The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
On July 4th, 1776, as you know, a group of men declared their freedom from King George. The war had already begun before July 4th, and they knew, in declaring independence from King George, that there was going to be a great escalation in the war, and the beginning of events that would change the globe, regardless of which way things went. They knew that freedom needed to be bought, and bought in blood. In the years that followed, many gave their lives so that people for generations to come would have political freedom: a new nation, and duly established authority and laws based on equal rights, justice — a nation of laws applicable to all, and not on a dictatorship or a monarch.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus is still on His way to earn for us a different kind of freedom, a different kind of kingdom, and a different kind of authority — a different authority than the kind of authority that is found in this world. In fact, Jesus at one point contrasted the authority that would exist between His kingdom and the kingdoms of this world. He said to the disciples: “You know that those who are recognized as rulers over Gentiles domineer over them, and their people in high position exercise authority over them. But it is not to be this way among you. Rather, whoever wants to become prominent among you shall first be your servant.”
It’s a very different message, isn’t it, than the intimidations and threats of the worldly authorities we now see playing out in our own country and throughout the West — one of fear and intimidation, of rules and regulations, of speech regulation and tyranny, all attempting to control what you think, lest you think you be free.
In the Gospel lesson for last Sunday, specifically chapter 9, verse 51: as Jesus was going through the territory of Samaria, Luke tells us that Jesus set His face to go to Jerusalem. That’s the New Testament way of saying that Jesus was bound and determined to sacrifice Himself on the cross, to win forgiveness for our sins, and a freedom that doesn’t belong to the world, but instead belongs to you and to me and to all believers in Christ.
Paul makes this point about freedom in Galatians 5:1: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject to the yoke of slavery again.” Or 2 Corinthians 3:17: “Now the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
To this end — to the end of freedom — in the Gospel lesson today, Jesus enlisted the help, the support, the involvement of 70 or 72 men. There’s a little scholarly debate here. Various old ancient Greek texts: some will simply round it off to 70, some 72. It’s equally divided, and the translation committees make their pick. So that’s why, if you’re reading the Bible today in the NASB, it says 72. In other translations, they picked the other half, thinking those were better — they picked 70. I like 70, for a reason I’ll talk about in a minute.
Now it’s just quite straightforward and simple, isn’t it? That’s what it seems. Jesus takes 70 men and He sends them out two by two to go and to preach that the kingdom of God is coming near to them, to give them peace — to those who receive the peace — and to brush the dust off the feet of every village that rejects the coming of the Christ. That sounds simple: just give some instructions to a group of men and send them on their way. And a lot of Christians like that sort of simplicity. They just went about selecting these 70 guys, and out the door they went.
But there’s a lot more going on here than meets the eye. There’s a lot more going on here than just some guys going out to evangelize. You see, Christ is setting in place a system, a pattern, a way of governing His kingdom, of growing the kingdom, of setting people free from sin, death, and the power of the devil, and of serving them. 70 men have been called to true Christian faith and to service, and they’ve been placed under orders. In short, Jesus was ordaining them into the preaching ministry of the New Testament church.
Now some may take issue with the word “ordained,” but it’s a godly term. The word “ordained,” by the way, is a transitive verb — I had to look that up — which means an action done to something. Jesus is doing something to these seventy as He’s sending them out and sending them up to the preaching office. The word “ordained” then means to invest with ministerial or priestly authority, to confer holy orders on, or to order or decree by virtue of a superior authority. He’s vesting these men with authority to go out and do something. He has ordained them. That’s what’s happening here.
Jesus is setting into place how His kingdom on earth — how the church — is going to work, and what its people are to do, from the moment He sent out those 70 until His second coming on the last day.
So our text began: “Now after this” — the “after this,” by the way, is a reference to the end of chapter 9, where a couple of fellows want to volunteer to be disciples, but they also want to split their loyalty between the folks back home. And Jesus tells them that to follow Him they must forsake all others: total commitment, and commitment to the Word of God alone, and to the kingdom of heaven, looking forward not backwards. And both men go home sad. They’ve been rejected for the job because they weren’t willing to commit totally.
“Now after this, the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them out two by two ahead of Him to every city and place where He Himself was going.” The appointed, the ordained — the sent men — were now taking up where John the Baptist had left off. They were going ahead of Jesus, before Him, to prepare the way for the Lord in each and every one of those villages.
Why 70? Why do I choose 70? Because Moses chose 70 elders to help minister to the children of Israel. For Luke, you see, Jesus is the new and higher Moses. So Luke highlights the things Jesus did that would bring to mind those things that the Lord God did through Moses in the Old Testament. Thus Moses foreshadows the ministry and the person of Jesus Christ Himself.
Jesus sent seventy, two by two, ahead of Him. Again, the original Greek, which tends to get translated “He sent them out ahead of Him,” literally says He sent them out “before His face” — because His face was resolutely, absolutely set to go to the cross of Good Friday in Jerusalem. They were being sent ahead of Jesus to prepare the way for the Lord, because — and exactly because — He was on His way to die and to be raised again.
After Jesus commissioned the 70, He gave them specific instructions as to how they were to conduct themselves as they went about preaching in their assigned villages: “Carry no money belt, no bag, no shoes, and greet no one on the way. Whatever house you first enter, say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ And say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is near to you.'” The seventy, you see, are representatives. They’re His preachers, and He Himself is the walking, breathing, living kingdom of God. They are to give or withhold peace — the peace of God that surpasses all understanding — based on the reception they received by the villages and by the homeowners in the area. Preaching the kingdom and speaking peace to repentant sinners is the primary mission in this text.
This is where a great many congregations, pastors, and lay people have had a lot of trouble with the kingdom of God, have a lot of trouble with the kind of ordinary appearance of all of this. Many people don’t like that rather mundane and institutional — that is confusing to many modern-day Christians. People expect the kingdom of God in exciting ways. After all, they say God is awesome and glorious, so His work must be the same too: awesome and glorious, a vision to behold. They expect God to work through some kind of experience or powerful feeling. The words of the Bible get diminished, and the emotions and the experience get accelerated. To use the language of the Scripture: they look for signs and wonders. They look for big productions, big buildings, exciting stuff, success — all kinds of grandiose pleasures in this world. But Jesus chose sinners, ordinary families.
Today’s Gospel deals with the public proclamation of God’s kingdom at the public level. God appoints and sends preachers, ministers, pastors, to preach the good news of Christ: that the peace of God has come. While Jesus walked this earth in visible form, He appointed and sent — a couple of times — men ahead of Him to preach and to teach. After He ascended into the heavenly realm, He continued to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify all people through His words: through preaching and teaching, through the pastoral office. On Pentecost, the commissioning of the New Testament church: they were called to do what they were called to teach — everything that Christ Himself had commanded them, so that all would be observed, not some.
But you see, preaching the Gospel is not the exclusive right or duty of a select few. Remember in chapter 8, there was a man possessed by a legion of demons, and once he was set free from those demons, he sat down at the feet of Jesus and learned. He went to school. And after learning of it, he decided he wanted to become one of the disciples, one of the traveling 12 — maybe 13 — that would stay with Jesus. But Jesus told him: “Return to your home and describe the great things God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city what great things Jesus had done for him.
See, it’s not the exclusive burden or duty or opportunity of the pastor to preach and to teach you, to speak the Gospel to one’s neighbor, but rather it’s to all. The church consists of shepherd and sheep, pastor and layman, preacher and hearer, teacher and student. There is one divinely established office in the church, and then there are offices created by human agreement. The pastor speaks in Christ’s stead and by His command, according to the Word of God. The people are to tell others about what God has done for them.
In speaking the Gospel to one’s neighbor, you see, it’s all about the message — the Word of God. It’s not about pleasing people and making friends. It’s all about the mission. It’s not about the missionaries. It’s about the good news, not the evangelists. It’s about God’s Word, not our words. That’s the problem with congregations, especially today. Members and pastors have forsaken or forgotten the primary mission of the church. They think the church is about property, or keeping busy, or raising money, or doing other things that make us feel good that we’ve done something for someone, for some reason we don’t quite get. Some of that is good, as long as the priority of the focus is on preaching, teaching the Word and Sacrament ministry, serving our members first — members of the household of faith, as we read in Galatians — and our neighbors second.
Yet even that part is included in the instruction to send out the seventy. They are to tend to people’s needs. He commanded to preach and to teach, and He also said: “Heal those who are sick, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.'”
So far, by the way, everything Jesus has said about the mission of the 70 is pretty good, isn’t it? Sounds like a lot of fun. Hard work, but rewarding. But it’s not all sunshine and lollipops. As you know, Christ and His church have enemies, both inside and outside the walls of the building. Jesus told them: “But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your city which clings to our feet we wipe off in protest against you. Yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near.'” Jesus tells them to let even those who oppose the work of the church — the true church, the work of God in Jesus Christ, the work of God in the preaching and teaching of the Law and Gospel — let them know who it is that really rules over the kingdom of heaven: namely, Jesus Christ.
He gave an additional and even a more serious warning in verse 3: “Go your way. Behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.” Now the word here for “lambs” — this isn’t the general word that’s used for lambs. The Greek word here is the Passover lamb. That is: He’s telling them they are being sent out to preach, teach, tend to people’s needs — and to be slaughtered, ultimately, as the lamb among the sheep. Their sacrifice. And He’s calling them to an office of sacrifice.
Now when it comes to authority, there’s no greater authority given by Christ to pastors of the church than this one, verse 16 of the reading today: “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me. And the one who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.” Jesus has just established a divine line of words, doctrines, preaching, teachings: God the Father sent God the Son, Jesus Christ. God the Son now sends preachers and citizens of the heavenly kingdom to go about His work of the church, through rather humble and ordinary means, through ordinary people.
God freely gives the gift of peace. When a rightly called and ordained servant of the Word, a pastor, speaks the Word of God, he’s not speaking his own opinion. He’s not speaking philosophically. He is not spreading conventional wisdom. The pastor is called to perform a task unlike any other task in all the world. He is to speak the words God gives him to speak, and those are the words of Holy Scripture. Hebrews 1:1-2: “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world.”
You know, it’s not unusual for pastors — especially this one that I have communicated with — well, to start with, but it’s not unusual for lay people to get frustrated with pastors who are particular about words when they’re talking theology. And pastors, we often get accused of splitting hairs or being nitpicky or trying to impose higher standards on people than we should. And what that really means is that people want us to speak in general terms, clichés, generic, bland, blah-blah-blah stuff, and be just as sloppy as they are about God and His Word. They want us to speak about such things. And many modern-day ministers gladly oblige, because it requires zero brain power.
That’s not what Jesus meant when He said, “The one who listens to you listens to Me.” He doesn’t say to the pastor: “I want you to listen to the babble. I want you to listen to stupidity.” What He wants you to listen to is: pastors, be diligent. Or remember John 8:31-32: “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth set you free.” There you go: words, truth, Gospel, freedom.
In this place, and among you, His people, you have listened to Christ’s words. In this congregation, you’ve received the sinner that God sent to you: me. All sinners, yet God speaks. You have made peace. You have been given the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. You are living in Gospel freedom, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God’s peace rests on this house of worship. And today, the kingdom has come near to you. How do you know? Because your sins are forgiven. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.