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spent1803
Wisdom from Above
Text:
Mark 9:30-37
Date: Pentecost 18
10/12/03 condition-zero keycode
This is now the third and final time Jesus tells his
disciples about his coming passion, death and resurrection. It just
seems to get worse every time he brings the subject up. The first
time (8:31-33, which we heard last Sunday) Peter rebukes Jesus and
becomes the unwitting tool of Satan himself. The second time (9:9-12)
followed Jesus transfiguration and the inner group of disciples
were left with more questions than answers. This third and last
passion prediction so stuns them that they were, literally, speechless.
“They did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him”
(v. 32). The depth of their lack of understanding is shown in the
disciples ensuing conversation about greatness (v. 33-34). They
don’t get it, yet, that the way of the Christ, and therefore of
his followers, is meekness as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the
Mount, saying, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the
earth” [Matthew 5:5 (ESV)]. The Messiah is, as Jeremiah prophesied,
“like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” [Jeremiah 11:19 (ESV)].
Taking a child as an object lesson, Jesus illustrated the peaceable
innocence and meekness that characterizes him and therefore is to
characterize also those who follow him in the way of the cross.
The Apostle James, in today’s epistle, calls this attitude
of meekness “wisdom from above.” “Who is wise and understanding
among you?” he writes in the words just preceding today’s reading.
“By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom”
[James 3:13 (ESV)]. Meekness (which is not to be confused with “weakness”)
is one of the great qualities which wisdom produces in a wise person.
Now, just as salvation is beyond our reach but is God’s
gift, so the meekness of wisdom is beyond our ability to produce
but must be received “from above.”
Recall with me, please, the conversation Jesus had
with Nicodemus in John’s Gospel. In the face of this religious teacher’s
spiritual blindness, Jesus tells him, “Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” [John
3:3 (ESV)]. That term, to be born “again,” is maybe more clearly
translated as born “from above.” It is the same word James uses
when he writes about wisdom “from above.” In both cases the issue
is that conversion, repentance and faith and understanding or wisdom
can only be obtained as the gift and working of the Holy Spirit,
which he gives and works from above through the means of the Word
and Sacraments of God. To be born anew from above means to receive
the gift of faith through baptismal washing of water with the Word
[John 3:5; Eph. 5:26] and through the preaching and hearing of the
Gospel [Augsburg Confession, Article V]. For through the Word of
God the sinner is cleansed and enlightened with the faith and love
that are in Christ Jesus.
In his third passion prediction, Jesus introduced one
new element. Whereas before he had said that he would “suffer many
things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the
scribes and be killed” (Mark 8:31), here he reveals how this would
come about, namely, by being “delivered into the hands of men” (Mark
9:31). Being delivered or handed over implies a betrayal on the
part of one of his own disciples! Was it this new element that caused
the fear in his disciples not to ask him what he meant? The point
is that the promised, mighty deliverance of the world from the ravages
of sin and death would not come by means of a spectacular, action-packed
battle but by means of the sacrifice of an innocent victim, the
Lamb of God who, like a sheep that before its shearers is silent
(Isaiah 53:7), would not protest but give himself over willingly.
The “wisdom from above” James describes as “first pure,
then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits,
impartial and sincere.” These qualities, first, describe our Lord.
To qualify as the one-and-only sacrifice able to take away the sin
of the world, our Lord was, first, pure, holy, sinless in himself.
In his incarnation he was conceived by the Holy Spirit in such a
manner as to be sinless in body and soul. In our Lord’s earthly
ministry he was “peaceable, gentle and open to reason.” A better
translation is “yielding and obedient.” In his ministry he was gentle,
as Isaiah wrote, “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly
burning wick he will not quench” [Isaiah 42:3 (ESV)]. He welcomes
sinners who come to him for the healing of forgiveness. And he was
obedient to the Father’s will to the point of death (Philippians
2:6-8). He was full of mercy and good fruits toward all in distress.
He was impartial and sincere for he was bringing salvation to all,
sinner and supposed saint alike, from the lowliest to the highest
on society’s most desirable list.
If this is true of the Lord and Master, then it shall
be true also of those who follow him. By faith in Christ, the Christian
is, first pure. Though saint and sinner at the same time as we trudge
our way through this life, though very real sins continue to daily
give very real grief, we have the assurance of living in the forgiveness
of sins, Christ himself presenting us to the Father “without spot
or wrinkle or any such thing…holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27),
pleading our cause. “For Christ has entered…heaven, now to appear
in the presence of God on our behalf” [Hebrews 9:24 (ESV)]. By faith
in Christ the sinner is washed in his blood and declared righteous
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