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Lent 3 - 2005
TITLE: “Satan Must Yield to the Love of God”
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is the Gospel lesson just read from Luke chapter 11.
All of this talk about the devil is a little bit disconcerting, don’t you think? We starting the service with words like Depart you unclean spirit and make room for the Holy Spirit and Satan hear this proclamation, I’ve been baptized into Christ. But in a world of technology and amazing feats of science every day, who really has time to believe in the devil? The devil, at best, is the work of science fiction and horror movies, where Keanu Reeves does battle against nameless foes. And even though they may look horrific on the big screen, they are really no more frightening than a guy in a red suit holding a pitchfork. Who really cares?
It is, of course, at precisely this point that Satan is able to do his greatest work. About 50 years ago a man named C.S. Lewis wrote a book entitled The Screwtape Letters. They were supposed to be copies of correspondence between one demon, Screwtape, written to his nephew, Wormwood. In the letters, one of the points that Screwtape makes is that they are able to do their greatest work when people no longer believe they exist.
Today we have thoroughly depersonalized the work of the devil or Satan. We look at the evils of our day, from Hiter to Saddam Hussein or even the horror of abortion or euthanasia, and we believe that these are just people, or that this evil is just an evil of the world. It has nothing to do with God or Satan, heaven or hell. This is just stuff, things that happen that are certainly bad or wrong, but there is no great power at work trying to undo the work of God’s creation. We have even deluded ourselves so much that we look at a Jeffery Dahmer, or a pedophile, or the other nameless terrors of our day, and blindly believe that these things are just the way things are.
But as Christians, we look to the Bible for the truth. And while the Bible doesn’t have page after page on the devil, he plays a significant and prominent place in the story of our fall into sin and in our redemption. You shall be like gods, the serpent promised in the Garden. And when we believed the Lie, we because slaves to the great triad of evil, sin, death and the devil himself. You are a slave to sin, every one of you. Satan is called the ruler of this world in the Bible because this is his domain, and it is a frightening thing, especially when we are so unaware of his presence and evil work.
This Satan and his false minions, the Bible tells us, are fallen angels who want nothing more than to drag us into their torment of hell. That is Satan’s sole task, his unrelenting war against us every day of our lives. And because of Satan’s first temptation which Adam and Eve so readily enjoyed, we are all born a part of Satan’s kingdom. Yes, even you, every one of you, even little Madison. That’s the Law, and it is true.
But Christ has come to defeat the forces of Satan and hell in this life. Two weeks ago we heard how Jesus was tempted by the Devil and did not succumb. Last week we heard how Jesus healed the Canaanite woman’s demon possessed daughter. This week we heard how Jesus drives Satan out of this man who could not speak. And we are driving, ever driving toward the cross and Jesus death. Jesus comes to break the darkness of our sin. Only Jesus can do this for us. As we prayed in the hymn:
Jesus comes to defeat your enemies. He comes to drive out Satan and all of his hellish forces. How does Jesus do this? He does this through the simplest and most obvious means, that we can sometimes overlook the very finger of God at work in our midst.
God is at work in your life, and has been for a very long time, through this little gift we call Baptism. In these waters, which Madison received a few minutes ago, God drives out the power of Satan and plants the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Talk about a gift! God now dwells within you by baptism. You are not ruled by Satan. You are in Christ, and in Christ, there is no condemnation. God brought you into His kingdom through those waters. If anyone has been baptized into Christ, he has put on Christ, as St. Paul wrote.
God continues to work on you and in you and through you by His Holy Word. Remember near the end of our reading, the woman comes to Jesus and says blessed is the womb which bore you and the breasts which fed you! Jesus, notice, doesn’t correct her, because Mary, Jesus mother, is blessed. But Jesus kindly points this woman to the greater, by saying, More than that, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it!. In other words, receiving God’s Word in faith is an even greater gift than having the very Son of God as a child! Talk about the wonderful hidden in the ordinary! There it is. And the same could be said of forgiveness or holy absolution. As the Psalmist writes, Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven. You, dear Christians, are blessed by God every time He forgives your sins for Jesus sake. Whether it happens publicly here in Church or privately, God is at work forgiving your sins.
And of course, we cannot forget the culmination and greatest gift of all, our Lord’s very body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. In this great gift, God continues to bind Himself to you. He demonstrates His ongoing love for you by sending His son to die, and then by sending His Son’s body and blood into your body and blood. You are made Holy by His blood. And Satan cannot stand holy things, because they are God’s property. You are holy, set apart by God Himself for His own special and wonderful purposes.
In Jesus’ day they couldn’t handle this. They wanted to blame Jesus and twist him into a wrongdoer. And in this same day it happens. Baptism is mocked. Christ’s Word is dragged through the mud. His very body and blood are abused and neglected left and right. But no matter. God is still at work here. And just like Jesus would not give up in His task of your salvation because of a few roadblocks, so too Jesus Word and Spirit will not be kept away from you. God has come into your midst to forgive your sins.
So come to the table, and rejoice that God has defeated our enemies! Our eyes ever look to the Lord, for He has done all things for us and for our salvation. Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.This page was created on 02/18/2007 and last edited on: 03/05/2007