In the year that King Uzziah of Judah died, St. Isaiah had a vision of the Most Holy Place in the courts of heaven. The Lord was sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. There were angels standing above the throne—six-winged seraphs—covering themselves with two pairs of wings out of respect and modesty, being in the presence of YHWH Sabaoth. They cried to each other antiphonally words from which the Sanctus is derived, and the place shook for the sound of their cries while the smoke of incense filled the temple.

St. Isaiah was privileged to get a glimpse of heavenly worship. You can say with confidence that he didn’t see everything that happened in the Most Holy Place, and what he revealed might only be but a portion of what he was given to see. The sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of everything going on must have been more than he could understand; I would wager even the taste of things happening was palpable and more wonderful than anything he had ever experienced below. Once the wonder of the scene catches up to him, though, he realizes who he is and where he is.

“Woe is me,” he exclaims, “for I am undone!” Who is he? He is a man of unclean lips living in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And let’s make things perfectly clear here. It wasn’t just his lips and his people lips that were unclean. From head to toe, inside and out, St. Isaiah was impure, as were the people among whom he lived. Where is he? He is in the presence of the King, YHWH Sabaoth, and more than that, his unclean eyes have seen Him. (cf. Isaiah 6:1-5)

You have in the certain nobleman today a beautiful example of faith. He exhibits the nature and character of faith, namely, that it is supposed to increase and, as Dr. Luther put it, become perfect. He shows that faith is not a quiet and idle thing, but a living and restless thing; it rises and falls, ebbs and flows, lives and moves. If this does not occur, then faith does not exist; it is, then, only a lifeless notion of the heart concerning God. “For true, living faith, which the Holy Spirit pours into the heart, cannot be inactive,” as even St. James wrote. (cf. James 2:17) Therefore, do not think that if you have attained faith, that you now have everything; you must constantly grow and increase and continue to learn to know God better.

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Here is a primary reason why: the devil is not idle. You are under constant barrage from the enemy, and this is not always something you can see or feel or otherwise even comprehend; sure, there are times when you will, such as when temptations come alluring. However, this is no mere persecution from a world hostile to the Gospel, but from the powers of darkness, as you heard today in the Epistle. (cf. Ephesians 6:12) The devil howls and rages; he is mad and foolish, and he cannot bear that a Christian grows in his faith; therefore, he is always, always at work against it.

When one hears this parable, the natural inclination is to look at what the all of the people are doing. These people are invited to a feast. When it came time for the feast, they are fetched by a servant, but each of them gives excuses and declines showing up. Additionally, they take those who came to fetch them and treated them spitefully and killed them. Of course, this would incense the one who invited them, and in the parable, he destroyed the invitees and burned up their cities.

Then, there are other people brought to the feast, and again, the attention is on them. The hall is filled with guests, but one of them isn’t wearing the proper wedding garments. It was traditional in the time of Jesus that when you invited someone to a wedding feast, you provided them the appropriate attire. When he’s approached about it, he hasn’t an answer. So, he is bound hand and foot and thrown into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.” Such is the first verse of today’s Gradual. Satan used this verse to tempt Jesus to throw Himself down off the temple mount (cf. Luke 4:9-10), telling Jesus that He could do so without fear of injuring or killing Himself. While that is true, it is no reason to put God to the test, as Jesus informs the crafty serpent. This verse, and the entire 91st Psalm, is written for your benefit; it is written about you with the Christ in mind. You are the one, like Christ, who God has given His angels charge over, to keep you in all your ways.

So, look at Christ and this Psalm. Building up to verse 11, the Psalm lists danger after danger that could befall you after acknowledging that YHWH is your refuge and fortress: a fowler’s snare, perilous pestilence, night terror, arrows by day, thousands upon thousands of perils that may fall at your sides. “But [none] shall come near you.” (Psalm 91:7c) Jesus certainly had perils to contend with from the moment He was conceived and born, and not once did they lay a hand on Him until it was His time to die for you.

But, these dangers also come your way. You know it, and you can feel it. An enemy sets a trap for you, besmirching your reputation. Illnesses overcome you. There are those who seek your life and property who prowl around at night, and it seems no more safe during the day at times. You walk in danger all the way as you sang to start the service today. Yet, God gives His angels charge over you, to keep you in all of your ways. They will not let you dash your foot against a stone.

Fellow redeemed of Christ, here is a topic of much importance to the Church. Jesus speaks of taking places of honor at a wedding feast. In his own way, He relates this to the Great Wedding Feast—the Feast of Victory of the Lamb. So, when Jesus speaks of a wedding feast, you really have no option but to look at the Foretaste of the Feast to Come that He has given the Church to do in remembrance of Him. It is a matter of much importance to the Church because it is in this feast that Her members find their Life in Christ.

Jesus said, “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.” (Revelation 1:18) The exercise of this office of the keys is on display for you in today’s Gospel lesson. There, as Jesus enters a village called Nain, He and His party encounter another party of people.

Jesus’ party is one of life. He has come into the world that you would have life and have it to the fullest. (cf. John 10:10) Along the way, He gathered disciples as He taught. He healed and performed many wondrous miracles. And He gathered a following. His party, that day, was generally joyful and hopeful and expectant. The people had seen this Jesus do some pretty amazing stuff—some of them probably had some of that amazing stuff happen to them—and they knew Him to be the promised Messiah of the Scriptures, today’s Old Testament; greater things were going to happen. This party was entering the village.

From Nain proceeded an opposite party, and it was heading in the opposite direction. A widow followed a bier. In the box was not her husband, however, but her only son. This woman had lost everything, having previously lost her husband, and her party, gloomy as it is, was heading out of the city to the necropolis—the city of the dead, the graveyard—to bury all that is left of her livelihood.

“And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested [Jesus], saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? It isn’t the only time Jesus is asked the question. If you ask two of our catechumens the question, they may give you the answer, since we talked about that just about one year ago—it won’t be the one Jesus gave, because He saw right through the question to what those who were asking really wanted.

What must you do to inherit eternal life? You do nothing to inherit anything! To be an heir and inherit something, you find yourself a beneficiary of someone who has died. You exist, for one thing, and find yourself related to or befriended by another. That person dies and bequeaths something to you. That you inherit anything is totally dependent on the person on the person who has died. That’s why what you do to inherit anything is nothing! Matter-of-fact, you are a passive part of inheritance.

What Jesus does in today’s text is very indicative of St. Mark’s Gospel. There’s no soft and sweet beginning to his Gospel, no angel choirs, no lineage, none of those “tedious” details. In fact, there is no softness at all throughout the Gospel. No 12-year old Jesus causing Mary to marvel, in fact, no sweet Mary at all. No, for Mark, his point is to get to the meat of the story of Christ, so the first thing he does is introduce John the Baptist. Then, Jesus arrives on the scene and is baptized. Immediately, Mark’s favorite word, Jesus makes His way into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

The same kind of thing is happening in today’s pericope. Jesus is making His way to the Sea of Galilee when a deaf man with a speech impediment is brought to Him. Jesus pulls him aside, puts His fingers in the man’s ears, spits, touches the man’s tongue, and shouts, “Ephphatha,” “Be opened!” Immediately (see, I told you Mark likes this word), the man could hear and speak.

I’m going to say it again: there are only two religions in the world. If it’s been a while since you’ve heard me say that, you may be surprised to hear it. After all, there are multiple -isms and -anities out there, and it’s impossible to keep them all straight. Volumes have been written which only give synopses of the world’s many religions. However, when you get to the core tenets and facets of these world religions, they fall only into two types of religions. In many ways, they are polar opposites, yet they can be indistinguishable in many instances. And while the religions are polar opposites, the core tenets are, for all intents and purposes, complementary. Today’s Old Testament and Gospel lessons show the two religions at work.

One religion is that of the Law; the other is the religion of the Gospel. Law and Gospel are complementary in that you cannot have one without the other—the Law shows you your need for the Gospel, since you cannot keep it, and the Gospel tells you that the Law in fulfilled for you by another. However, the religion of the Law and the religion of the Gospel are polar opposites. St. Paul relates that the religion of the Law is of the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh. He states that this religion is the way of death. For, walking “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience...in the lusts of [the] flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,...by nature children of wrath,” adherents to the religion of the Law are dead in the trespasses and sins. (cf. Ephesians 2:1-3) Elsewhere, the apostle wrote, “...the law brings about wrath....” (Romans 4:15a) However, the religion of the Gospel declares that we are saved by grace through faith—and this faith is the gift of God, it is from the Gospel, not borne of works, not of the Law, lest anyone should boast. (cf. Ephesians 2:8-10)

It’s a strange parable that Jesus told—strange, because it doesn’t really fit the mold of the other parables that Jesus told. For years, the parable has been known as “The Unrighteous Steward.” You heard it already, but here’s a quick summary:

• A master has a slave that is in charge of the master’s financial affairs. Think of Joseph in Potiphar’s house—he had the same role. (cf. Genesis 39:1-6)
• Word reached the master that his steward was wasting his money. If true, it’s enough for the master to put him out at best or to have him executed at worst.
• The master confronts the steward and demands an answer and puts him out right then and there.
• The steward, put out, devises a plan to go to the master’s debtors and forgives them each a portion of their debt to the master.
• When master catches word of what the former steward had done, he praised him for his shrewdness.

Why is the steward called unrighteous? It is not because he forgave a portion of the master’s debts without the master’s consent or knowledge, but likely because as the parable starts, he is mismanaging his master’s wealth.