early church.
But I wonder
how many Nazarenes there were who never came to believe that Jesus is the promised
Messiah? I wonder how many there were who never saw Jesus for anything other
than an ordinary man and nothing more.
But for
you and me, Jesus makes it possible for us to recognize Him and know who He
really is. He gives us an amazing faith
which believes and trusts that His baptism is our baptism, His Word of forgiveness
is our forgiveness, His Body and Blood in the Holy Supper our assurance that we
are made right before God and that heaven’s gates are open wide to receive us.
I understand
that there were hundreds of people at the airport waiting for the Suns to arrive
home after their amazing victory. It is
too bad the people of Nazareth did not do the same for Jesus. We can be different. Every time we gather in this place for
worship, we can welcome the Savior who brings to us each Sunday His gifts of the
forgiveness of sins, power of overcome temptation, answers to prayer, the
promise of His presence in times of suffering and the certainty of heaven to us. There really is only one way to describe the
grace of Jesus – amazing! Such an
amazing Savior we have! Amen.
