Third Sunday After Pentecost

(Series B)

Sermon Text: Mark 3: 20-35

June 9, 2024

      So , Just who was this Jesus of Nazareth? I mean, for us here at church Sunday, we know the answer: he is the Son of God made human flesh and blood for our salvation. Good! But think about this question from the perspective of the people around Jesus in his own day. There was a learning curve for them. So, who did they think Jesus was?

     There were those who loved his miracles, his powerful teaching. They loved the show! They wanted to see more and more of it, but did they really want to get to know who Jesus really was? Not always. And Jesus would have to teach them the reason for his miracles, because he did them not to show he was just some wonderful miracle worker; but truly the Son of God come to save them from their sins! For now, however, Jesus' fame grew because of his great miracles and so the people kept flocking to see him!

     But the scrobes, the religious teachers of the day, didn't like this popularity. They feared Jesus might cause an uprising among the Jewish people against their Roman rulers, and so these experts in the Jewish Scriptures tried to discredit Jesus quickly and as simply as they knew how. They declared him to be in league with Beelzebul, the prince of deamons from the local Philistine cult worship. This Beelzebul was the strong man in that house of evil spirits, and that must have been how Jesus did his miracles. So, essentially the scribes said Jesus was working with Satan. 

  How ludicrous! Satan, after all, is the enemy of mankind. His role mission is to le and to destroy-a mission that can be traced back to the very outset of life in the Garden of Eden. Through Satan's challenge of God's Word, sin entered the world, and with sin came the reign of death over us. That is what Satan always seeks to do- destroy and kill!

   So, was Jesus ever in league with Satan? Not a chance! Jesus healed people. He gave people back their lives-freeing the demon-possessed; healing the sick; curing the diseased...and all the while preaching the powerful Word of God's free forgiveness from all our sins. That was not the destroying activity of Satan, but the rebuilding activity of the only God who truly loves us and cares for us. 

  And so, our Lord Jesus rebukes those scribes in the strongest possible way: "How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and it divided, he cannot stand but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. Then  indeed he may plunder his house."

  From a very basic view of logic, Jesus tells those scribes that they totally missed the boat. Wars cannot be won if kingdoms or houses are divided against themselves. If that is infighting going on, the war is already lost; the kingdom would fall. Satan is not a stupid enemy. He is cunning, smart, and very deceitful. HE wrested control over the earth through slick lies to our first parents- the crown of the Father's creation; and ever since has ruled this earth with lies and half-truths that lead to death. And death is Satan's ultimate weapon. We are all afraid of it;  and we all try to run away from it whether it be  with dietary changes, exercise regimes, plastic surgery, chemical aids, or what have you. We are all afraid of Satan's strongarm tactics, because... truth be told...we know we would lose to him. We are no match for the prince of demons. 

   But Satan, however, is not all-powerful. Jesus is! And there was no way that Jesus was in league with this prince of lies, deceit, and death. Jesus had come, after all, to bring life and light to the world. And He was fighting Satan as only Son of God could. He had come to take on the strong man for us, and win. 

  While no other man born of woman could ever face Satan and his offsprings of sin and death and win; Jesus was no ordinary man. He was and is the God-Man. And this is what Jesus still had to teach the people. Bron of Mary, Jesus was rather nondescript in his humanity, having "no form or majesty that we should look at him,"  as the prophet Isaiah said. Yet, he showed in Word and deed that he wasn't like the rest of us. His miracles pointed to his divinity. This is alsos why he preached God's forgiveness as no other religious teacher of his day could. But what, in a few years time, would truly set him apart from everyone else was what he had come to do. 

   For Jesus was about to crush Satan's head once and for all on the cross. There he would end Satan's rule and authority over us  by taking away the one thing that God the Father could not just dismiss-sin. And Jesus came to pay our debt of sin. All our errors of judgement, all our selfish obsessions, all our cancerous liust of heart and mind and soul, our inbuilt cancer of a capital 'S' -Sin... Jesuse would pay for it all as he ectended his arms on that tree for you and for me. His blood would be holy enough, pure enough, divine enough to pay the debt we owe and bring us eternal life. 

  And because all our sin has been paid for by Jesus' blood, death has no hold over us anymore. Death's claim of authority has been muted ,made impotent, destroyed. Jesus holds the key of death now, and just as he burst forth from the tomb on Easter morning, we too will rose from our graves on the Last Day with our Saviour, Jesus. 

    Those scribes should have known who Jesus was. They, aftere all, knew the Old Testament very well. They should have understood the prophecies of the Messiah well enough to see that Jesus could  not be working with Satan. Satan only destroyed life; but Jesus restored life. To say that Jesus was of the devil then, was blasphemy against God's Holy Spirit; for the Holy Spirit worked through the words of the Holy Scripture to show us God's own truth. And Jesus was trying to warn those scribes to stop their unbelief. 

   After all, He had come from God to seek our the lost...came to save them and us; came to bind up the brokenhearted, to heal the wounds of body and soul, to forgive all our trespasses and sins so that we might live with him forever. And when we hear the Good News, when we receive it with open ears and hearts and do not doubt it or reject it, we are truly  brothers and sisters of Jesus himself. And we will then want to proclaim this Good News loud and clear to all who need to hear it. 

  To be sure, while Satan may have been the strong  man who brought sin and death into the world; Jesus was the strongest God-Man and he has bound Satan for all time. He has taken away Satan's power, crushed his rule and authority, delivered us from needing to worry about anything every truly hurting us... for in Christ we have eternal victory. 

And so, while Satan has now been bound and chained by Christ's sacrificial death, let us work with our Him to Plunder Satan's  old domain. Let us share the Good News of Jesus' forgiveness to all those hurting from sin. Sure, Satan will still rant and rave, but he can't stop Jesus' work of love and mercy. Every Dovone Service of Word and Sacrament that we celebrate is a painful torture on that old prince of darkness, With every offer of forgiveness you and I give and receive, Satan's hold on us is destroyed. And as more and more Children  find their eternity beginning in those waters of Holy Baptism, Satan's kingdom is laid to ruin because Jesus is the victorious one...for us. 

     So, who is this Jesus? He is not our enemy bent on destruction of all we know and kive. No, he is our Saviour, sent to save us from our sin's. We are now the true children of God who rejoice in that Good News of Jesus. And let us also share Jesus' forgiveness with those around us, offering mercy to all in need, and let us do it all in the name oof Jesus. After all, Satan's rule is undone and Jesus' kingdom has come. 

                                                      In the name of Jesus. Amen.