Mark 6 7-13 Scholia

"Amazing Repentance, How Sweet the Sound"

Mark 6:7-13

August 3, 2003

Pentecost 8 B

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Boise, Idaho

Pastor Tim Pauls

I. Three Things with Two Parts

After Jesus is rejected by His hometown, He travels through other villages, teaching as He goes. Now the time has come for His efforts to be multiplied: He sends out the twelve disciples to declare His Word as well. You heard His instructions in the Gospel lesson: This is not a trip for the glory of the twelve. Jesus is sending them as His messengers-His ambassadors-to proclaim His Word, not theirs. He tells them to take nothing extra for the journey, and to expect little else along the way. He says,

"In whatever place you enter a house, stay there till you depart from that place. And whoever will not receive you nor hear you, when you depart from there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them. Assuredly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city."

Now, that's quite a statement. The disciples are going to declare some news, and those who reject the news will have a worse time than Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah, as you recall, did not have a particularly tolerable fate: Because of the manifest sin and immorality of the people, the Lord destroyed the two cities in a bombardment of fire and brimstone. So whatever it is that the disciples are going to go and teach must be pretty vital, important stuff. If people hear about the consequences of the message before the disciples arrive, you can bet that they're going to perk up their ears and listen. The twelve are about to convey a message from the Son of God, and this must be a very special, important message indeed. It must be incredibly earth-shaking.

Are you ready? Are you prepared to hear the life-and-death message-eternal life or worse-than-Sodom-and-Gomorrah-death? We find out what the message is in verse 12: "So they went out and preached that people should repent."

People should repent.

Well, now, that doesn't sound all that exciting or earth-shattering or special. We've heard about repentance before. Maybe that wasn't the big thing that people were supposed to pay attention to? Maybe it was how the disciples healed the sick or cast out demons? No. Those miracles were there to highlight the message; and the message was that people should repent.

It makes sense if you think about it. Repentance is not a glamorous word these days; we tend to think "Repent" as a sign that a crazy man holds up downtown, or a word we learned in confirmation class that has no great bearing on real life. However, Christians, repentance is at the center of your life. According to Scripture, repentance has two parts: Contrition, or sorrow over sin; and faith that Christ has redeemed you from sin. Both parts are necessary: If you are deeply sorry for your sin, your sorrow does not earn forgiveness. Judas was deeply remorseful for betraying Jesus; but because he failed to believe in Jesus, his sorrow only led him to despair and death. On the other hand, belief in Jesus without contrition is useless: If someone says, "I believe that Jesus is my Savior, but I don't have any sins to be saved from," it is a false confession that leads to death as well.

Your life as a Christian is a life of repentance. This worship service is an exercise in it. We began with the Confession and Absolution. First, you confessed your sin and declared your sorrow for it. Then you heard the Absolution, that you are forgiven for the sake of Christ who was crucified for you; and that Word of forgiveness strengthens your faith to believe in Him. See? Confession and Absolution has two parts because it is repentance in action, sorrow for sin and faith in Jesus.

Put it another way: Repentance is the work of Law and Gospel, the two principal doctrines of Scripture. The Law shows you your sin and causes sorrow for it. The Gospel then declares that Christ has redeemed you from your sin, and you are forgiven. God has given His Law and Gospel to produce contrition and faith; in other words, God has given His Word specifically to bring you to repentance.

So there you have it, three things with two parts: repentance, Confession and Absolution, Law and Gospel. All three are all about repentance. It's little wonder that, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door, the very first one that led to all the others said, "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent' [Mt 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance."

This also explains why Jesus would make that astonishing statement that, for those who reject the disciples' message, "it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." To reject repentance is to deny the guilt of one's sin, and to reject the forgiveness that Jesus has won. It's to declare that the Lord is wrong in both His Law and His Gospel-it's unbelief, not believing that Word to be true. Unbelief damns-it's the only sin that can, because it rejects the forgiveness that Christ has won. The citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah were a wretched, perverted lot; but if any of them repented as the firestorm fell, they could avoid the curse of hell forever. But for the one who persistently refuses to repent and trust in the Lord, there is no hope at all.

Repentance. It's not a glamorous word, as I said before; but repentance is at the center of your life as a Christian. This is important, and perhaps I can illustrate how.

II. On Hospitals, Missions and Being Prepared to Meet Your Maker

For one reason or another, the past two weeks have been crowded with calls and visits. Most members here have managed to avoid the hospital; but Boise is the big city with the hospitals, and we receive requests now and then to visit people from out of town. So, I've spent time at two different deathbeds, one a dear 93-old-woman, the other a man in his thirties whose wedding I performed just a few years ago. I've been to Elks to visit a stroke victim and ICU for a mysterious illness. The list goes on. It's been quite a run, and I'd like to tell you what I have said to each one of these people as I've visited them.

I've told them to repent.

Sounds a bit harsh and off point, does it? A patient lies terribly ill from a disease, and I tell them to repent? Let me explain a little bit further.

When a patient is admitted to the hospital, doctors and nurses and others work very hard to bring them back to health. That is the vocation God has given them, and they are a gift from God to us. With all the training they receive, it's not up to me to go in and tell the nurse to hook up an IV D5W TKO or anything else. I am not against miraculous healing apart from medical treatment; but I certainly accept that the Lord works through means, like medical personnel.

While medicine is a great gift, diseases are still puzzling, malignant things. At times, doctors will not be quite sure what to do. When someone is on the deathbed, everyone recognizes that everything medical has been done, and it's out of our hands. This is the battle between sickness and health, life and death, from the perspective of medicine.

However, all of this is more than just a matter of medicine and the body. Disease and death are the wages of sin; they happen because we live in a sinful world.

This is what I talk about on when I visit the sick and dying. I don't need to preach the Law very much: Their own bodies are preaching to them the wages of sin without my help. So I speak of how, because of sin, sickness and death are inevitable; this is an undeniable truth of life in this world. This is preaching the Law-for if we were not sinful, why would we be sick, dying? But the message doesn't stop there, of course. I seek to tell patients that the Lord Jesus Christ has carried their infirmities and borne their diseases to the cross. He has died in their place, and He has conquered death and risen again. This Jesus now declares that He has made them His own in Baptism. He will use all things for their good. He will provide healing in this life as He wills. And when death comes, He will raise them up to everlasting life.

So take, for instance, one who is on his deathbed. I share with him the truth that his condition is because of that sinfulness that saturates all of us, and that-as he well knows-he cannot save himself. I also declare to him that the Lord has redeemed him from sin and death, and will now use death to deliver him from a dying body to an incorruptible body in heaven.

In other words, I've told him of sin and its consequences and I've announced the Gospel to him. I've talked about sin and grace; in other words, this is a message of repentance.

If it still seems harsh to speak of repentance to one who is dying, I must beg to differ. The one who is dying sees matters of life-and-death far more clearly than you and I do; and as that inevitable death approaches, there is no sweeter sound to the believer than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is in that Gospel they hear that their Savior has already conquered death, and leads them through that shadowy valley. It is also in that Gospel that they hear that they will be raised from the dead.

Now, we do not save this message only for those who are seriously ill or dying. We declare this message of repentance to you in every sermon that we proclaim; if we fail to do so, then we have departed from the teaching of Jesus and His apostles. It may sound strange once again, but the job of the pastor is to prepare you for death, no matter how much good health you enjoy at the moment. While we may not know the time of our death, we do know that death will come for each one of us-unless the Lord returns first in glory. Either way, we will stand before the Lord; and it is only by repentance-by the forgiveness won by Christ-that we are prepared to meet our Maker.

And so it is my privilege to declare to you today this message of repentance: There is hope for you. The troubles that you face-be they mistakes or guilt or afflictions or whatever-serve to remind you that you are sinful and cannot save yourself. Therefore, do not seek to justify those sins, for they are out to destroy you. Instead, confess your sins and failings for what they are: sin that cannot save. And rejoice! The Lord Jesus Christ has been crucified for your sins and is risen from the dead. He has already given you life in your baptism, and He sustains you even now with His Word and His Supper. He comes to meet you with forgiveness, so that you might be prepared to meet Him in glory. Therefore, confess your sin and believe in Jesus. In other words, repent.

That's the life of the Christian, a life of repentance-a life of confessing our sin and trusting in the grace won by Christ for us. There is no better life to live.

Let us make one more application of repentance this morning-let us speak of missions, of evangelizing those who do not yet believe. There is great pressure today upon the Church to increase its mission and outreach work. However, in a world ablaze with new missions slogans, "Repent" doesn't seem real popular. We are told, however, that we need to be innovative with how we present the Gospel. We need to be bold, to take joyful risks, to think outside the box and do something new, because the Good News of Jesus Christ just doesn't seem to matter anymore in the way that we present it.

I offer a humble observation to this argument: Missions and evangelism programs will always fail as long as we get repentance wrong.

Remember that repentance has two parts, both of which are necessary: Contrition or sorrow over sin, and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. In most modern mission paradigms, it seems, we are told that we must go easy on talk of sin. People don't like to hear about their sin, whether it be false doctrine, greed, living together outside of marriage, whatever. We are often encouraged to tread lightly on the Law and not inform people of their sin; why? Because in doing so, we might well offend them and chase them away; if they stick around, then we have more time to minister to them with the Gospel. And again, this Gospel seems to have little effect these days, so we need to change it a bit to give it more appeal.

It might sound "loving," but here is the problem. If we do not rightly point out sin with God's Law, then sinners will see no need for forgiveness. If they see no need for forgiveness, then they will see no need for the Gospel. Thus the Gospel seems to be ineffective-not because it has lost its strength, but because we have failed to show people just why they need this Jesus and the forgiveness He has died for. In other words: As we hear moans about ineffective missions, the problem is not that we refuse to change the Gospel. The problem is that we've failed to preach the Law. No matter the slogan that goes with an outreach program, it is doomed to go down in flames if it is not built upon the preaching of repentance.

May this, then, be our life and our message. Repentance is hardly a glitzy topic these days-and you can bet that the devil, the world and your sinful flesh work hard to keep it that way. Yet, there is no sweeter imperative from our Lord than the command, "Repent." It is the soul's equivalent of Jesus saying to a sick body, "Be healed." It is by, and only by, that work of God, repentance, that you and I have hope of salvation. By His Law, you know your sin and need for a Savior. By His Gospel, you trust in the Savior who has redeemed you. By His grace, you rejoice to repent, because repentance brings you this marvelous news: You are forgiven for all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen