The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
The Gospel lesson this morning is another example of the either-or nature of the Christian faith. It’s a study of two dynamically opposed households: the household or kingdom of the devil, and the household and kingdom of God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Let there be no mistake: people belong to either one house or another. All people, no exceptions. There are no other choices, no other houses, no other kingdoms. When it comes to death, each of us will go to our respective home: to one or to the other. That’s an uncomfortable truth. That’s a truth we don’t like to think about when dealing with the unbelieving world, especially members of our family or close friends. But those feelings don’t change the truth, that this is in fact a sedes doctrinae. That’s a Latin phrase that means a seat of doctrine. When it comes to the Christian religion, the Bible contains very clear — not completely all the time, but a good portion of the time — very clear doctrinal statements about the truth of God’s economy, how God works in the world, and how one is condemned and how one is saved in Jesus Christ. A sedes doctrinae is a Bible passage that is so clear and distinct it serves as a foundation for a fundamental, sure and certain teaching, known as a doctrine. One such verse is John 14:6, when Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Thus the only way to the Heavenly Father is through faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
In addition to this uncomfortable doctrine, that trust in Christ is the only way to heaven, there’s another, not uncomfortable, certainly mysterious teaching of the Bible: the house to which a person belongs is not a personal choice or an act of human will. Most people don’t normally make a conscious choice, they think, to be a member of Satan’s household. But human beings are born in sin, captive. They can’t help themselves. They are going to sin. It is simply in their nature, from the moment of conception. Human beings then, as sinful creatures, are in captivity, held captive by the devil, of the world, of the old sinful nature. We read about the fall in the Old Testament reading this morning. Human beings are born into the devil’s kingdom, household, whether they choose so or not. It’s also true that a person doesn’t become a member of Christ’s household either by their own choice or merit. Many think they do. It’s an act of will that they call a decision for Jesus. They think that they’re born with free will, and they have in them the power to make such a choice. But in reality they don’t. Sinners sin. It’s what we do. It’s inevitable for every human being that’s alive, but for the work of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We all would be prisoners in Satan’s household. We were, and all people are, born into captivity, slaves to sin. Psalm 51:5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” It is part of the genetic makeup. In regard to the household of Christ: Christians are people who were elected, called, gathered, enlightened, and sanctified by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and through the working of the Holy Spirit, and through the Word and Sacrament ministry, the working of the Holy Spirit, we are grafted into the household of faith. This is the teaching of Romans 6:17 and 18: “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” Hear that? You’re either a slave to sin, or you belong in the household of Christ, and you’re a slave to righteousness. There’s no middle ground. There’s no gray area.
The events recorded in the Gospel lesson this morning took place early on in Jesus’ ministry, as He’s electing, appointing His twelve disciples. He had just finished calling the twelve to full-time study and work in the ministry. He was continuing to heal and cast out demons and preach the Gospel throughout all of Galilee, when crowds kept following Him, one place after another. Included in those crowds were scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees and people who opposed Him. Jesus’ message and increasing popularity didn’t sit well with those leaders, and in particular to some leaders in His own hometown, some of whom followed in that crowd, and some of whom were His very own family. Verse 21 tells us that when His family heard it, they went out to seize Him, for they were saying, “He is out of His mind.” When they heard what He was doing — preaching and teaching and great crowds gathering around, and now even calling and electing students, disciples, to follow after Him — they thought that the hometown boy had gone mad, and they wanted to get him to safety as soon as possible. The fact that He appointed His own disciples, and that He attracted so much attention, that large crowds were both a concern to His family and to the religious leaders who opposed Him. They thought, all of them, that Jesus had delusions of grandeur. The scribes, verse 22, who came down from Jerusalem, were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons He casts out the demons.” Beelzebul was the name given to the prince of the devils. It’s an Old Testament word that actually comes from Baal-zebub, right? B-A-A-L, rather than B-E. And it was given to the god of the Philistines and the city of Ekron. We learn of this city and of this god in 2 Kings 1:1–18. Elijah was sent to the Hebrew king Ahaziah to speak the Lord’s judgment, because rather than turning to the Lord God, who was the proper God and owner of the Israelites, King Ahaziah sent a delegation to the Philistine city of Ekron in order to obtain answers to questions from the god Baal-zebub. Elijah and the Lord God condemned Ahaziah. In this morning’s text, they describe our Lord, accusing Jesus of being that very prince of the demons, the one from the Philistine city. They see themselves as righteous men on the side of righteousness, who fulfill the Law and do what’s pleasing to God. They see Jesus, on the other hand, as the very opposite of the Lord God and of righteousness. He is of the evil one, the devil. Their opposition to the preached Word of God, Law and Gospel, and the miraculous works of Jesus, was evidence that they themselves did not belong to the household of the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, but to that other, diametrically opposed household. Luther once commented that where the Word of God is absent, where people are failing to use and rely upon the very words of God, the devil rushes in and does his damage. It’s another way of saying nature abhors a vacuum. So does spiritual nature. It abhors a vacuum too. And in that vacuum, the devil will always rush in.
Throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, many religious leaders came out to see and hear Jesus for themselves. They heard about His strange teaching and about the works He did. One even came by night, privately, to hide himself, and to have a private meeting with Jesus. His name, you know: Nicodemus. And he came to Jesus and said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” It is true in a great many things, but especially in matters of spiritual, moral, and eternal matters: most people don’t choose to be useful idiots of either of the households or kingdoms. They always think they’re on the right side of things, especially when they mirror and echo the common cause and understanding of the world. If the world says this is good, then we are expected to reply: Amen, it is good. But remember Romans 12:1 and 2: “Do not be conformed to the thinking of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It’s a passage that tells you that if you’re mirroring and echoing the world, you’re likely saying the wrong thing. These leaders think they’re on the right side of righteousness, and that what they echo is, in fact, the good thing. The pastor of my youth, the teenage years, once commented to me not to expect non-Christians to think, speak, and act like Christians. It’s against their nature. Paul said it in a bit more complicated way in 2 Corinthians 4:3–5: “And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Just think how many people of the West have turned morality, common sense, science, and religion upside down and inside out. The world is running to stupidity. They’re running to unbelief. They’re running to destruction. It’s all around us, but they can’t see it. Think about how many people call bad things good and good things bad. And if you’re going to be considered a good person in that world out there, you better not depart from the modern orthodoxy on morality, pronouns, gender, relativism, subjectivism, or the myth that there is no such thing as truth. The world frowns on all such things.
The scribes said of Jesus, “He casts out demons by the ruler of the demons.” In response, Jesus gives them two quick theology lessons. Number one: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” Their accusation, He points out, is nonsensical. They would have Satan working against Satan’s own interests. There can’t be insubordination in the ranks. A house can’t be divided and remain standing. It’s a shame Christians don’t understand this fundamental truth. How many congregations have been torn apart, left near empty, or shuttered altogether, because some members of the congregation divided the rest of the congregation by departing from the clear teachings of the Word of God, and forsaken Christian kindness and charity toward one another? You can’t divide a family, a community, a country, or a church, and expect it to continue. Lesson two from Jesus’ reply: “But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” What does that mean? Jesus just served the devil notice. In the household of the devil, notice that He, namely Jesus Christ, has now entered the world. He’s entered the strong man’s house and is tying up the strong man, as the Son of God, to take back what was stolen from His Heavenly Father in Genesis chapter 3. Jesus and the church are on a mission to plunder the devil’s house. And what form does this plundering take? Verse 28: “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter.” The scribes in Mark, well, in Mark chapter 2:7, probably a different set, when they heard Jesus say and do the following — that is, healing and forgiving someone’s sins — they said, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Satan’s household is a household of ill repute, of every manner of sin, of sin and captivity to sin. Jesus’ household consists of grace, mercy, forgiveness of sins, and Gospel freedom. Jesus said, “So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — then He said to the paralytic — “rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” And the paralytic rose and went home. It was by sin that Satan took humanity captive. It is by Jesus’ atoning sacrifice and the forgiveness of sins that we are set free. For where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is also, by necessity, life and salvation.
Then Mary, Jesus’ mother, and His brothers. Verse 31: “And His mother and His brothers came, and standing outside they sent to Him and called Him. And a crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, ‘Your mother and Your brothers are outside, seeking You.’ And He answered them, ‘Who are My mother and My brothers?’ And looking about at those who sat around Him, He said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.'” In this world, the household of Christ is the church. And where is the church? The church is wherever the Word of God is preached and the sacraments rightly administered, according to His command. Where you find that, that is the church. It’s a sedes doctrinae. And we have that sedes doctrinae written in our Lutheran Confessions, the Augsburg Confession, Article 7: “The church is the congregation of saints” — saints means holy ones — “in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments are rightly administered.” You want to find the church? You go to a place like that. The church is created and known by the fact that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit calls and creates people who hear the Word of God and seek to do the will of their Heavenly Father. This is the first thing that we ought to take note in Jesus’ answer to His own question: whoever does the will of God is a brother or sister or mother to Christ. And what’s the will of God? That one believe upon Jesus Christ and be saved. Satan’s household remains in the world, but the work of Christ continues as well. And Satan’s household is being plundered by the Word and Sacrament ministry of the church. Every time the Word of God is preached, every time a sinner repents, every time one is baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying brothers and sisters to Jesus Christ, to grow up and to live in the household of faith. Christ has plundered you and me out of the house of Satan. He broke in. He bound the strong man with His Word and set us free. We didn’t deserve to be rescued from our house of captivity and sin. We did not deserve to be relocated from that house to the heavenly home, to our heavenly mansion. But we have been chosen and called by Christ’s Word. He has brought us to this place. He has made you a brother, and you a sister, for He has forgiven all your sins and grafted you into His house. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.