Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

Sermon for The 19th Sunday after Trinity

By: Pr. Robert W. Schaibley

Title: “What Makes This Place Special, If Anything?”

From the OT of the Day: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” [Genesis 28.17]

From the Holy Gospel of the Day: “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” -- He then said to the paralytic -- “Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” [Matthew 9.6]

Dear brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ!

          Today, God brings you to this place, and God’s Word invites you to consider “What Makes This Place Special, if Anything?”

I.

          In the Holy Gospel, Jesus is confronted with a paralytic, lying on a bed, who was presented to Jesus -- bed and all -- by some of his friends, that Jesus might heal Him. And Jesus says, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.”

          Now, let us not make light of this statement, as if it is not what the young man needed, as if Jesus is only saying “Your sins are forgiven you” in order to set up His object lesson. It is true -- undeniably true -- that the young man needed to have His sins forgiven him. And, it is also undeniably true that Jesus is on earth for one preeminent reason, and that singular, ultimate, most important reason is NOT to heal paralytics. Jesus is here to bring forgiveness to paralytics, and to all others of mankind, who need above all else to have their sins forgiven them. Jesus does that for which He came, namely to seek and to save the lost sinners of mankind. And thus He says, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.”

          But, of course, Jesus knows that the scribes who are present will begin to grumble within themselves. They haven’t yet begun the open challenges of Christ’s teaching and Christ’s authority -- it is still early in Jesus’ three-year public ministry leading to the holy cross. These scribes simply make angry mental notes of what Jesus says: “This man blasphemes!’”

          Jesus knows their thoughts. He knew their thoughts even before they thought these thoughts, and so He says: “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” The answer to this question is never spoken, but it is quite clear nonetheless. These religious leaders think evil in their hearts because they are sinner; they think evil in their hearts because they, too, need to have their sins forgiven them.

          However, this need they cannot see. This need they cannot affirm. This need they must hide in some way from themselves, from those around them, and even from God Himself. It is not that they deny that they are sinners. That they willing admit and teach others to admit. However, the sins that they commit because they are sinners are to be dealt with by appealing to God in heaven, even as you hear the Pharisee is Jesus’ parable, as he stands in the temple and appeals to God in heaven: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men -- extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax  collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.”

          This is the understanding about forgiveness that the scribes and teachers of the Law taught, that the Pharisees believed, and that the people practiced. Forgiveness resides in heaven. Your prayers must ascend to heaven, along with the offerings and sacrifices of what remains of the Old Testament sacrificial system, an appeal to God to forgive your sins.

          But not only these notorious bad guys of the New Testament think this! Christians today think this, too! How you get forgiveness from God is that you pray for it! You’ve heard the boast, “I don’t need any human to forgive my sins; I can just pray to God, all by myself!”And then, they are forgiven you. Then, you can take heart that your sins are actually forgiven by God when you bank on what you are doing as a child of God.  But note this: In other words, the LOCATION of your forgiveness is in heaven, the FACT of your forgiveness is tied to your prayer, and the ASSURANCE that your sins are forgiven you rests on your own sense of your faith and, frankly your own belief that you are good enough to be forgiven.

II.

          Well, with such an understanding, no wonder-- when they heard Jesus say, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you” -- the scribes thought within themselves, “This man blasphemes”! Jesus turns their well-know, well-practiced understanding of forgiveness upside down. Jesus doesn’t wait for prayer from the man on the bed, or even from his friends on his behalf -- remember, they came for healing, not for forgiveness. Jesus doesn’t wait for the paralytic’s thanksgiving that shows recognition of God’s place in his life. Jesus doesn’t point to his faith at work to assure the young man how willing God is to forgive him. Jesus just declares, right on earth, that the man’s sins are forgiven him. What a revolutionary thought for those who are following Jesus! There is forgiveness ON EARTH. There is forgiveness on earth, through the authority of Jesus.

          And so, Jesus drives this point home by asking: “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to says, ‘Arise and walk’”? Of course, it is easier to say, “your sins are forgiven you,” because those who are watching and listening see nothing change. No green gas escapes from the sinner’s ears. But, when you say, “Arise and walk,” something better be seen, or everyone will know that you are a fraud. Thus, Jesus makes His point by tying the unseen to the visible: “But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins” -- something that is not visible -- then He said to the paralytic -- “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” And the man arose -- something that is visible -- and departed to his house. Thus, the scribes see it, but of course, they don’t believe it. Thus, you also see it, by the sacred record from St. Matthew: there is forgiveness of sins on earth! “Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men, on earth!

III.

          So, there you have it. The point of the Holy Gospel of the Day is that God brings forgiveness on earth. In other words, the LOCATION of your forgiveness in not in heaven, but it is in this real, seeable, hearable, feelable, and even tasteable world. The FACT of your forgiveness is tied to you and your prayers, but it is tied what Jesus provides and bestows, here on earth. And the ASSURANCE that your sins are forgiven you rests not on you and what you do, but the assurance on what Jesus declares and provides. You don’t have to rely on hoping that you have forgiveness in heaven. God brings it to you where He wishes it to be found, which brings us to the text from the Old Testament of the Day: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of, or to, heaven!”

          In other words, Christ establishes His church on earth as “Bethel--the house of God.” The house of God is the place where God sets the footings of His staircase to heaven firmly on earth. The staircase is Christ Himself. Where His Word is preached and His Sacraments are administered, there is Bethel, the House of God, there is the gate of heaven, and there is the forgiveness of sins, on earth.

          Thus, you have the point of being in church: to receive the forgiveness of sins on earth. But, how is this so? Here is how. Jesus puts forgiveness into the first thing that we did today, here, when we confessed our sins and the pastor, speaking on behalf of Christ and with His authority, forgave those sins. Jesus puts that forgiveness there when He establishes the apostolic ministry and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit, whosoever sins you forgive, those sins are forgiven them, and whosoever sins you retain, those sins are retained.” Jesus puts the forgiveness into the words of His authorized, called and ordained servants of the Word -- you heard my accent this morning, but you heard Jesus’ voice!

          Then, this morning, Jesus puts forgiveness of sins into the waters of Holy Baptism. How does He do that? Recall Jesus’ own baptism. John the Baptist did not feel worthy to baptize Jesus. Jesus says, “Let it be so now, for this it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Notice, Jesus didn’t say, “for ME to fulfill all righteousness,” as if being baptized is something He was doing to fulfill the Law, thereby showing you what you must do as an act of obedience. No, it is something that they are doing together, John and Jesus, and that something is that, in this act, Jesus is putting forgiveness into the waters of Holy Baptism, providing full righteousness there, in water, on earth. This morning Thalia Rehanna King was carried in here, physically alive, but spiritual dead through the sinful nature that she, like all of us, inherits from Adam. Now, she is a child of God with her sins forgiven!

          Next, we hear the promise of the Gospel in every sermon here in this place. The Gospel, and not the Law, hold preeminence here, so that you, like the Tax Collector in Jesus’ parable, go to your home justified, forgiven! It’s what the sermon should always be about, and it’s what, God-willing, reading and preaching of Gods will always will be about, in this place, on earth.

          Soon, we come to the Lord’s Supper, and again what is happening? You see the pattern by now, Jesus tells you to eat and to drink His very body and His precious blood, because He has put these things into the Sacrament, into the bread and wine. Why? So that sins might be forgiven! “This is my blood of the New Testament which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” here on earth, in earthly forms!

          This is the most crucial discovery that a sinner can make in life: , to learn what Jacob discovered, to grasp what Jesus shows to Nathanael when points to Himself as the true ladder of Jacob’s dream, and believe what Jesus proves to the house full of doubters in the Holy Gospel of the day. For then you grasp it: What’s so special about this place is the forgiveness of sins on earth in this place, and then you can say, with Jacob: “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”