Proper 5 B
Born into Battle
Mark 3:20-35
7 June 2015 – Redeemer
You are born into battle as a Christian. We are only two weeks removed from Pentecost where God’s Spirit gave birth to over 3000 people who after hearing the preaching of God’s Word were baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. When you are born from above in Christ you are born into battle. The good news is that in the midst of the battle you already know the victory is yours in Christ.
Adam and Eve lost the battle in today’s Old Testament reading. That rebellious and fallen angel Satan attacked Adam and Eve and they surrendered God’s Word. They became Satan’s captives – captive to sin, captive to death and captive to the fear of God. The devil won over their souls and their hearts and so they (and you, as their grandchildren) are afraid of God. You try to hide your sins from Him. You blame Him for your problems. And your ability to deal with this loss is as effective as using fig leaves to cover your nakedness.
Sometimes I don’t think we realize how serious this original loss to Satan is for all us – and what it means in our lives. To illustrate this I’m going to the last two words you wanted to hear this week in my sermon, because you’ve heard them too much all week. Bruce Jenner. According to his own words Jenner has “felt” like a woman trapped in a man’s body for a very long time. This caused him great struggle and he wanted to escape this captivity. If there is anyone who should understand what he is saying it should be Christians who believe in original sin and its consequences – Adam’s sin and our sin has messed us and the world up. “Sin not only brought death into the world but also brought disfigurement, disease, deterioration, and confusion.” (from Pr. Hess, thejaggedword.com) We are confused about marriage (something which every culture before us for thousands of years has had no confusion.). This week everyone knows what transgender means, but I learned a new word – transabled – these are people who permanently disable themselves by removing one of their own limbs or appendages because they are not happy with a hand or leg or eye.
Bruce Jenner’s actions should not surprise us. We should not be shocked that he destroyed himself. He tried to make himself something he never could be. He is not a woman – to say that is an insult to every woman ever born into the world. Being a woman is something you are given, not something you can take. Is our response any different to the sin we carry from birth and our captivity to our selfish nature? Saint Paul wrote, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” Then Paul clearly tells us the source of the problem, “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”
How successful have you been at stopping your suffering and undoing your sin? If you are having a difficult marriage – what do you do – cut your wife or husband down? Self-medicate with alcohol to relieve the suffering? We cut our families apart through neglect and divorce and busy-ness. Then we photoshop our destruction and put make-up on our scars with self-justification.
Bruce Jenner likely had more earthly resources than most of us, and yet he failed. He is not a woman. He will never be a woman and he will never be satisfied because his suffering will never end through human means. And neither will yours. Our battle is not against flesh and blood. Lord, have mercy on us.
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus tells us the essence of the battle and how the victory is won. Jesus fought the battle for us and He won.
Everyone was against Jesus, even His family, and that should tell you the nature of the battle – it’s deeper than flesh and blood. It might even divide your family. When Jesus’ family heard about Him preaching, and healing diseases and calling disciples they thought He was crazy. Most of us were always a little suspicious about the first born, but Jesus’ family tried an intervention – grab him, “He’s out of his mind.” The Scribes were in agreement – although they attributed His work not to being out of his mind, but to being possessed. “He is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” The Scribes knew that Jesus was waging a battle beyond their means – they couldn’t heal the sick, they couldn’t cast out demons, they did not preach with authority that everyone recognized. He was not of the world, but they did not want to believe He was from God. For if Jesus was God, then He was in charge, then the Sabbath was His, then forgiveness was His, and then the people He was helping (whom the Scribes didn’t like) would end up winning and the Scribes considered those folks real losers.
Jesus family was right in this – Jesus was out of his mind, in the sense that He did not have the mind of sinful man, but the mind of God. The Scribes were right – Jesus was engaged in a spiritual battle against Satan, but He wasn’t on Satan’s side. In Jesus’ parabolic response to the Scribes He reveals the severity of this battle. Satan has us and the world in which we live. When Adam and Eve sinned they lost to Satan. He won possession and control of their very nature. This is what we mean when we confess that we are “by nature sinful and unclean.” Satan has us. Our nature is completely corrupted. Even when we do a good deed it is influenced by our own selfish motives. That is why with Adam and Eve we try to hide our sin from God and from one another. We are born completely and wholly in Satan’s camp, without the power or will to escape. I could say, “Look to Bruce Jenner as evidence,” but you would be better served if I said, “Examine your own life to see what you have cut and mangled and covered up with self-righteous make-up.
Hear then the good news – Jesus is in the battle for you – meaning He’s not only fighting on your side, in your behalf, but His goal is to have you, to free you from captivity and captivate you for Himself. This battle with sin and Satan is not a pretty fight. It is a violent fight. For Jesus must come into Satan’s house. He must bind the strong man so that He can free us. And who is on Satan’s side? His family, the religious leaders, Rome, Herod, Pontius Pilate, everyone by nature is on Satan’s side. Jesus came to His own and His own did not receive Him. But Jesus did not fight the battle with strength. He fought with weakness. He did not use His Spiritual power, but rather worked in the mortal flesh of a man. While Satan justly claimed man’s soul, Christ worked justice to free man’s soul.
What Satan saw at the cross was the defeat of Christ. Everybody had rejected Jesus. The Jews, His disciples, Rome, even the Father rejected His Son at the cross. Satan thought Christ’s death was his victory, but the moment Christ gave up His Spirit, and that Roman Centurion pierced His side with a spear, Satan was undone. A man without sin had died and that man was not only true man, but true God. Satan could no longer claim justice – the price had been paid for the sin of humanity. Satan was bound by Christ’s death. His own claim on you was that sinners are his, but in Christ’s death your sin is forgiven. You are declared right. Satan is bound and you are set free. Jesus entered the strong man’s house and bound up Satan with justice and righteousness and forgiveness. He plundered Satan’s house to liberate you for Himself.
So perhaps these battles we are facing are good for us – perhaps it is good that ISIS hates Christians and beheads them, perhaps it is good that marriage is under attack and the media is celebrating a man’s pathetic attempt to be a woman. Good in this way – they remind us we are in a battle. It is not a battle that we fight with swords or threats or by tearing ourselves and others apart. It is a battle we fight under Christ and in Christ, by calling sin sin, by realizing the deep nature of sin and our inability to escape it, by proclaiming the Christ of God’s Word as the only deliverance and victory from sin, suffering, and shame.
You have not been baptized into a peaceful nursery where you can hide under your blanket. You have been baptized into battle. Now is not the time to remain silent or to long for the good old days or to simply pray this will all go away. Now is the time to confess the truth, to repent of our own sins, to strive to live as God’s holy and chosen people, to walk blameless before the world, and to do all this for one reason – Christ has bound up Satan and plundered His house. He’s taken us captive to the freedom of God’s Word and there are others still captive under Satan whom He would set free. So we battle on, confident of the victory in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
6 June 2015 anno Domini