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This Week's Sermon THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 05 July 2009 "Don't Kill the Messenger Mark 6:1-13 LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Marketing is everything in selling a product or service. Entire fields of higher education are dedicated to marketing a product or service, how to sell it to customers. We're usually tempted by the more attractive package, irrespective of the contents. How something is presented becomes more important than what is presented. Give a young child a box with a plain brown wrapper and a box with a brightly colored wrapper and the child will almost always pick the more brightly colored one. Not everything that sparkles is a diamond. Sometimes it is just cut glass.

When our Lord taught in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth he was rejected. What he said could not be disconnected from his person, who he was. Mark's account understates the tension that was present. Luke presents the same incident but includes more details, including more of the verbal exchange. When Jesus finished teaching in the synagogue, according to Luke, the people rushed at Jesus and drove him out of town to the edge of the cliff that overlooked Nazareth. They were intent on throwing Jesus over the cliff, thus ending his career as prophet because he had called them to repentance. They were ready to kill the messenger because the message did not meet their notions about who needed to repent. Rather, they demanded signs of Jesus-miracles-to prove his words because he was, they said, "the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?" Besides that, they objected to his knowledge. They said:

"Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands?" (Mark 6:2, ESV)

In other words, who does he think he is? We know where he came from. How does he presume to teach us about repentance? He's no better than we are, so he shouldn't talk about being the one who fulfills God's Word in his person. He's just a plain brown wrapper. We want something more brightly colored.

Yet, Jesus was more than just the messenger with the Word of God to deliver, calling even these people to repentance. Jesus is true God and true Man, the Christ. The word Mark uses here is stronger than the phrase used to translate "and they took offense at him." It is really "scandalized." Other synonyms flavor it better: "outraged, appalled, shocked." In the Greek, "scandalize" means "to be caught in unbelief," "to be repelled by someone." Jesus' preaching caused them to be caught in unbelief. They wanted to kill the messenger because they did not believe the message.

Back to what Luke includes. As Jesus was given the appointed reading for the day he read these words from the prophet Isaiah:

""The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."" (Luke 4:18-19, ESV)

What got the people enraged was when Jesus continued:

"Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Luke 4:21, ESV)

Mark adds the telling response of them being scandalized, that a local man would claim this for himself, in spite of the widespread news of Jesus' many miracles. And Jesus said directly to them:

"A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household." (Mark 6:4, ESV)

At this time not even Jesus' own siblings believed in him as the Christ. They couldn't listen to the message because of the messenger.

God has always used weakness to convey his message to a sinful world. We have a stammering Moses, lots of reluctant prophets who were not "golden-mouthed." Jeremiah was singularly unpopular. Many of the prophets God sent ended up being killed. Even God's people, the Jews, killed the messenger rather than repent. Jesus hid his glory in his human flesh. In his flesh is all the splendor and majesty of the Godhead, yet hidden, concealed in ordinary flesh and blood. The people of Nazareth were scandalized at the humbleness of the gift of God.

Isn't that the way it still happens in our world? During these summer months our latest seminary graduates will be ordained and installed in congregations they are to serve with the Word of God. It is done with all necessary ceremony and seriousness. Candidates will be asked if they believe what they are called to preach and teach, and congregations will be asked if they will accept their pastor's word as the Word of God himself. Everybody will say the right things, and then sadly, many will choose to ignore the truth of what they have just confessed. In some cases congregations will kill the messenger sent to them because the pastor will call them to repentance.

The message of repentance does not usually meet with willing ears. Sinners, especially those who are secure in their sins, do not want to hear the call to repentance. They will ask the pastor to find some other target, someone they deem more deserving of condemnation. As Luke tells us, Jesus pointed to a Gentile to whom Elijah was sent. This enraged the people of Nazareth. How dare Jesus say that a Gentile was more deserving of God's grace than a Jew! It scandalized them.

Indeed, the very people to whom Jesus was sent killed the messenger, but Jesus was more than a messenger, he is the Christ. In the mystery of God that death became the life of the world, even for the people who rejected him. Jesus' death means life for the entire world. We have a hard time comprehending how God planned to bring victory out of defeat, but he did-in the person of Jesus. Here at Nazareth his time had not yet come, but would come soon on a Friday outside Jerusalem.

In the wide sense, repentance and forgiveness are the content of the Gospel. Pastors preach both repentance and forgiveness. The forgiveness part is easy, but the repentance part is hard because we have a hard time repenting, confessing our sins. We blame others for our failures. We seldom say, "It is my own fault, my own grievous fault." Sometimes we kill the messenger who proclaims that our sins are killing us.

In the second half of our Gospel reading Jesus sent out the Twelve on the first preaching tour. He told them that not everyone would accept the message:

"And he said to them, "Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them."" (Mark 6:10-11, ESV)

Even in the beginning days of the Gospel they met hostility and rejection. Later on Jesus would warn the apostles that they would be put to death for their preaching, following the pattern of his own cross. With the exception of the Apostle John, all the apostles died as martyrs.

The times have not changed. People today are no more ready to hear a message of repentance than were the people in Nazareth. The Apostle Paul warns us through Timothy:

"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4, ESV)

Those who preach are exhorted to be steadfast in reproving or rebuking-ways of speaking about preaching repentance. It may not always be the right time or place, but that is not what God has said. He has commanded that repentance and forgiveness be proclaimed regardless of how it is received. The results we leave up to him.

I find it to be of enormous comfort as a pastor to reflect upon the fact that not even Jesus himself pleased everybody. Unbelief does that. Unbelief separates one from Christ whether the word has been proclaimed by the Son of God himself or whether it has been proclaimed through the mouth of one of his called and ordained servants. God the Holy Spirit gives success when and where he wills. He gives success in spite of the failings of the sinful men he sends out to sinful people with this message.

Finally, it is not the messenger himself who creates faith but God the Holy Spirit who works through the message. It is the message that people are to believe. They are to listen to the call to repent and to do so because God commands repentance. They are to listen to the voice of absolution spoken through the mouth of a man because it is the voice of Christ himself, spoken in his stead and by his command.

It is a daunting task for pastors to be sent out by Christ with this twofold message. It is even more daunting for you to believe this message as the word of Christ himself, but that this happens is evident by the fruit that the Gospel bears in this place. Indeed, great miracles have been done among you. In Holy Baptism the dead have been raised to everlasting life. In Holy Absolution sins are forgiven richly and penitent sinners hear the voice of Christ through the voice of the pastor. In Holy Communion the true body and blood of Christ, given and shed on the cross, are distributed every Lord's day to those who approach penitently to receive forgiveness and life.

Perhaps it is important to say, "Don't Kill the Messenger," but it is more important to say, "Believe the message he proclaims," because it is your life now and forever.