Second Sunday after Pentecost
June 10, 2012
We have entered into the Pentecost season. Christmas and Lent and
Easter and even Epiphany are pretty familiar to us. But the Pentecost season
can seem a long drawn out season, especially as it takes up half the year. The
festival of Pentecost itself is familiar to us. We know what that’s all about,
with the Holy Spirit coming in a sound as of rushing wind, appearing as of
tongues of fire over the apostles’ heads; the apostles speaking in languages
they did not know but that were clearly understood by the hearers of those
languages.
But now we’re in the Pentecost season. What is it all about? During the
Pentecost season we don’t keep talking about the Day of Pentecost. So do we
just talk about stuff? Are the things of the Pentecost season on a lesser scale
than those of Christmas and Easter? While certain times and festivals of the
Church Year do stand out, the Church Year is an organic whole. There really is
nothing in the Church Year that does not do what every other part of the Church
Year does and that is bring Christ to us. Whether it is the incarnation at
Bethlehem or the glory of the Transfiguration or the riding into Jerusalem on
Palm Sunday or the suffering at Calvary or the leaving behind of the burial
cloths and death itself in the tomb that is now empty, the Church Year brings
to us Christ and what He has accomplished for us.
Even the event of Pentecost is an event in the life of Christ and of
what He has done for us. He had promised to send His Holy Spirit and so on
Pentecost He did. If the first half of the Church Year follows the life of Christ,
in the second half of the Church Year we follow the life of the Church. But one
who pays attention to the Church Year sees that every day of the Church Year
receives its focus from the Gospel reading. Even though we’re now in the
Pentecost season and following the life of the Church it’s really just more of
who Christ is and what He accomplishes for us.
That brings us to the second point and that is patience. Today is the
Second Sunday after Pentecost. Pentecost is still fresh in our minds. We’re
still eager for this new season of the Church Year to unfold. We’re not quite
ready to begin all over again with Advent and Christmas. And yet, by the
calendar months we’ll still be in this season of Pentecost we’ve just begun six
months from now. It’s June now and when we hit October and even go into
November we will still be in the same season of the Church Year we’re in now. During
the summer and into the fall when we come to church we will be celebrating
festivals with such dynamic names as the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost and
the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost. Celebrating who Christ is and what He has
done for us or no, it can seem a little anti-climactic when you’re just adding
Sunday upon Sunday to the days of the Pentecost season.
And it may not be a bad thing simply to admit this. It can seem old. It
can feel that it’s not all that exciting. It can even feel that way about the
entire Church Year itself, being as we repeat it each year. But this is one of
the blessings of the Church Year. It teaches us patience. Children are often
impatient. They can’t wait for what they want. They fail to see how waiting can
be a good thing. But adults can be impatient also. When we’re at the Fifteenth
Sunday after Pentecost and there are still several more to go we can become
weary of the seemingly endless observance of the season of Pentecost.
One of the things Pentecost teaches us is patience. During this season
of the Church Year we see that the Christian life is not one of spectacle but
often of ordinary day to day living as servants of God. This takes patience.
When the disciples waited for Jesus’ promise of sending the Holy Spirit they
had to have patience. In the grand scheme of things they didn’t have to wait
long. But once the Holy Spirit came in spectacular display, what happened then?
There were no further tongues of fire and sounds of rushing wind. There was the
almost ordinary day to day and week after week proclaiming of God’s Word and
the Breaking of the Bread and prayer.
The Book of Acts makes it seem exciting how the apostles went around
preaching and healing and the Church growing at a fast rate. And in a sense
that is exciting. But the Book of Acts records only the beginning. The apostles
continued on. The Church continued on after the apostles. We know from the
Scriptures that the apostles and the first Christians were people like you and
me. They had the same struggles, the same feelings, the same sins. We are no
more prone to impatience than they were. In the Book of Acts we have recorded
some instances where the Gospel was proclaimed by the apostles and thousands of
people were converted. Do you think that happened every time they proclaimed
the Gospel? Do you wonder what the apostles thought when they continued to proclaim
the Gospel and not every time was followed by a mass conversion?
I believe the Book of Acts gives us this answer. They continued on in
patience and faithfulness, as the Book of Acts deliberately doesn’t give us the
details of the thoughts and feeling of the apostles as they continued on in
making known the Gospel. This is to show that they continued to do what the
Lord had called them to do even as it would continue to be done after the
apostles were gone. In the rest of the New Testament we have the Holy
Spirit-inspired writings of the apostles and those writings show us what kind
of people they were writing to. They were people like you and me. They were
sinners. They were people who had feelings and who were impatient and who had
problems. All those mass conversions were wonderful, but the Church would
continue on with sinners who need constantly to hear the Gospel and receive the
Sacraments.
This takes patience. It teaches us humility. It shows us what faith
really is about. It shows us that, just as in the Book of Acts, the blessings
that come about in the Church are blessings from God. They come about through
the Lord doing the work, and He does the work through the Gospel being
proclaimed and the Sacraments administered. We may become impatient but our
Lord is at work and He is accomplishing what He has promised to accomplish. He
forgives sins and strengthens faith.
This brings us to the third point, which is plundering. For those who
are faint of heart or those who want a Christianity that is all peace and love
and a God who is only gentle and never harsh, the words of Jesus and the work
He carries out will seem out of character and out of place. But for those who
see what Pentecost is truly about and who are willing to be patient and let God
do His work, Jesus’ work of plundering will be a refreshing surprise.
The first surprise comes when it seems that Jesus is doing some sort of
aiding and abetting the enemy in His mini-parable on the kingdom of Satan. It
almost seems as if He’s giving instructions on how the Prince of Darkness can
further his kingdom: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided
against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against
itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against
himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one
can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the
strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.”
In the Gospel reading Jesus was confronted on several fronts. His
family thought He was out of His mind, the religious leaders thought He was
demon-possessed, and of course Satan assaulted Him by possessing many people.
Jesus has come to do His work and while many people believed in Him there were many
who did not. Those who rejected Him thought He wasn’t in His right mind or that
He was demon-possessed so He showed that it’s impossible for Him to be of the
devil if what He is doing is casting out demons. If He were doing what He was
doing in the service of Satan then Satan would be working against himself and
his kingdom would fall.
As it was, Satan’s kingdom was in full force and so Jesus was attacking
him right back, head on. This is what Jesus means when He says that “no one can
enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the
strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” Jesus acknowledged that
Satan was a strong man of sorts. Satan was on the prowl, like a roaring lion,
seeking someone to devour. He was grabbing hold of people with demon
possession. He was wreaking his havoc as he does. But as strong as Satan was,
there was one who was stronger. That’s why Jesus came. He came to plunder
Satan’s house. In order to do that, He said, He first must bind the strong man.
Jesus came with the Gospel flowing freely from His lips, the touch of His hands
bringing forth healing, and the power of His word casting out demons. Jesus was
binding the strong man. Having bound him He would plunder his house.
That’s what Jesus still does, we being a Pentecost Church and all.
That’s what He continues to do, though some still think He’s out of His mind
for thinking that He is truly God. It’s what He does even as we need to be
patient as He was with His family. His work of plundering doesn’t sound all
that proper of work, but it’s very proper when You’re God and Satan is seeking
to steal the people you created away from You. God created us to be in
relationship with Him and Satan seeks to destroy that relationship. He does so
by attacking us. God attacks right back and He does so in the proclamation of
the Gospel and the Sacraments being delivered to us.
Though some thought He was out of His mind, though some thought He was
demon possessed, though many thought many things of Him, none of this deterred
Jesus from coming straight into Satan’s kingdom and binding him. It may have
seemed a pathetic end to a ministry of such spectacle of teaching thousands,
healing many, delivering people from demons, when Jesus ended up hanging on a
cross only to end up hanging there lifelessly. But this was how Jesus bound the
strong man. Though Satan bruised Jesus’ heal, Jesus crushed Satan’s head. Satan
can attempt to overcome people with power. Jesus overcomes Satan with love. In
humility He was bound to the cross and God the Father laid upon Him the
iniquity of us all so that we are no longer bound by them or Satan’s lies or
attacks. Jesus is the stronger one. He binds the strong man, Satan.
In patience we see this plundering work of Jesus. He continues to comes
right in our midst, in this very world where Satan continues to attack people
and try to overtake them. People may think we’re out of our minds believing
that Jesus actually comes to us in water connected with His word and in bread and
wine that are connected with His word, but we will take Him at His word. It
takes patience, no doubt. It takes faith, most definitely. But Jesus took care
of that at Pentecost, when He sent His Holy Spirit. He took care of that in
your Baptism, when He sent His Holy Spirit again and imparted to you faith. He
takes care of it when He gives you His body and blood in His Holy Supper and
strengthens you in your faith. Satan doesn’t stand a chance. Standing in His
grace, you do. Amen.
SDG
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