Jesu Juva
“Light in the Darkness;
Peace in the Chaos”
Text: Mark 9:14-29
(Isaiah 50:4-10; James 3:1-12)
Grace, mercy, and peace
to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ.
Amen.
It was chaos. Jesus, Peter, James, and John come
down the mountain, fresh from Jesus’ transfiguration, to this. Chaos. Jesus’ other nine disciples are arguing with the
scribes and there’s a great crowd around them, perhaps listening, perhaps
yelling themselves and taking sides. When someone finally looks up and notices
that Jesus is there, they all run over to Him. And, oh yeah, there’s this boy
rolling around on the ground, convulsing and foaming at the mouth. You couldn’t
blame Peter, James, and John had they tugged on Jesus sleeve and asked: Uh,
can we go back? Peter’s suggestion of setting up three tents and staying is
looking pretty good now!
But no, they can’t go back. This is why Jesus
came. This is life. This is your life.
Is it not? Oh, maybe the details are a bit
different, but is your life all neat and tidy, or more like chaos? Is your life
all going according to plan, or more filled with interruptions, unexpected
problems, arguments, troubles at home, problems at work or school, issues with
family, betrayal by friends, and people convulsing and foaming at the mouth?
Yeah, this is it, isn’t it? Life in a world of sin,
filled with sinners, with the devil conducting his minions to turn God’s
well-ordered, harmoniously-orchestrated creation, into chaos. Each of us playing our own tune, blowing our own horn, and making a
mess of it all.
And then into this mess steps Jesus. And with Him
disorder becomes order, chaos becomes harmony, fear becomes peace, death
becomes life. He who rebuked creation when it was convulsing and rebuked the
sickness and disease that had taken hold on people, now rebukes this unclean
spirit, this mute and deaf spirit - which can hear Him! - and drives it out. And when His disciples ask Him about it
later, He tells them: “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but
prayer.”
Uh, we’d like to know more, Jesus! What does that
mean? Are there different kinds of unclean spirits? Are some more powerful than
others? What makes this one different? Why could this one not be driven out by
anything but prayer? Tell us more, Jesus. Tell us more.
But not just with this, we ask that about a lot
of things. About things that are happening in our lives, in
our country, in the world. Why did I lose my job? Why is my family so
divided? Why did my loved one die? Why so much evil in the world? Why are
Christians being persecuted? Why am I suffering so? Tell us more, Jesus. Tell
me more.
Why is the question the disciples asked. Why couldn’t we do it? And Jesus’ answer
seem to be not an explanation, but, if I may paraphrase here, simply
this: Why weren’t you praying?
The prophet Isaiah said today: Let him who
walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on
his God. Walking in darkness and having no light is our situation when
things happen and we do not know why. In the darkness, you don’t know where
things are coming from. In the darkness, you can’t see where you are going. In
the darkness, it’s frightening. And we can use our tongues, as James said, to
curse the darkness, to curse those who bump into us in the
darkness . . . but that doesn’t do any good. In fact, that usually just
makes things worse. Agitating us, agitating them, and making
the darkness darker, the chaos worse, and turning us against each other.
Instead, Let him who walks in darkness and
has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Isaiah
didn’t say those words lightly. Israel in his day had a whole heap of trouble
and darkness. From wrong belief and idolatry within, and from
enemies threatening them from without. No amount of fighting and cursing
could change that. They tried! It just got worse. And so, Isaiah said, trust
in the name of the Lord and rely on [your] God. Or, if I may paraphrase
here, Isaiah is saying: Pray. Why aren’t you praying?
For to pray is to call on the name of the
Lord and rely on Him. It is to entrust all your “whys?” to Him. It is not to
know all the answers, but trust that He will do what is needed and what is
right and what is good. For it’s not that prayer itself does anything - it’s
that the one that we pray to can. And He wants us to pray, and has promised
to hear our prayers, and has promised to answer.
So, why aren’t you praying? Oh, we do,
right? Or, are we arguing? Or, are we fretting? Or, are we looking to our
elected leaders or the courts to solve our problems? Or, are we trying to do
it? Or, have we given up? Resigned to the fact that this is just the way things
are and prayer doesn’t do any good?
Now, there is a time to argue and fight for the
truth. Governments and authorities have been established by God to preserve and
protect us and for our good and we should expect that from them. And God does
use us in our many and various callings to be His blessing to others. That’s
all true and I don’t want to diminish that in any way and become spiritual
separatists or hermits. No. But these good gifts of God can also become gods
themselves, and what we look to and trust for what we need, rather than the one
who uses them as His masks; who works through them. And so we pray to the
one who breaks the darkness (LSB #849) - the only one who can. The one
who is our light in the darkness. The one who came to
bring order into our disorder, harmony to our chaos, peace to calm our fears,
and life to overcome our death. The one who came to
forgive, to release us from the grip of our death-causing sin.
And it is the son in the story today who gives us
a picture of this, of what Jesus has come to do for us. For this is what satan wants to do to us - convulse
us and our world, make us foam at the mouth at each other, cast us into fire
and water, and destroy us. And so Jesus came and stepped in it with us. And He
became the son who wasn’t like a corpse, but was the corpse; the
one of whom they said “He is dead” and He really was. And at His death, not He but all of creation convulsing terribly -
the sun stopping its light, the earth quaking and trembling, the dead leaving
their graves.
Now, you know the story doesn’t end there,
because the light of God’s Word and His Spirit has revealed to you that Jesus
then rose from the dead. That just as Jesus lifted up that boy, so He Himself
was lifted up from the dead. But until that third day, that was a pretty
dark time for the disciples. The time for a lot of “whys?”
The time when it seemed as if their worst fears came true and all their prayers
went unanswered. And maybe you’ve been there. You prayed, or still are praying,
like the father, going to Jesus and asking for help, and the answer? Your son
is no longer possessed or convulsing, he’s dead. Great.
Thanks a lot, Jesus.
Let him who walks in darkness and has no light
trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. You know how it turned
out for that father, you know how it turned out with Jesus’ resurrection . . .
do you think it will be any different for you, O you of little faith? Even if
things get pretty dark for a while, all things are possible for one who
believes, for all things are possible for the one we believe in. For He was dead, but now is alive. Risen.
Victorious.
So is the evil one throwing you into the fire and
water to try to destroy you? Don’t worry - Jesus beat
him to it! John the Baptist said it: He who is coming after me is
mightier than I . . . He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit (water)
and fire (John
3:11). And
He has! You were baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection to destroy the sin
in you and give you a new life (Romans 6). His life. A
forgiven life. A life that neither sin, death, nor devil can end. That
when your body becomes a corpse, maybe for a long time, Jesus will then come
and take you by the hand and lift you up, too. To a life where no evil, no
darkness, can ever enter again.
But until that day, what darkness are you in? Who
is foaming at the mouth or convulsing against you or what you believe? Pray.
Pray for them. Pray for your enemies, for those who persecute you, for those
who disagree with you, for those in fear, for those who have been mislead, for those who wish you dead and would like nothing
better than to stamp out you and your beliefs. Pray for them. Let him who
walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on
his God. This kind
cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.
And until that day, come and be fed and
strengthened by our Lord at the Table He has prepared before us in the
presence of our enemies (Psalm 23:5). Not apart from our enemies, but before them,
in the midst of them and their raging. Here is a place of peace and
forgiveness, of strength and confidence, of our Lord with us still with His
Body and Blood, for us to run to and receive His life. And to praise the one
who breaks the darkness, who frees the prisoners, who preached the Gospel, who
calmed storms and fed thousands, who blessed the children, who drove out
demons, who brings cool and living water, who suffered in our place. The Word incarnate, who died and rose victorious, the One who makes
us one (LSB #849).
Why aren’t you praying?
Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!
In the Name of the
Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.