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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. Our Lord made a very interesting comment, and he made it to John’s disciples before they went back to talk to John. And you’ve got to scratch your head and think, why? Why would he say such a statement? And the statement that John’s disciples heard and brought back to John was this: Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
Now, why? He would not have said that unless it was very likely in John’s disciples’ lives, as well as John, as well as your life, that we could be offended by Jesus. But offended by what? What? Offended by how our God has come into this world and reigns in this world. That’s offensive. It’ll be explained.
Anything that causes an offense causes you to be uncomfortable. Embarrassed? You can think of other words to describe the feeling, but you know the feeling. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to be offended. Sometimes it stings and it’s raw, and other times it’s just plain difficult to wrestle with. You see, in Jesus, our God has come into the flesh. God has become man. And that hymn that the church has been singing for 1,700 years by Ambrose is all about God becoming man. And that hymn talks about him breaking into history and reigning as the God-man.
Now, when John’s disciples got back to John, where would they find John except in prison? Now, if you’re John and you know who you are, and he did, he knew he was the forerunner before Jesus. His father had been told that, Zechariah. He had been told that by his father and his mother, Elizabeth, throughout his life. He knew his identity, and yet there he sat in prison… by the will of an evil man.
Now why would God reign in such an unusual and seemingly irresponsible manner? If John is the Messiah forerunner, the Elijah who is to come, and that’s what the texts say, if he is the way preparer, why would he sit in prison by the will of an evil man? If God really reigns in this world, why? And there lies the offense.
Should not he be given preferential treatment as the very way preparer of God? Should he not have free reign throughout all of Palestine to preach and proclaim? Why should there be that S-word as a part of his life? Suffer. Because if the reign of God actually broke into the world in Jesus Christ, why would he even allow this chosen messenger of God to have his head severed from his body by the will of an evil woman’s daughter who charmed the evil man, Herod Antipas?
Did not Jesus cause the blind to see? Scriptures are full. Did he not cause the lame to walk? Scriptures have those examples. Did he not cleanse the lepers and cause the deaf to hear and even raise the dead? Yes, yes, and yes. Did he not allow the gospel to be preached to you in spite of your parents? Yes, lest you claim some kind of privileged upbringing. You are wrong to claim such a claim. It’s a gift, purely by grace.
But we’re offended by that. You ask a church, what are they doing? Oh, they love to tell you, look at what God is doing among us. Why doesn’t the same church say, hey, look at what our sinners within our midst are doing among us, because that would be offensive, would it not? Is that not what the church is made of? Is that not the kids that you bore? Were you not born from sinful parents?
See, we’re offended by this notion that as if we’re different than the average out there because of, well, we grew up in the church. Maybe our parent was a church school teacher. Maybe they were a pastor. Maybe a Sunday school teacher. Maybe our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all believers. Then why do you find sin within your marriage? And why do you find sin within your children? And why did you receive punishment from your parents for sin?
This is the offending aspect that if God is breaking into this world to reign, why does he let sin exist in your and your and your marriage and in our homes and in his church? See, we want to show the world the polished side of our believers that are gathered here. We sure don’t want to show the sordid side of the same believers. And yet, would that not promote the grace of God even more clearly? If the sin of the people who make up the church and what sin is doing is being countered by the great grace which overwhelms sin in those same people by the same gracious God who’s broken into this world.
Here’s the problem. Jesus did not come into this world to make you a highly effective person. In fact, we have a lot to learn from those hymn writers of long ago. You go back and look at that hymn written by Ambrose. He dealt with people just like you and me and in a world that was far more hateful of Christianity than anything you and I have experienced. And yet he did not write about how Jesus was going to make everyone’s lives more beneficial, more outgoing, more… better stewards of God’s gifts of money and such.
Because if you and I sold that line to our children, our children would say, yeah, Mom and Dad, that’s a crock, because they see right through you and me. And if our parents told us that, we may have politely smiled and nodded, but we knew the score as well as children of sinners. That’s where the offense comes.
You see, Jesus’ miracles that He performed then show his great power, and yet he allowed evil to exist, did he not? And evil men to continue in their evil ways. It’s hidden. His reign is hidden to your flesh. That’s our struggle. Our flesh, not our spirit. Our flesh. It is our flesh that is offended to think we are the same as those sinners out there. It’s our flesh that we think is offended when we compare parenting and we look at someone else’s parenting abilities and think ours to be better or theirs to be better. And isn’t it by grace that our children are where they are? And is it not by grace that you are where you are in spite of your parents?
That’s my caveat for my boy and girl. I’m very thankful it’s grace. Because if anyone knows sin, you as a parent, just like I as a parent, know sin. It bounces around in there in your thoughts and in your words. And is it an offense that He comes to save our soul, but He doesn’t fix it in this life? That you and I have to deal with the inconsistencies of other sinners. And the church is made up of inconsistent sinners.
That’s the kind of people Jesus loves to deal with. We are offended because Jesus reigns in this world and he lets things seemingly go on as if he’s not in control. You know, when John the Baptist and his disciples saw him suffer, saw him die, they were upset. You and I read it. Yeah, we’re taken aback, but you know where it rubs us the wrong way? Is when we have to deal with the evilness in this world and other evil people. And what they do to us and what they say to us, and worse yet, what we’ve had said out of our mouths to them.
Yeah, yeah, that hurts. And that’s the crazy thing about why this is offensive, because God allows it, and there isn’t a reason. We confess He’s in control. We sing, He has all things taken care of. We hear how He has come and will come again, and all things will be taken care of, and yet we chafe at the inconsistencies in others’ lives. Oh, heavens, let us not even get started at the inconsistencies of our own.
You know, this world does not like what we proclaim because we proclaim there’s only one way to heaven. Amen. And that does not resonate with the world. And yet, that’s what we’re proclaiming as a church. Church in this country is shrinking. And that’s a difficult thing for churches to deal with. Because the reality is this culture is not the same as it was when we grew up. The church will never die. But we may not see the glory years that we once saw of old. That’s offensive to us as people of God.
Well, let’s make it more close to home. What’s offensive is when you raise your child in the church and they walk away from the church. That’s the same exact thing. Does not this work? Is it not a recipe that says if you do thus and so, the expected outcome is this? John didn’t have that in his prison cell. And Jesus surely didn’t have it for us. He did not come to make us more highly effective people, better money managers, more outgoing. He came to save our souls. And having saved them, He still allows evil to exist in you and in your loved ones and in the people with whom you interact. And you are called to forgive and love. That is offensive.
Do you believe all of this, that God is proclaiming to you and to me? Because his power isn’t to change evil in this world. His power is to save evil men, among whom we must count ourselves. Do you believe this? Blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Let him who have ears to hear, hear.
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
