I was privileged to hear an excellent sermon this past weekend on the historic Holy Gospel for the Third Sunday in Lent, St. Luke 11:14-28. It’s a rather complex and challenging text, but the preacher did a fine job of tying everything together beautifully, centered and focused on Christ Jesus and His Word and work of salvation. There’s far more than I have space to write about here, but I was particularly struck by the pastor’s preaching on the final portions of the reading.
On His way to the Cross, the Lord Jesus has been casting out demons – the stronger Man thus disarming and subduing the strong man, Satan, in order to plunder the old evil foe and rescue us poor sinners. For this work of divine love He was accused of casting out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, a ludicrous notion that betrays the demonic spirit of those who made it. A divided house shall not stand, a fact that is true for both the devil’s kingdom and our own lives. Those who are not with the Lord are against Him, and those who scatter shall be scattered.
It’s at that point in the Holy Gospel when Jesus speaks about the case of an unclean spirit going out of a man. “It passes through waterless places, seeking rest,” but it does not find any (St. Luke 11:24). I’ve long been intrigued by this Word of our Lord, and I believe that He is here pointing to the ongoing significance of Holy Baptism and its integral connection to the need for catechesis and the keeping of all that Jesus has commanded (St. Matthew 28:19-20; Romans 6:1-14). The unclean spirit of a man – the old Adam who remains and wars within him (Romans 7:14-25) – seeks to get away from the daily drowning and death of contrition and repentance, to flee the daily dying and rising that such baptizing with water indicates; but the baptized Christian finds no peace or rest apart from the Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood of Christ Jesus. Such is the conflict that rages within us and constantly divides us in this body and life on earth, so long as we are clinging to our Lord Jesus and to His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
But what happens when the one who has been baptized and cleansed does not persist in God’s Word and the preaching of it? His house may be outwardly and superficially “swept and put in order” (St. Luke 11:25), just as our Lord elsewhere declares that the scribes and Pharisees are like “whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness,” because they “outwardly appear righteous,” but inside they are “full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (St. Matthew 23:27-28). So it is when we rely upon ourselves and our own attempts at righteousness, apart from repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins. In such a case, Jesus warns, the unclean spirit not only comes back, but it brings along “seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first” (St. Luke 11:26). Not only does our own self-righteousness not suffice or avail at all before God, but it actually becomes a greater and worse sin than we started with.
By contrast, when the baptized Christian listens to and learns the Word of Christ Jesus – when he hears and heeds all that Jesus has commanded, and by faith in His Word is living and abiding in the watery places of the Church, “the Holy Ark of Christendom” – then his house is not simply “swept and put in order,” but it is filled with the Holy Spirit, who daily and richly forgives all our sins by the Gospel and thereby keeps us with Christ Jesus in the one true faith. That is what strengthens and sustains the whole Christian Church on earth, and that is likewise what preserves each and all of us, our bodies and souls, our homes and families, safe in the Kingdom of God.
We’re given another example of that in the case of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For not only was she blessed to conceive and bear the Son of God and nurse Him at her breasts (St. Luke 11:27), but she indeed believed the Word of the Lord that was spoken to her (St. Luke 1:38, 45), and she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart (St. Luke 2:19, 51). So are we taught to fill our ears, our minds, and our hearts with the Word and promises of God in Christ Jesus, that we not fall prey to the enticements of Satan or succumb to demonic hypocrisy and lawlessness.