Blessed Are Your Eyes and Ears

Luke 10:23-37 and the Blessing of Hearing Christ

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 10th chapter. Turning to the disciples, Jesus said privately, Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And he said to him, What's written in the law? How do you read it? He answered, Well, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

And he said to him, Well, you've answered correctly. Do this and you'll live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor? And Jesus replied, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, he passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, when he came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

He went to him, bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii, and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, You take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.

Now which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He said, The one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him, You go and do likewise. This is the gospel of the Lord.

Law and Gospel in the Apostle Paul

In the name of Jesus. Here again the words of the Apostle Paul from our Epistle text. If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But that's the point.

It's not. If you think that you can save yourself by doing good or trying harder, and really being intentional, and this time really meaning it, you've got another thing coming. You do not even recognize just how deep your sin is.

And so keep that in mind as we work our way through our gospel text. Because in our gospel text, Jesus is really going to be working in the categories of law and gospel. But what I find really interesting about the one-year lectionary, this is what we've been working our way through this year, I have never preached on the one-year lectionary before, is that this particular gospel text seems to start with a little bit of a holdover from the previous pericope.

It begins with Jesus turning to his disciples and saying to them, Blessed are the eyes that see what you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and they did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and they did not hear it.

The Prophets Desired to See Christ

And so when we think about what's going on here is that Christ is legitimately pointing to the fact that the prophets of old, Moses and others, they prophesied about Christ. We learn from the apostle Peter that in prophesying about Jesus, they were in fact serving us.

But Jesus reveals something of their heart that they actually yearned a thing that they were prophesying about. To give you a good example of this, if you remember all the way back in the Garden of Eden, there were Adam and Eve, they had just eaten the fruit that God told them not to eat, plunged us into the misery that we find ourselves in, and when God was handing out his punishment to the devil, who was in the form of the serpent there, he told the devil that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

The seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, and in the process he would have his heel bruised. This is the very first gospel, the Proto-Ewangelion. And then in the next chapter, Eve, when she gives birth to Cain, she legitimately says in the Hebrew, I have brought forth a man, the Lord.

That's what the Hebrew says. And the ancient church has always understood that in saying that, she thought, and quite tragically so, that she had given birth to the Messiah. It kind of shows the anticipation of what was going on there.

And if you've ever kind of thought about it, I mean, many people in our day kind of feel, well, like they've gotten the short end of the stick from God. Because well, have you seen Jesus? Have you seen him walk on the water?

Have you seen him? You see what I'm saying? The signs and wonders of the Bible don't seem to be running around in our time and in our day and age. And so there's a tendency to want to feel like somehow we've been short-changed.

And this is really a tragic way to look at it. But it's also important in this regard to note that what Christ is talking about is not merely the kind of blessings that we have in this life when we are fortunate to witness something that's kind of unbelievable or something really good.

And you can say, wow, I can't believe I got to see this in my lifetime. You know, I think right now about what's happening in the UK with the death of Elizabeth II. Of course, who knew that Isla was going to go first, right?

Isla goes first. The next day, Elizabeth goes second. So Isla was able to show her around, the way I like to think about it. But the people we serve in the United Kingdom, to a person, they talk about the fact that their entire lives Elizabeth has been the Queen of England.

They do not know a time when she hasn't been the monarch. I like to think of Elizabeth as kind of being like the last of the World War II generation. She has a lot more in common with my grandparents than she does with myself.

But all that being said, a lot of people feel like they are fortunate that somehow they were blessed because they were under the reign of Elizabeth II. But I would note this, that as blessed as they may have been under the reign of Elizabeth II, that's not the kind of thing that Jesus is talking about here.

In fact, we will note that Elizabeth II, by virtue of the fact that she died, has given undeniable proof that she was a sinner, just like you and I, in need of a Savior. In fact, it's been really fascinating to kind of pay attention to the churchmen who live in the UK who readily recognize that Elizabeth had a faith in Jesus.

She trusted in Christ as her Savior. And back all the way in one of her Christmas addresses that she gives every year, I think it was in 2011, she talked about the fact that God gave us something that we all needed.

He didn't send a man who was a philosopher or somebody who was a politician. And she said, as good as those things are, and we need them from time to time, instead he sent us the very thing that we actually need, and that is he sent us a Savior.

And so she even confesses faith in Christ, and so I look forward to having tea with her someday in the future. This is the hope that we have in Christ. And I would note that what is it that makes it possible, since everybody's kind of talking about right now monarchy and the coronation service that we should be expecting in the next few months, with the now new king, Charles III.

When I heard the news that Elizabeth had died, I kind of said that old-fashioned saying, the queen is dead, long live the king, right? This is how this works. And so we have this all in our mind, but I would remind you all that we have a sovereign.

We have a king. And his name is Jesus. He's king of kings and he's lord of lords. And he chose the most interesting, the most standout coronation for himself. If you've ever thought about it, a good way to think about Jesus' suffering and death is that right before they nailed him to the cross, there was the Roman soldiers and they put a crown of thorns on our Savior, right?

That's the crown that Christ chose for himself. He didn't choose a tiara. He didn't choose a crown that had big jewels and things like that that were flashy and showy. Instead, he chose a crown that had thorns.

It hearkens all the way back to the Garden of Eden and the fact that God cursed the ground with thorns and thistles and weeds and I know all about that, as a result of our fall into sin. And so that's what Jesus did.

And unlike any other monarch in the history of humanity, the first thing that Jesus said about doing after his coronation was he said about bleeding, suffering, and dying for his enemies. Who does that, right?

That's what Jesus has done for us. And so you'll note that even the people blessed in the UK with long and glorious reign of Elizabeth II, that's nothing compared to the glorious things that we have in Christ.

But we come back to Jesus telling his disciples that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see and didn't see it, to hear what you hear and they did not hear it. But we ought not to think in these terms.

And the reason why I say that is I think about the late Dr. Norman Nagel, who taught at the Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. And he influenced some of my mentors and some of my seminary profs.

And it's really interesting. And Norman Nagel would talk about the importance of Christians to take their eyeballs out of their eye sockets and stick them in their ears. I know it sounds kind of weird, right?

But this is what we do because we see with the eyes of faith. And faith comes by hearing. And so I would ask you this question. Is it really true that you haven't seen Jesus raise people from the dead?

In the truest sense, is it really true you haven't seen that? Is it true that you haven't heard Jesus preach to you? Is it true that you haven't seen him raise from the dead? The answer to that is you may not have seen it with your eyes, but you've heard it with your ears.

And you'll note that the Bible is the living active word of God. And so every time God's word is rightly preached and taught, and every time we hear the gospel rightly preached and taught and pointed to Christ, Jesus is ultimately the one who is preaching to us and we are hearing his voice.

In fact, Jesus said of the apostles, the one who hears you hears me. Right? And so we can say that we have heard Jesus. And I like to think of the fact that because the Bible is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, it's, I hate to use the phrase, more miraculous, more magical than any book out there.

I've seen Jesus walk on the water in the words of Scripture. So have you. And so note then that despite the fact that the prophets of old didn't see Christ and they yearned to see him, do they see him now?

Of course they do. And there is a time coming when you and I with our own eyes will see Jesus. And that will be a glorious thing. We are truly already blessed in him with the forgiveness of our sins. In fact, I would note talking about blessing, the assigned psalm for today, although we didn't read it, it is an option if you want, but the assigned psalm today is Psalm 32.

Listen to the words. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Is that not you? Is that not me? We indeed are truly blessed. Christ has bled for our transgressions, forgiven us of all of our iniquity.

All of our sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all the day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up like the heat of the summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

You'll note then, we don't seem to be lacking in blessing. We seem to be abounding in it. And if this doesn't kind of warm your heart up and make you even desire more to see Jesus with your own eyes, then maybe I would say check your spirit and see what's going wrong.

You know, this past week we lost one of our own, one of my favorites. I don't want to get into my sermon for tomorrow at the funeral, but if you all remember Isla, she was naughty. Oh man, she was awesome.

I loved her. And I'm convinced that Isla thought that she can solve every problem in the world with a hot dish. Okay. And here's the thing. I was there and said kind of the last rites, the Lutheran version of it with the family, with Joni and with Julie.

And it was hard to see her in her last hours of life. But you know what? After I left, I'm kind of jealous. I'm kind of jealous. I remember as we were discussing, we were discussing what Isla is going to be experiencing.

Isla was going to be reunited with Arden. It was her 65th wedding anniversary on the day she died. She's going to be reunited with her husband. And of course, they were kind of walking through the list of all the different relatives and I looked at Joni and I said, yeah, but she's going to see Jesus too.

Right? And that's the point. Where is Isla right now? She sees Jesus. And she's been reunited with Arden. She's been reunited with her husband. She's been reunited with all who preceded her in the faith.

And you know what? She's waiting for us too. And when we arrive, you need to expect a Long Island iced tea, I'm just saying. Right? So you'll note we are truly blessed in Christ. And the same blessing that I'm currently at the moment jealous of that Isla has in seeing Jesus face to face and being reunited with the saints and seeing the angels for the first time, we all get to have that experience too.

So note then, we are already blessed in Christ and we aren't missing out on anything. Not a single thing. And it's in this regard then, that as we consider how blessed we are and the forgiveness of sins that we have and the eternal life and inheritance that we have all as a gift, we consider one of the most famous of all of the parables that Jesus taught, the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Good Samaritan as Christ and the Gift of Mercy

And over and again bad preaching along this line in this parable will tell you at the end of it, it's all about the application. You need to go and you need to find out who you need to be a good neighbor to.

That's really kind of not the point. It may be a sub-point of it, but the whole point of this comes back to what we heard the Apostle Paul tell us. The Apostle Paul told us that if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

It's not. That's kind of your theological frame for what comes next. And so here's how it goes. Behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test. What is it with attorneys, man? What is it with them?

I'm thinking that maybe one or two of them might be saved, but I'm not sure beyond that. And so here he asks this question. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? The question assumes something false.

It assumes that if you obey God's law or if you do particular things, then you have eternal life. If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would be certainly by the law. This guy doesn't quite get it.

So Jesus decides he's going to do a little law and gospel with him. And so he decides, you're an attorney, you like the law, let's talk about the law. So what's written in the law? How do you read it?

And with perfect catechetical memorization, he responds, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

Now, let's pause here for a second. Who here, or even those joining us online, can say, yep, I'm doing that. Or I've done that. I've loved God with all my heart, soul, mind, strength, and I've perfectly loved my neighbor as myself.

Not even close. And if you're married, then you even know that this makes it worse. So Jesus tells this guy, alright, sure, you've answered correctly. Do this, and you'll live. And he should have sat there and went, oh, wait, I'm not.

But the text goes on and says, desiring to justify himself. Yep, there's your problem. That's the one right there. Desiring to justify himself, he said to Jesus, alright, who's my neighbor? And note here, he's focusing on the neighbor bit.

He legitimately is not even shaking in his boot about the other bits, about loving the Lord with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. He thinks he's doing that, so we're on to the, well, who's my neighbor bit, because I want to make sure I got that worked out.

And what Jesus does next is just wonderfully scandalous. I love it. And so you'll note that we human beings have this terrible thing we do. We like to read ourselves into the biblical text. We like to read David and Goliath like we're David, and now we've got to go conquer our Goliaths.

We've got to go find our five smooth stones. That's just absurd. If you want to know who you are in here, you're the guy left for dead. Let's just kind of work this out. But here's the scandalous bit.

Jesus is in this parable. Jesus is the Samaritan. And you've got to remember, the term Samaritan, the concept of Samaritan back in Jesus' day among the Jews, that's a racial slur. You have to think racism.

They did not like, in fact they hated the Samaritans. If Jews found themselves having to find themselves in the most unfortunate of circumstances where they had to travel through Samaria, they would usually go around it.

But if they had to travel through it, oh wow, what they would end up doing once they finished traveling through it, as soon as they got to the border of Judea, they would, so here's Samaria, here's Judea.

Before they stepped foot into Judea, they would shake the dust and get it off their feet because they didn't want Samaritan dirt in Israel. And they considered Samaritans to be dogs. This is how they talked about them.

So the scandal here is really amazing. So Jesus tells this story. A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who stripped him, beat him, departed leaving him half dead. So you've been attacked by the devil and left for dead.

That's how this works. You're that guy. So what are you contributing to your salvation in this story? The stupidity of traveling down this road in the first place without an escort. The foolishness of getting yourself in that kind of danger.

So now you're half dead. So by chance, a priest was going down that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Over and again, people who do not know their Torah, they will sit there and go, what a completely terrible priest this was.

Does he not care about human beings? Do you even know the Torah? Read the Torah. Levites and active priests are forbidden by God to be in the presence of a dead body that isn't a super close relative.

And that super close relative list is really small. Like your mother, your father, your wife. And it doesn't go much beyond that. And so this priest is walking down the road and sees a naked body because he's been stripped.

And obviously he's bloodied and beaten and he doesn't know if that's a corpse or not. But the Torah says he's not allowed to make himself unclean by being in the presence of a dead body unless it's a close relative.

And so he looks over and goes, yep, that's not dad. So what is he required to do by the law? Stay away from the body. And here's the point. The law not only cannot save you, the law will not even give you one inch, one ounce, one anything of mercy.

It's not its job. Its job is to condemn you. Its job is to show you just how sinful you are. And you'll note that the priest under the law could not help this person. And the law will not help you when it comes to your salvation.

Same then with the Levite. When he came to the place, he saw him pass by on the other side. Requirement of Torah that he do so. So who then can help this person? Only the person who has freedom, who isn't under the law.

And so along comes Jesus, the Samaritan, right? And you'll note here, this Samaritan has total freedom and it says as he journeyed he came to where he was and when he saw him, his splog knees oh my, his guts were wrenched.

He had compassion for him. That sounds just like Jesus. I mean, there are so many punctuated events in the Gospels where Jesus would see people in misery and his guts would be absolutely wrenched. Same thing here.

His guts are wrenched. He has compassion on him and springing into action he went to him, bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. I like to think of that as a baptismal reference. It's kind of veiled if you would.

And then he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, took care of him. Man, look how much Jesus is doing. And is that not exactly how Jesus found us? Dead in trespasses and sins. All because we've been attacked by the highwaymen of highwaymen Satan himself.

And as a result of it, our first parents, they fell into sin. We were all conceived and born dead in trespasses and sins. And when it comes to dead, we weren't half dead. We were totally dead. Totally dead.

And that being the case, Jesus when he found us, we were in quite the state of misery. And note that Jesus doesn't scold those who he finds dead. He doesn't sit there and go, well, you know, it was really stupid of you to travel on this road.

You knew that there were highwaymen. Well, you got what you deserve. Too bad for you, buddy. I'll go radio ahead and maybe they can send an ambulance or maybe they can send a hearse to pick you up. You got what you deserve.

Next time, don't be so stupid. No, Jesus doesn't act like that at all. Instead, he truly has compassion. And he springs into action. And everything he does, he does out of his own pocket. He does with his own things.

And you are just merely the recipient of his great mercy and grace. And the next day, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper saying, take care of him. And whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.

Last time I preached on this text, I pointed out I like to think of that innkeeper as like pastors. Because when you were raised from the dead and Christ washed away all of your sin and muck and began binding up your wounds that you've experienced, where did he plop you?

Right here at Kongsvinger Inn. I'm the innkeeper. My job is to care for you. And here's the thing. I ain't caring for you at my expense. I'm caring for you at Christ's expense. And so you'll note the complete freeness of the gospel and the complete inability of the law to come to your rescue.

So now, Jesus having told this parable, and of course making the hero a Samaritan, had to really just be galling for this Jewish lawyer. So he now asks the question, alright, so which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?

And the guy can't even say the word Samaritan. Makes me wonder if the way he said it was like with his teeth gritted. You know, it's like, the one who showed him mercy. Right? The one who showed him what?

Mercy. And Jesus said to him, you go, you do likewise. Do likewise what? Show mercy. Show mercy. Show mercy and love to all. Well how can I do such a thing? Oh, the one who is forgiven in Christ forgives.

The one who is loved by God loves. And so you'll note then, our eyes, our ears are truly blessed. Blessed because we have been freed from having to strive to save ourselves because you'll note that being unconscious is no way to try to save yourself.

You're not capable of doing it. But your Jesus, your great compassionate merciful Lord, he has bled and died for all of your sins. He's bound up your wounds, washed away your sins in the waters of baptism, even feeds you with his own body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.

And he's told me to take care of you guys and he'll repay anything, any expenses that I incur. What an amazing Lord you have. So I would say hearing all of this, yeah, your ears are blessed. Seeing all of this, your eyes are blessed.

And not only are they blessed today, but they will be blessed in a world without end because there is nothing that you can do to earn this inheritance that this attorney desired. Instead, you already have it.

It's been given to you by grace because Jesus has given it to you. And you'll note inheritances require somebody to die. And that's exactly what Jesus did. He wrote you into his will, bled and died for your sins.

So now he's given you the entire estate. Blessed. It is like blessing upon blessing upon blessing upon blessing. Indeed, the psalmist was right. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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