Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

Title: "The Medicine of the Soul"
Texts:
From the O.T. for the Feast: And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. [Is. 35.8]

From the Epistle for the Feast: The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom. [2 Tim. 4.18]

From the Holy Gospel for the Feast: After this, the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. [Luke 10.1; NKJV]

Today we observe the minor church festival called “The Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist.” St. Luke is the human author chosen by the Holy Spirit to give us the inspired texts known as Luke and The Acts of the Apostles, which together comprise over one-fourth of the New Testament text. St. Luke was highly educated, a Gentile, a physician by profession. His education background explains why the books of Luke and Acts contain the most sophisticated use of the Greek language found in the New Testament. That he was both non-Jewish and a physician help us to understand today’s topic: “The Medicine for the Soul.”

I.

In the Holy Gospel for this festival day, St. Luke presents the event in which Christ appoints 70 others–or as some Greek texts read, 72 others–to go forth ahead of Him with the Gospel. The word “others” tells you that these are not the twelve soon-to-be apostles, but rather they are others, appointed by Christ to be the extension of the apostolic office in the absence of the original apostles.

St. Luke’s Gospel is the only one the four Gospels in the New Testament to convey this event. There is an important reason why he is inspired to include this event. For Luke himself is not an apostle. Only two of the four Gospels are written by apostles, Matthew and John. Yet, the Church recognizes the Gospels according to Mark and Luke as being apostolic. Why? Because both Luke and Mark write under the authority of apostles, Luke under St. Paul and Mark under St. Peter. Indeed, there is an even more important reason that St. Luke includes this event. It is the signal that, after the apostles are all dead, the apostolic ministry will continue through those who are appointed by Christ to exercise the office of the apostolic ministry. Through this office, year after year and century after century, Christ will speak, just as He does through the apostles themselves. This is why Jesus says–not only of the apostles but also these seventy, and of those whom He will continue to appoint to the office of the apostolic ministry in His Church–“He who hears you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.”

So, however a church might be organized for purposes of church governance – and the Lutheran churches do not care what organization is used, whether by bishops, or by area clergy, or by congregational members – there are two things that will be true of Christ’s Church in every place: There will be Christians gathered by the Holy Spirit, and those Christians will be gathered around the exercise of the means of grace in their midst. Our Lutheran Confessions put it this way: “To obtain such faith God instituted the office of the ministry, that is, provided the Gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means, He gives the Holy Spirit, who works faith, when and where He pleases, in those who hear the Gospel.” So, as a congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, two things remain true about our life together: (A) we are a congregation because the Holy Spirit has brought us together; and (B) we are a congregation because Christ has placed in our midst the office of the holy ministry to exercise the means of grace through which the Holy Spirit creates and sustains faith. In this congregation the Holy Spirit places and sustains Christians through Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Lord’s Supper. And, in this congregation Christ speaks His holy Law of judgment against sin and His precious Gospel of the forgiveness of sins through the office of the holy ministry. Thus, it is Christ’s intention, regardless of human forms of church governance, that the Church is a matter of congregation and office of ministry. And the purpose for this bringing together of congregation and office of ministry is this: The distribution and reception of the medicine of the soul.

II.

The reason that you have a Gospel according to St. Luke–and indeed the reason that you have in your midst the Christ-appointed office of the apostolic ministry–is this: That you might hear the voice of Christ speaking to you through an external Word. It is not enough to have the Bible in your hands, though neither the gathered Church nor the individual Christian should be without it. Christians need both the Bible and the apostolic ministry. Since the apostolic ministry is called and ordained to preach only the doctrine found in the Scriptures, the Bible is necessary to check what the preacher is preaching and teaching, in order to recognize the voice of Christ in and through such preaching and teaching. And, since the Bible has been subject to so many wrong interpretations, it is necessary to have the external Word of the Gospel and the Sacraments proclaimed and administered, lest individual views of what the Scriptures say lead to distortions of what Christ would have you believe. After all, St. Peter clearly states: “knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.” Luther warns, concerning individual and subjective views of what the Bible says, which he calls “enthusiasm”: “In these matters, which concern the external, spoken Word, we must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one His Spirit or grace except through or with the external Word which comes before. Thus we shall be protected from the enthusiasts–that is, from the spiritualists who boast that they possess the Spirit without and before the Word and who therefore judge, interpret, and twist the Scriptures or spoken Word according to their pleasure... All this is the old devil and old serpent who made enthusiasts of Adam and eve. He lead them from the external Word of God to spiritualizing and to their own imaginations... In short, enthusiasm clings to Adam and his descendants from the beginning to the end of the world. It is a poison implanted and inoculated in man by the old dragon, and it is the source, strength, and power of all heresy... Accordingly, we should and must constantly maintain that God will not deal with us except through His external Word and Sacrament. Whatever is attributed to the Spirit apart from such Word and Sacrament is of the devil.” and, Luther continues: “Thank God, a seven-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, holy believers and sheep, who hear the voice of their Shepherd.” Here again is the balance between the gathered congregation and the external voice of Christ speaking to them through ministry of the Gospel and the Sacraments in their midst.

The Holy Spirit has gathered you around the Gospel and the Sacraments today, and for this reason the Church is manifest in this building this morning.

III.

In the Old Testament of this Feast Day, the prophet Isaiah speaks of his vision of the era of the New Testament, our era, in which there is what he describes as “The Way of Holiness,” or in N.T. terms, “The Way of Righteousness.” Of this way, this path, Isaiah prophesies, “the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray,” We call this path, “the Church,” that is the “Una Sancta,” the one true church of all time and places, in which God places you, and on which path He leads you, and by which path He delivers to you the medicine of the soul, the Gospel of truth.

This is the purpose of the Church – the distribution and reception of the medicine for the soul. Through it, God brings true for you and for your loved ones what St. Paul says in Today’s Epistle, concerning himself and his impending death” “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom.” Regardless of what your mind discerns and your emotions desire, when you enter anew this company of Christian, this Church, God delivers what He desires for you, this medicine of the soul, and by it, He continues to rescue you from every evil deed, and He continues to pilot you to eventual and eternal safety in His heavenly kingdom.