Sermon Audio

Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.” So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.

I’m not one who has taken a current event and molded a sermon around it, spare once, following the wildfires last summer. I have mentioned a current event in sermons in connection with the text, but never has an event such as this meshed so well with a text for a Sunday morning.

There is controversy in Texas over a billboard. While it has drawn some supporters, the overwhelming reaction has been outrage. On the billboard is a man portraying Jesus. He is crowned with thorns. His outstretched arms bear hands with holes in them where it would appear there once were nails. Covering the body of the Jesus figure are tattoos. Outcast, addicted, jealous, faithless, and cheat some of them read. It would appear to be a great representation of what Jesus’ death means for you. These tattoos show you that Jesus has taken these conditions and illnesses and struggles—these sins—from you and bore them Himself in His passion and death. Of course, where it falls short is that the nail holes would indicate that this Jesus is a post-resurrection Jesus, and following His resurrection, Jesus would not be carrying the sins of the world in (or on) His flesh.

The posters of the billboard aren’t claiming to be a church. They aren’t calling for inclusiveness or acceptance of any group of people in church doctrine or practice. They are simply making a statement, one that sounds very much like one that the author of the letter to Timothy wrote (cf. 1 Timothy 1:15): They are people amazed at the love of God in Christ Jesus, that He would send the Son to take on our flesh and blood and die with the sins of the world—to die for them with their sins. Beyond that, we may have some issues with the theology they espouse, but this—the love of God for them—compelled them to post this billboard.

Derogatory. Blasphemous. Negative. Those are some of the words used to describe the billboard. At first I wondered: what are they sore about? Are they turned off at the sight of someone portraying Jesus who has tattoos? I think it’s pretty safe to say that Jesus wasn’t inked; as the One who has fulfilled the law for us, who is our Great High Priest, and was the perfect sacrificial Lamb of God, Jesus would not have been tattooed, as that would have been contrary to Levitical law. (cf. Leviticus 19:28) Perhaps the tattoos themselves make the people sore. For them, it ruins the perfect image they have of Jesus. To them, Jesus came to forgive sinners, sure enough, but His death was perfectly innocent, at which He did not bear the guilt and shame and sin of mankind. The idea of Jesus’ death being a substitute for ours is flawed, at best, or nonexistent, at worst.

Derogatory. Blasphemous. Negative. These are words that have been used of Jesus before. The Pharisees, Sadducees, chief priests, and scribes all have said or thought these things of Him. The idea that Jesus was God and sat and ate with sinners was derogatory, blasphemous, and negative to them. You might say they thought it scandalous.

There is an old theological term regarding Jesus: the Scandal of Particularity. It is used to describe that at just the right moment, God sent His son into the flesh, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. (cf. Galatians 4:4-5) The time and place were perfect for the advent of the Son of God in the flesh. The political climate of the world was ripe and dripping with anticipation for the coming of the Christ. The right people were in place—kings, priests, and common people. The attitude and religious outlook of the people, both the commoners and those in authority, was set up exactly as God had ordained in order for Him to be manifest to us. In His unsearchable wisdom and knowledge, He sent His Son in the flesh knowing that He would be despised and rejected so that, at just the right time, He would be led like a lamb to the slaughter. (cf. Isaiah 53:3, 7)

And so, at just the right time, and the particular moment God wanted to send His Son, Gabriel announced to a lowly maiden named Mary that she would bear the Redeemer of the world. In her womb, the Son of God took on flesh from her and blood flowed through His arteries and veins.

I would like to suggest to you that the Scandal of Particularity can also be used to describe the method in which salvation came to man. The Almighty God could simply have waved His arms over the world and redeemed it and all who are on it. He could have easily destroyed His creation and started over, doing things differently the next time. He could simply have spoken a word, and cured us all in an instant. Yet the particularly right way for redemption was for Him to take on our flesh and blood and die for us, having taken every condition, illness, and struggle—every sin—into His flesh and shed His blood on the cross for as the propitiation. How scandalous!

But...He could have spoken a word...

So, here’s Jesus, the flesh-and-blood God, strolling into Cana in Galilee, and He is approached by a nobleman from Capernaum whose son was sick. The nobleman implores Jesus to heal his son. “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.” But the man continues to implore Jesus. “Go your way; your son lives.” So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. With a word, Jesus heals the nobleman’s son. Jesus could have spoken a word, and He does.

But the Scandal of Particularity tells us that Jesus didn’t come merely to speak the world into redemption, forgiveness, and salvation. The Son of Man came to bear our sin and be our Savior. And in order to bear our sin, He needed something in which and on which to bear it. So, in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, the Son of God took on our flesh and blood. “[W]hen the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5)

Into this flesh and blood, Jesus took the infirmity and death of the nobleman’s son. Every person whom Jesus met on His way to the cross, those whom He healed and raised from the dead, their diseases and death found their way into the flesh and blood of the Son of God dying on the cross for them. Every person whom Jesus met on His way tot he cross, whether they called Him a blasphemer or took Him at His word, their sin and death found their way into the flesh and blood of the Son of God dying on the cross for them. So it is for everyone who has ever lived, is now living, and has yet to be born; their sin and death is atoned for in the passion and death of the Son of God—the flesh and blood Emmanuel—on the cross of Calvary. Jesus took on flesh and blood in order to die for you, to redeem you who were under the law, that you might receive the adoption as sons—sons of God and co-heirs with Jesus Christ of eternal life.

So, if you should happen to see that billboard, perhaps on the news or as it is finding its way posted all over the internet, gaze upon those tattoos on the Jesus-figure and see in them your lost condition. For as those words describe on that billboard, you are given over to death. We can add many more words to them, and St. Paul certainly does for the Galatians:

[T]he works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like... (Galatians 5:19-21a)

Add to the list your pet sins—you know, those things which you practice that the law of God tells you not to do or those things you do not do that the law of God commands you to do; those things with which you struggle that the Scriptures speak against as being sinful. St. Paul says those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (cf. Galatians 5:19b) He says the same to the Corinthians:

[T]he unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

So, you can rightly imagine these things tattooed on the Jesus-figure, too, because the Son of God, the real Jesus the Christ, has taken all of them into His flesh and blood and died with them, removing them from you as far as east is from the west. He has redeemed you from them, so that you might receive the adoption as sons and inherit the kingdom of God. The Son of God has taken on your flesh and taken your sin and death into His flesh and died as your substitute. See this as you gaze at the holes in the Jesus-figure’s hands. Your redemption is in His hands, metaphorically and literally.

Those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Yet you—who practice these things—by God’s grace in Christ Jesus are made an heir of the kingdom of God. That is to say, you do inherit the kingdom of God. Since Christ by His work redeemed you from them and removed them from you, you can say that that part of you that is these things—this corruption—does not and will not inherit the kingdom of God. St. Paul continued, “And such were some of you.” Some of you were these things—adulterers, fornicators, idolaters, haters, dissenters, heretics, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, drunkards, etc.—and you may still be struggling with these things in the now. This creates for you no room to look at anyone else and think that they are somehow less or worse than you—that you are, by some merit of your own, better than them: “Oh, I don’t do that,” you may say; yes, but you do this. But “that” and “this” do not define you, who are in Christ, because “...you were washed...you were sanctified...you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11)

Therefore, we can say that you who take Jesus at His word by God-given faith will inherit the kingdom of God. That is to say that on the last day, when Jesus returns and the dead are raised, you who are in Christ will have put off this corruption, to be replaced by God’s grace with incorruption, which is yours by way of Christ’s work. And this mortal will put on immortality.

[T]hen shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:53-57)

But...He could have spoken a word...

He who by a word created the universe, by a word speaks healing into the nobleman’s son. He also, by a word, declares to you your redemption—He declares you to be righteousness, even as Jesus Christ is your righteousness. Jesus worked it by His death and resurrection on the cross, where, while hanging on the cross He cried out, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) There is nothing for you to do. The love of God compelled Him to send His Son in the flesh, Jesus, to be your propitiation. Jesus has taken your lost condition, your illnesses, your struggles—your sin and sins—into His flesh and died with them, shedding His blood for them in your place. By His work, and His work alone, you are redeemed. “It is finished!”

So, you can look at that billboard with disgust. It is offensive, because it represents to you the most vile of sinners the world has ever seen, because on the cross hangs every kind of sin as Jesus hangs there bleeding and dying. There, in Jesus’ flesh and blood, resides all adultery, fornication, idolatry, hatred, dissension, heresy, homosexuality, sodomy, theft, drunkenness, etc. And that point should be made most clearly, because it is because of and with all these sins—every sin—that Jesus died. Therefore, they are not in you—they are not yours, they are His, because you have been redeemed from them.

But, thanks be to God, Jesus did not rise again to life with all sins. His resurrection and ascension are yours, by way of Baptism into His death and resurrection. And like as He rose and ascended with a perfectly glorious body, yet still bearing the marks of your salvation, so you will rise to incorruption and immortality.

“Jesus said to [the nobleman], ‘Go your way; your son lives.’” With that word, the son was healed. “So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.” Jesus says to you that He has redeemed you—He declares that in Him you are made righteous in His death and resurrection: “It is finished!” He gives you the faith to believe it, which faith grasps Him and His death as your own over and against the corruption which, even now, you face, however that corruption manifests itself. Because of Jesus and His work, it is a privilege then to stand in His stead and repeat His words to you: you are forgiven for all of your sins.