Bible Text: Luke 18:31-43 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
At least five times, and obviously more, because as John says, the world couldn’t contain all the books that would have to be written if everything Jesus said and did were actually written down, at least five times, Jesus tells his disciples that He will be betrayed, tortured, killed, and will rise again. And not once do they get it.
God says through Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not my ways. As high as heaven is above earth, so high are my thoughts above your thoughts and my ways above your ways.”
But the height of God’s thoughts aren’t like the heights of a genius over the low IQ of a simpleton. It’s not a matter of degree. It’s not, “God is so much smarter than we are.” He is. But that’s not the point. It’s a matter of kind. God’s thoughts and ways are of a different kind than ours. The beauty of being a Christian, of as St. Paul says, having the mind of Christ, of possessing the Holy Spirit, the great gift of our Baptism, is that we begin to think the thoughts of God, thoughts so much higher than anything our reason could ever discover. The thinking of God, the Way of God, is that He, the eternal Son of the Father, is spit upon, mocked, beaten, tortured, crucified, and killed for us. And risen again the third day. Because we need it. Because everything depends on it.
This isn’t God’s high intelligence. This is God’s high Love. This is why St. Paul says that if I have all knowledge and have not Love, I have nothing. Jesus points to children, to nursing infants who have very little intelligence, and says, “I thank you, Father in heaven, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes.” Because it is not a matter of you figuring anything out with your intelligence. What would you come up with? That God, the Creator of all things, the eternal, the One who cannot suffer and cannot die, needs to suffer and die for you? Look at all the religions of the world, all that human reason has come up with, all the philosophies of the smartest men, and not one of them approaches this. And it’s not that they come close, they’re almost there, but they just don’t quite get it. No, they go in the exact opposite direction. Christ crucified for sinners, Paul says, is foolishness to the Greeks and an offense to the Jew. The religion of our sinful nature insists that we are too good for that. We don’t need God dying for us, even if He could. We can bear our own load. We can do the good. We can climb the ladder to heaven.
But the Bible, this holy and precious Book, bears the stamp of the God whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways are not our ways. All of it, every word, every story, every prophecy, is saturated with Christ crucified for sinners. “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.” It is not true that there is some dizzying array of religions out there and it is impossible to see which is true and which is not. It is not true, as the Roman Catholic pope teaches, that we can discover divine and saving truth in all the different religions. No, our Christian faith is of a different kind. His thoughts are not our thoughts. All other religions are the same – everything depends on your works, your goodness, your intelligence, your striving. But God’s religion is His Love, and that Love is Christ crucified for you, because you need Him bleeding and dying, mocked, and spit on.
And you need the Holy Spirit. If you’re looking at the disciples and wondering how they couldn’t understand, don’t, because that unbelief is in you, it is you, except by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit works through Jesus’ Word. It isn’t enough to hear it with the ears. The disciples heard it, they understood intellectually that Jesus was saying He had to be spat upon, mocked, killed, and rise again. That all the prophets said it would happen and it would. We know the disciples knew it intellectually, that’s not a guess, because earlier Peter understood it all too clearly and told Jesus, “No, this will never happen to you.” He was offended by it, because that’s all human reason can do. And Jesus said to Peter, “I’m offended at you!” That’s what it means that God’s thoughts aren’t our thoughts. It’s not that the disciples didn’t understand intellectually the words Jesus spoke, it’s that they couldn’t grasp with their heart that this Man, whom they all confessed was the Christ, the Son of the living God, needed to die for them.
If this all seems so obvious to you – of course, Jesus had to die for me, of course that’s what the Bible teaches, then it is obvious only because the Holy Spirit has worked faith in your heart. And that is the greatest miracle God has ever worked. But it’s not always obvious, not even for the strongest Christians, not even for you. The devil especially attacks during the holy seasons, Lent and Easter, Advent and Christmas. You will hear again the devil’s temptation of Jesus next Sunday, “If you are the Son of God.” And his original temptation of Eve in the Garden, “Did God really say?”
The devil’s temptation is not, Did Jesus’ die? Of course, that’s a point of history, it’s not debatable. What we confess every Sunday, crucified under Pontius Pilate, that takes no faith, no Holy Spirit, to believe. The devil’s temptation is, did He want to? That’s it. That’s why these words of Jesus are so precious. It’s why He tells his disciples again and again and again, that He’s going to Jerusalem to suffer and die. He wants it. Why? Because you need it, and He loves you. It is the only way. If God wants us redeemed from death and sin and the devil, if He wants us as His own, He has to face that death and bear that sin and crush that devil. Because we can’t. It is the only way. And He wants it. Because as high as the heavens are above us, He loves us.
The devil will never understand this and he is very sincere when he tempts you to think it is ridiculous, that it can’t be, that God could not so love you. He believes it sincerely. If the devil had known God’s thoughts, he would never have entered it into the heart of Judas to betray his Lord. Jesus used the devil to do it. He who orders all things in heaven and on earth, who ordered the history of the world, who is ordering your life, He saw the goal of everything to its completion, in His death on that cross, and with that last triumphant cry, “It is finished.” And if He used the devil to accomplish it, then don’t listen to the devil when he casts doubts on it. God’s only using him to strengthen your faith. The devil’s a liar, defeated, pathetic, devoted to a lie that is his own deceit.
Look at Jesus’ words, hear Him speak them to you, see him fix his face like flint to Jerusalem, see Him want with all the heart of God to go to the cross for you. We cannot look at this Man on the cross and see simply something that happened to Him. Some tragic event. Some miscarriage of justice. We can feel sorry even for a criminal who is crucified, obviously more for an innocent man, falsely accused. But that is not the point of Jesus’ crucifixion, and as we head into Lent, we need to pray the Holy Spirit to fill us with His almighty power and remind us of this. When Jesus was going to the cross, the women wept for Him, and He said, Do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves. The cross is not the object of our pity. We are the object of God’s pity. And the cross is that pity. For us. Who deserved His anger, but got His love. He bore our sins, He died our death, He suffered our punishment, He gave His life for our life. This is the thought of God, this is His way. And it is wonderful.
The blind man saw. He shouted to Jesus for mercy, and the people told him to stop, not to bother Jesus. But he refused to stop shouting, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus turned His attention to him. Faith captivates our God’s attention. So much that even though it is Jesus who saves, Jesus Himself says, your faith has saved you. Because faith, wrought by the Holy Spirit, listens to no objections: he’s got more important things than you, he’s not interested in helping you, don’t bother Him. No, faith looks at Christ-crucified and sees what Jesus says. He goes there for me. He suffers hell for me. He takes all my misery away. He loves me with a love that passes all my understanding. And He will help me in everything. He will listen to my cry for help. He will be my rock and my strong fortress. He will never leave me or forsake me. And so we like that blind man, see. And he praised Jesus and followed Him. And we praise the Lord Jesus. We give Him all glory now and forever. And by His love, we love one another. Amen.