Author: Higher Things

By Rev. Eric Brown

“Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”

Ugh! Jesus, just get to the point! When people bring you a paralyzed guy, don’t waste your time talking about a bunch of forgiveness stuff; get to the point and heal him! At least this is what a part of me thinks whenever I read Matthew 9. There is a part of me that is an utterly impatient and “practical” 21^st Century problem solver. The big problem is he can’t walk, so fix that!

But of course, Jesus is right. The biggest problem in this fellow’s life isn’t that he’s paralyzed. The bigger problem is the fact that he’s a sinner. Imagine all the guilt and shame that could roll around your head when you are left on your own and unable to move. Now imagine there’s no iPads or music or movies to distract you from your guilt and shame. Imagine the isolation, the thoughts that surely God must hate me. Over and against those, Jesus dives right on in to the problem. Take heart, your sins are forgiven.

Sin is still our big problem today. Oh sure, we have so many ways of trying to avoid thinking about our sin. We can be distracted away from it by the entertainment industry, or we can drink it, drug it away. We can go to our social media bubble and find our friends who will like, approve, and validate our every idea no matter how wrong or foolish it is. We have almost limitless ways to try to pretend our sin isn’t there… and yet, that guilt and shame of our sin still pops out, and all too often it hits us, leaving us numb, battered, broken, and even unable to move.

“Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” That’s still what Jesus says to you. You are baptized. You are His child. Jesus forgives you. Your sin is taken away.

When the grumblers doubted whether Jesus had the authority to forgive sins, He healed the guy to demonstrate who He was. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to see the real, full Jesus, you see Him go to the Cross. Jesus died for your sins and rose for your sake. When His disciples doubted and feared, the Crucified and Risen Lord showed them His hands and sides and said, “Peace be with you.” When we deal with our fears and doubts and hurts and shames today, we hear His appointed, called and ordained servant hold His Body and Blood before us and say, “The Peace of the Lord be with you always.” Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.

Jesus knows what you need. He knows how you are hounded by sin. He knows this even when you yourself try to pull the wool over your own eyes. And so He will continually call you to His House, and there He will forgive you your sin. That’s what Jesus does; He handles the real problem, handles the things that we can’t. Take heart, my friend – Jesus has forgiven your sin.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Again! They did it again! Another Gospel lesson, and another question tossed out by people simply to test Jesus, simply to trap Jesus. Again! Another question about a point of Law, another chance to try to complain about how Jesus does this or says that. Tell us the greatest commandment, and we’ll complain how you didn’t pick a different part of the Law. It’s the same old tired game. How many of these sorts of questions will Jesus put up with before He snaps and starts bringing down divine smite upon people?

Apparently the answer is “a lot”. You might guess 77 times or 70 times 7 times, but I don’t think even those are high enough. Over and over Jesus points people to the love that He has for them, points them to the fact that He is the Messiah. This time Jesus answers that the great command is the love God, but this love of God means a second command must follow. Love your neighbor – even the neighbor who keeps on trying to trap you with annoying questions. For Jesus, loving the neighbor means coming down from heaven, being born of the Virgin Mary, being great David’s even Greater Son. It means pointing out God’s love for the world, God’s plan of salvation even to the very people who would arrange for Him to be crucified before the week is out.

You see, when Jesus sums up the law as “love God and love your neighbor”, He’s not watering down the law. He’s not turning it into mere sentimentality or anything like that. Loving the neighbor is hard, because frankly sometimes your neighbor is a jerk. Sometimes they keep pushing and prying and poking and prodding. And oftentimes we use their jerkiness as an excuse to be a jerk right back at them. Instead of loving and serving the neighbor, we so often run the opposite way. We dehumanize them and objectify them; we belittle them or ignore them. Just as they do to us. A nasty cycle of not love but hatred and disdain.

But Jesus is determined to see that His neighbor is loved. He is determined to see that you are loved. And so, He became Man to love and redeem the very people we dehumanize or who dehumanize us. He Himself became the object of scorn and ridicule to rescue the very people that we objectify or that objectify us. He emptied Himself and made Himself as a nothing to win salvation for the people we belittle and treat as nothing or who tear us down. He wins salvation upon the cross even for the sins of the people we’d rather ignore or who ignore us. In fact, He does all of this for you.

Because He loves you. Honestly. Simply. Fully. Even when you’ve done things that are annoying or foolish. He still loves you. Determinedly and doggedly. He will let nothing stop Him from loving you – not sin, not Satan, not death, not the riches of all creation. Jesus loves you. He loves you as Himself. Of course He does, for He has baptized you into Himself. Of course He does, for He gives Himself to you over and over and over again in His Supper.

There will be times when you look at yourself, some stupid petty sin that you have done, and you will think: “Again! I did it again!” And you may be tempted to think that maybe this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back – where Jesus will call it quits. Nope. That’s not how Jesus works. Over and against all the shame and guilt and anger at yourself that you sometimes feel, Jesus will still love you and forgive you. He truly and honestly loves you as Himself.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.

By Rev. Eric Brown

“They were watching [Jesus] carefully.” – Luke 14:1

It was a trap. A cruel and mean trap. They had invited Jesus to Sabbath dinner, not because they wanted Him to enjoy Himself, not because they wanted to spend time with Him, but to trap Him. They were watching Him carefully to see if they could catch Him in a mistake and then crow about how terrible He was. They even went so far as to bait this trap by dangling a terribly ill man in front of Jesus.

Now, none of this bothers Jesus. Jesus does what Jesus does; He shows love and heals the man. He shows love and teaches the Pharisees, even after they go all awkwardly silent and want to ignore Him. Jesus remains the loving Lamb of God sent to take away the sins of the world, even the sins of those Pharisees were plotting against Him.

What are you looking to see when you look at Jesus? What are you hoping to find when you ponder His Word? Something to prove how you are right and the other people are wrong and bad? There are times we want to weaponize the Scriptures and use them against people – but taking the Pharisee’s approach isn’t the point. 

What the Scriptures really show is the real Jesus Christ, your Savior, who sees you at your lowest, your sin-filled-est, and yet in His mercy He would care for you and forgive you, washing you clean in Holy Baptism. He sees you in your humble estate and say to you, “Friend, come up higher” as He calls you to His feast in His own Supper. Jesus isn’t out to get you, even though we all would deserve anything He threw our way. Instead, Jesus looks upon you with favor to give you His peace.

Rev. Eric Brown is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Herscher, Illinois and the co-host of the HT Gospeled Boldly Podcast.