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Oculi - The Third Sunday in Lent
My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.
“What about the ROUS.’s,” Buttercup asks Wesley as they make their way through the Fire Swamp. “Rodents of Unusual Size?” He replies. “I don’t think they exist.” Fans of The Princess Bride know what happened in the split second after Wesley declares the ROUS’s don’t exist. He is attacked by one and almost dies in the fight. “I don’t think they exist,” he says. But they do exist.
One of the devil’s most effective tactics is to get people to think he doesn’t really exist. Like Wesley with the ROUS’s, he has heard of them and knows the name, but still, they don’t really exist. Even many Christians, while they have heard of the devil and know his name, well, “The devil? I don’t think he exists.” Or at least they don’t believe he has any real power in this world. They do, on the other hand, believe God exists and that He does have power in this world so the devil wins when the believe this lie: It is God’s fault when bad things happen, when there is evil in the world. Like Wesley in the Fire Swamp, the evil attack comes suddenly and viciously and if it isn’t the ROUS’s, if it isn’t the devil, then must be God’s fault when I suffer.
Evil is not in this world because of God; it is in this world because of the devil and man’s own choice to sin rather than to obey. The greatest deception the devil has ever pulled off is to get people to believe he doesn’t really exist. Take the devil out of the picture, and who else but God can be responsible for the evil and suffering?
But right from the beginning the devil was the author of evil who turned the eyes of our first parents away from God. The devil didn’t care if people saw him as God, in fact, he would rather no one believe he exists at all. Rather, the temptation of the garden was not to think of the devil as God, but ourselves as God (you will be like God!), and if we are God then we can sit in judgment even over God while letting the devil off Scott free.
That is exactly what was happening in our Gospel for today. Jesus was among them as Savior, but He was accused of being on the devil’s side: “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven.”
Why can’t people just let God be God, be our Savior as He always has wanted to be? Our refuge and our strength in the evil day? Why do we always want to accuse God of evil? Why do we demand signs? Why do we get angry with Him when bad things happen as if we are His judge?
The truth of the matter is that the devil is the author of evil and our own sin is what all too often brings disaster into our lives and the lives of others. Temptation-desire-sin is the three-part pattern James identifies that drives us to destruction and this does not come from God because God does not tempt anyone with evil. The devil and your own sinful nature work together to deceive you and get you to at least act like, if not believe altogether that the devil doesn’t even exist, that he has no power in this world, that God is the real author of your suffering and sorrow.
In reality, God is the only one Who can help you in the evil day. Unbelief turns your eyes away from God, but faith turns your eyes toward Him. “My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He will pluck my feet out of the net.” Only God can pluck your feet out of the net.
Jesus’ power over the devil in today’s Gospel testified to the fact that only in Him is there deliverance from the evil of this world. Why is it so many afflicted people in the Gospels flee TO Jesus in times of evil rather than away? Because these by faith know that only in Jesus is there deliverance from these evil things, so in the evil time they turn their eyes toward the Lord. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, is their prayer.
Evil, temptation, sin, the devil and man’s own sinful desires, all of these things lead to death. From the time Adam made his choice and set his foot on the path marked by the Tree of Knowledge, the path of all of us has led through the dark valley of the shadow of death, where the devils lurk in the shadows, prowling about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, where the world displays its delicious looking fruit and our sinful eyes turn toward that and away from God. Where we are deluded by our own weak flesh and the devil to think that we are in charge, that we have the right to judge God. This is the dark valley we are born into – we have no choice but to walk it all the way to the grave. It is what Adam chose for us and none of us can claim to be innocent bystanders for we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and we know the just wage of sin is death.
Evil is in this world because of the devil and our own sinful nature. God is not the author of evil, but the author of life. That is why right from the beginning He has walked the path of suffering and death with us. In fact, our Lord Jesus Christ has walked the path before us. Revelation 13 declares that Jesus is the Lamb of God crucified from the foundation of the world. So certain was God’s love for you and His intent and promise to sacrifice His Son for you that He could rightly speak of Jesus as being crucified even before He created the world.
It was Christ crucified who walked through the garden calling out to Adam. It was Christ crucified who stayed the daggered hand of Abraham and mercifully led complaining Israel to the Promised Land. It was Christ crucified who stood with Daniel in the Lion’s den and with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo in the fiery furnace. It was Christ crucified who delivered His people from Babylon and was born of a virgin in Bethlehem, whom the angels sang and the magi sought. It was Christ crucified who was baptized into your sin and faced off Satan in the wilderness with nothing but the Word of God and it was Christ crucified who drove out the demon in today’s Gospel and then who went on to Golgotha where God’s eternal act of salvation would play itself out in this mortal world as Christ crucified crushed the head of Satan.
“If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you,” Jesus declared to those who blamed Him for the evil and those who demanded a sign.
The kingdom of God had come upon them in the incarnate God standing before them. There is more power in the little finger of God than there is in all of man’s understanding. Even death and the devil cannot stand when God simply touches them with His finger. Jesus touched the bier at Nain and the dead man lived. He touched the tongue of the mute, the ears of the deaf, the eyes of the blind, and they were healed. He touched the demon possessed and the demons went screaming away. All this He did to show you that He is the Savior who came to save you from the net the devil has spread to catch you in his lies.
Soon they would see the kingdom of God come when this same Jesus would bear the taunts and accusations of the crowd and go to the cross to show that He is the Lamb of God crucified since the foundation of the world. Soon they would see the only sign that God would give when the Savior rose again from the grave – the sign of Jonah. Golgotha was His throne from eternity and there He bore your sin and death and guilt. On the cross the living God bore all of your sin so, in a sense, you can point your finger at Jesus on the cross and say, “It’s Your fault!” And on the cross He died bearing your sin and guilt and the evil you deserved because of that sin. There He bore the just wrath of God over your sin. And there the finger of God that healed the sick and raised the dead and drove out the devils, lifelessly curled around the Roman spike that bound Him to the cross. But it is through death that He destroys the devil and in His resurrection that He opens up for you the way out of this valley of death: He is the Way. And He has come not to be the cause of evil, but to be your refuge and strength in the middle of all the evil and all the raging of the devils that would overwhelm you, to pluck [your] feet out of the net the devil has spread before you.
When we simply let God be God we see Him not as the author of evil, but as our Savior from evil. Christ crucified and Christ risen has always been the God who is FOR you, on your side, going Himself into death and the grave and out on the other side so that in Him you could have eternal deliverance from all the evil and sorrow and afflictions of this life.
The living finger of God still touches you when He pours Himself over you in Baptism and the Absolution, when He fills you with Himself in the Holy Supper, when He puts Himself into your ears by His Word. In His holy Means of Grace – Word and Sacrament – He fills you with His life and victory and glory. By these Means He gives you His victory over all the evil in this world. You have no choice, friends, you must walk the path your father Adam chose, you must walk through this valley of death, but do not be afraid. Your Savior walks with you right up to the grave. But that grave is not the end of the road because your Lord has opened the path out on the other side into that new and glorious Resurrection Morning where all things will be new and bright and beautiful and the evil of this mortal world will be put away forever.
The R.O.U.S.’s? I don’t think they exist. The devil wants you to believe he doesn’t exist either. He wants you to blame God for the evil and suffering in the world. He wants to tear your eyes away from your Savior and fix them on yourself where there can never be any hope. But Jesus came to be your Savior, to bring you through the dark days unto the light of eternal glory. Don’t let the devil have the satisfaction of separating you from the only hope you have in times of sorrow and suffering. Look to the Lamb crucified for you, receive His grace as you gather with the Saints around Word and Sacrament, where Jesus gives Himself to you, and let your confession of faith always be: “My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He will pluck my feet out of the net.”
Lord, be our Light when worldly darkness veils us;
Lord, be our shield when earthly armor fails us;
And in the day when hell itself assails us,
Grant us Your peace, Lord.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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