“Blessed are the Eyes that See the Things Ye See”
Hosea 6.1-6; Galatians 3.15-22; St. Luke 10.23-37; Psalm 142
the Sermon preached at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church—U.A.C.
for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
by the Rev. Frederick E. Davison, Pastor
September 14, 2003
X X X
Grace, Mercy, and Peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus the Lord. [Amen.]
The sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Holy Trinity speaks from appointed Gospel, the Gospel according to the Evangelist St. Luke, chapter 10th with particular focus on these words:
The Lord Jesus “turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.”
Thus far our text. Please be seated…
In the Name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Ghost. [Amen.]
“I cried unto the Lord with my voice… I poured out my complaint… When my spirit was overwhelmed… then Thou knewest my path… they laid a snare for me… but I looked and no one would know me…” So King David was by the Holy Ghost given to see forward from his cave in space and time to write His Psalm, His Story, Jesus’ Story. From this Old Testament prophet comes forth the prayer and plight of our dear Lord Jesus as He reveals His Own sin-full Way in the flesh of this trouble bedecked traveler in our Gospel.
He sings in the Psalm, “Thou knewest My path…” because His heavenly Priests looked upon Him and cast Him off. He cries out, “no man cared for My Soul…” And this Psalm like every other—first Christ’s, then, and *only* then, that of those faith-full *in* Him, reveals Secrets that no man can see. No man can know. No mind can grasp. To see such an Heavenly Vision is a gift, which God here calls “blessed” as indeed also are the “eyes that see…”; eyes by the will of work of God belong to you and to me.
Two thousand—give or take—some years ago, Jesus turned to His Disciples privately and tells them of how on days just like today, He tell them that by His All-Knowing Spirit He will reveal His Truth both *by* and *to* men just like them who were likewise unworthy. But being Elect, yes Chosen of God to grace, Chosen of God to *be* graced with such wonderful knowledge, Jesus reveals it to you who are baptized and believing. Foreseeing that day of salvation—which the Holy Ghost calls “Today!”—Jesus says, [in effect] “Blessed are you!” saying, “Blessed are the eyes that see the things ye see…”
Yes dear children of Christ—whether you have believed all your life, or just now, right now for the very first time, perhaps thinking nothing more than, “I really want to believe…”—dear Saints, God has chosen you by placing you in the hearing of this Gospel that ye *can* believe. And placing you to hear the Gospel, Jesus calls you “Blessed.” “Blessed are the eyes which see the things that [His Disciples] see…”
What is it that they are by the Word of Jesus being blessed to see? Here I suppose I risk arrogance to claim, I too, see. But this is what I am ordained by God to preach. What is it? Can I answer with a hymn? “Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus, Can my heartfelt longing still…” May He in very deed, bring us to the place, *that* place—that spiritual roadside, where lying stripped, beaten and left for dead—we find we have nothing *but* Him. And being brought there, we find we need nothing more.
Hosea can see it! He looks out and see what the Lord God does—sometimes doing a *strange thing* [His “alien work.”] And what’s that? St. Paul touches on it briefly in the Epistle. Elsewhere St. Paul calls the Law, “good.” But today we are told that the “Scripture hath concluded all under sin.” That’s exactly what Jesus is saying when He asks, “What is written in the law?”
And the “certain lawyer answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” Jesus answered, “This do, and thou shalt live.” The “certain lawyer” knew exactly the same thing you and I know:
[We] have lived as if God did not matter and as if [we] mattered most.
[Our] Lord’s Name [we] have not honored as [we] should;
[Our] worship and prayers have faltered.
[We] have not let His love have its way with me, and so
[our] love for others has failed.
There are those whom [we] have hurt, and those whom [we] failed to help.
[Our] thoughts and desires have been soiled with sin.
[from our Private Absolution Rite]
That’s why we have started again this very day to refresh our minds again to learn by heart these Ten Commandments. So we will *know* how to confess. So we don’t stand before God an try to ask silly questions like, “Whom is my neighbor?” “Whom must I love?” “Whom must I show kindness?” “Whom must I forgive?”
Where does the Ten Commandments place you? When you recite them, are you left standing before God clothed with all your good deeds? Or are you left concluding “All my righteousness is filthy!” “There is none righteous, not even one!” Faced with God’s command to love Him with “all [my] heart, and with all [my] soul, and with all [my] strength, and with all [my] mind…” This thing I have not done. And my score on the balance is no better. I must conclude, “I have not loved my neighbor as I ought.” When the Holy Ghost says, “There is none righteous..” That excludes you, too!
God’s Law leaves you stripped and beaten, by the roadside left dead; that “no one may look at God and live” is not some saying to create false awe for God—it is true! Isaiah does not saying, “Woe is me!” for nothing. St. Peter does not say to Jesus, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man O Lord…” for nothing. “Blessed are the eyes that see!” He saw God and he was afraid, rightly.
For seeing God, the Disciples were given to see that it was not some robber, some thief, some good for nothing who was ensnared by something evil who lay in the ditch. It was each and every one of them. And you. And Me. Whether you be Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jew, Christian, agnostic or atheist, you who strive for God’s pleasure in what you think, say, or do, you will never find it. If God’s pleasure could have been gained by some deed, something that must be done, would Jesus not have simply shown us?
In very deed He does. He says, “Blessed are the eyes that see the things ye see…” Thankfully what we see do not end with you and me, stripped, beaten, and left for dead in a ditch. For there was another one, who when seeing our estate had mercy. And He picked us up. And He bound up our wounds. And gave us His Spirit by His Spirit’s *means* and lay us upon His *own* beast.
But it cost a pearl of Great Price. Many have called Him, the Good Samaritan—as if Who He ever was were some mystery to the Church. The Church knows, the Good Samaritan is Christ, who came to kneel again at the place and breath life to dead one’s nostrils, binding his wounds with both oil and wine.
Yet the Church is “blessed” for “the things which [She] sees.” For though the Samaritan is Christ, and part of the treatment is His Law, His Medicine is not there exhausted. God’s healing balm is no “certain traveler” but God Himself, in the Flesh. Jesus Christ sees you left by the Law bloody and beaten, stripped naked, and left for dead. He comes to that very place and He kneels. And *He* becomes the Forsaken Traveler. *He* is “smitten, stricken of God, and afflicted.” He takes your place in the ditch.
And He who *alone* is righteous, who *alone* by nature is *not* beaten and bloodied, for you and for your salvation *becomes* sin. And for you and for your salvation subjects Himself to the full weight of God’s Judgment. And He Himself becomes bloody, stripped naked, and beaten, but it’s no half-death.
For sin—yours and mine—Jesus died. God “hath torn.” God “hath smitten.” *God* concluded His One and Only Son “under sin.” In the Flesh of His Son, God makes the judgment. He sends *Himself* to be castoff—outside the city—to the ditch to beaten, stripped naked, nailed to the cross to suffer and die. And by His wounds bring healing and wholeness, re-creation and restoration, to recover reproach with His Royal Robe, *His* Righteousness. So much more than “two pence,” “He lay down His *life* as “ransom price.”
“Blessed are the eyes that see the things ye see.” As Jesus tells this parable, it is His Body He wants us to see. And as in the Gospel, so also now. Jesus comes to the place, to *this* place, and by His Flesh and His Blood pours oil and wine afresh—yes, these are *His* Holy Gifts for the forgiveness of sins; “Blessed are the eyes that see…”
Let us then proclaim the Lord’s death, the Good Samaritan who “came to the place” and trusts the binding of our wounds to no once-in-a-lifetime falsified preaching, but Jesus commands me, “Take care of [you]—whatsoever thou spendest…I will repay thee.”
So having been given Gifts, oil and wine to pour in your wounds, to you His Body the Church, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” It is to you the Baptized and believing He says “Come! Whoever is thirsty, let him come.” Indeed, “Do this often.”
For “Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see. For I tell you, many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.”
“Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up…” His Body… His Blood… for the remission of sins, for Jesus’ most holy Passion’s sake, [Amen.]
In the Name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Ghost. [Amen.]
The peace that passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. [Amen.]
the Rev. Frederick E. Davison, Pastor
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church--UAC
6843W 400N
Kokomo, IN 46901
(765) 452-9168
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“A Romish Church is Romish; a Pelagian Church is Pelagian; a Socinian Church is Socinian, though they call themselves Protestant, Evangelical, or Trinitarian. If the whole nominally Lutheran Church on earth should repudiate the Lutheran doctrine, that doctrine would remain as really Lutheran as it ever was. A man, or body of men, may cease to be Lutherans, but a doctrine which is Lutheran once, is Lutheran forever. Hence, now, as from the first, that is not a Lutheran Church, in the proper and historical sense, which cannot ex animo declare that it shares in the accord and unanimity with which each of the Doctrines of the Augsburg Confession was set forth.” [Charles Porterfield Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, p. 365.]
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