The Wednesday of the Thirteenth Week after Trinity

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

At the beginning of our Gospel Reading on Sunday, our Lord said to His disciples:

“Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it” (Luke 10:23-24).

So it is that not everyone is given to see our Lord Jesus Christ for who He really is. In the Old Testament, many prophets and kings desired to see the day of the Messiah, but they did not see it. But now that the Christ has come, the fullness of who He is has been revealed to humanity. And so it is that: We have been given to see Jesus for who He is.

The Pharisees, however, did not see Jesus rightly. The argument could be made that the Pharisees did recognize who Christ was, which is exactly why they felt so threatened. But even in this, the Pharisees did not see Jesus for who He truly is. For they did not see Him as their Savior. They saw Him only as a threat to their power and prestige. They saw Him as a disruption to the order they had created. For He did not come as the rulers of the world do—asserting authority and working the political system, exercising authority and lording it over others. Rather, Christ came as one who serves. He came in humility. And this humility threatened the Pharisees. And the threat that they felt prevented them from seeing Jesus for who He is.

But you, dear friends in Christ, have been given to see Jesus for who He is. The quotation from the prophet Isaiah, which the Holy Spirit inspired the evangelist to include in this text, invites us to see our Lord in fullness and truth:

Behold, My Servant whom I have chosen,

My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased!

I will put My Spirit upon Him,

An He will declare justice to the Gentiles.

He will not quarrel nor cry out,

Nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.

A bruised reed He will not break,

And a smoking flax He will not quench,

Till He sends forth justice to victory;

And in His name Gentiles will trust (Matthew 12:18-21).

First, the prophet invites us to see Jesus as the Lord’s Servant. And let us not understate the meaning or importance of that word. Jesus is the Lord’s Servant in every sense of the word. He not only came to do the will of His Father. But Christ also came among us as one who serves us. As we said, He is not a ruler who lords his power over others. He is a servant king who leads His people in humility and sacrifice. He is well-pleasing to His Father because He has emptied Himself and taken the form of a servant. And Christ does not desire to be served by us. Rather, He desires to serve us, even to this day, with His Word and Sacraments wherein He freely gives us Himself for our forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Next, the prophet invites us to see Jesus as the one on whom the Holy Spirit has been placed. Now, admittedly, this sounds odd to our ears. Why does Jesus need to receive the Holy Spirit? After all, He is God in the flesh! And yet, the Holy Spirit does descend and remain upon Christ at His baptism, thus anointing Him as the Christ—God’s anointed one. But let us not forget that Jesus Christ is not only fully God, He is also fully man. And according to His humanity, He did not possess the Holy Spirit by right. And so, it is necessary for our sakes that the man, Jesus Christ, was given the Holy Spirit. The fact that the second person of the Holy Trinity emptied Himself of His divine glory to take on the flesh of a lowly human is one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith. And yet, He did this so that He could make a way for the Holy Spirit to be given to fallen humanity. By His sinless life, His obedient death, and His glorious resurrection, Christ has perfected our human nature and made it possible for the same Holy Spirit He received to be given to us in the waters of Holy Baptism!

Finally, the prophet invites us to see Jesus as our gentle Lord. “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoking flax He will not break” (Matthew 12:20). In the same way that a gardening carefully binds up the bruised reed until the contusion is healed, so has our Lord Jesus Christ come to grant strength from above to the weak Christian. And the flame of faith which is at the point of being extinguished is nursed back to life by our gentle Lord. For He did not come to deal harshly with sinners. He came to grant them grace, mercy, and the hope of the life of the world to come.

And so it is that Christ willingly goes to suffer and die. To be sure, the Gospel writer clearly tells us that He will not go on to die yet. For the time has not yet come. And yet, there will come a time when Christ submits to the plotting of the Pharisees. He will allow them to destroy Him, as they put Him to death upon the cross. But the death of the suffering servant is exactly what makes all of this possible. And in His death, we come to see Jesus for who He really is. For His death is the ultimate act of service, as He dies in our place to appease the wrath of God over human sin, to make a way for the Holy Spirit to be given to poor, miserable sinners, and to grant His gentle grace and mercy to the undeserving. Thanks be to God!

In Jesus’ name. Amen.