The Physician's Cure

[00:00:01] There's going to be feasting today, not just the cake, outside in the narthex area, waiting for us to celebrate Confirmation Sunday and Oakley and Sarah and Brandon's confirmation confession of the faith that they were baptized into. [00:00:20] Not just the cake, but something much greater. [00:00:23] We're going to feast on Jesus. [00:00:27] Jesus sharing himself with us in the Lord's Supper. In his supper, right? When we say the Lord's Supper, we're saying Jesus supper. [00:00:38] Jesus giving himself to us and not all of us individually. [00:00:45] We're not just kind of coming up for our individual dose of medicine, although it is the medicine of immortality, it is the physician's cure for us, but a meal to share together. [00:01:05] You know, we all come up together and receive together. [00:01:09] Think of it like that table that we talked about in the children's message. [00:01:13] We're all sitting around the table, all of us looking across at each other with Jesus in the middle, and then Jesus entering our mouths and our bodies, our hearts coming and transforming us again, not just individually, but together. [00:01:38] Think about what dinner does for a family around the table. [00:01:45] It's not just. I mean, yeah, the food goes in and generally speaking, it does its work. You know, your body receives it and grows stronger. [00:01:55] But you could just kind of eat piecemeal, right? You could all eat separately and the food would do the same thing. [00:02:04] But you would miss out on the communal aspect of the meal. [00:02:13] Let's not do that with Jesus supper. [00:02:17] Let's not forget that we're feasting together, that we all are being made into one body. [00:02:24] We are all receiving the same Jesus Christ and being built up together, knit together into one body, Jesus body together. [00:02:38] So when you come up, look around. [00:02:42] When you're sitting there, look around and remember this is a communal meal and we're all being transformed, not simply individually, but together as Christ's body, as a people. [00:02:58] And today Oakley and Sarah and Brandon are. [00:03:02] Are entering into, I guess, deeper participation in the life of the church, in the body of Christ, in receiving Jesus body. [00:03:15] We're feasting today, so let's look at the feast in the Gospel reading from Matthew 9. [00:03:30] And imagine, imagine you're Zacchaeus or a tax collector. That's just one of the tax collectors we know a little better. [00:03:39] Think about what it's like to be Zacchaeus. Nobody likes you. You end up off by yourself on a tree because nobody wants to let you in to see through the crowd, to see Jesus, you know, like, get out of here. That's how I picture it. So he goes up in A tree. He's all by himself. [00:03:57] And Jesus calls him, come, I'm going to your house. [00:04:03] Doesn't even just say, like, you're coming with me, you know, to the principal's office or something like that, right? He's like, no, I'm coming to your house today because I care about you, I love you, and I want you in communion with me. [00:04:18] I want you in my body. [00:04:23] So he takes Zacchaeus and he eats with him in his own home. [00:04:31] All right, so we're pretend you're a Pharisee or. [00:04:37] I'm sorry, not a Pharisee yet. We'll do that in a second. Pretend you're a tax collector or a sinner, right? Just imagine if you were a sinner for a moment. [00:04:54] And you know it, right? That's the key. [00:04:58] That's the key, and you know it. And people don't like you for it. [00:05:02] Why weren't they like, well, the tax collectors would take more money than they should have, right? They just kind of had that power, that ability to skim off the top. And that's why Zacchaeus wasn't liked. And we know that because at the end, after he eats with Jesus, he goes and he gives back more than he had taken. [00:05:26] So imagine that's you, that you've taken where you shouldn't have, that you've used those around you for your own benefit rather than simply serving them out of love, as Christ does. [00:05:45] The sinners. What lands you in the sinner category? [00:05:51] Some things like prostitution or if you had some kind of job that made you dirty, let's say, or if you didn't follow the rites of purification and the. [00:06:07] The law of Moses. [00:06:09] The Pharisees, they are the ones who are. [00:06:14] Well, they're working toward the healing of Israel. They want Israel to be in God's good graces again by total obedience to God's law. [00:06:25] So they've got kind of shiny lives, right? Jesus calls them whitewashed tombs. They're whitewashed. [00:06:33] They look great on the outside and not so great on the inside. He says, maybe. Let's just say that the tax collectors and sinners were just tombs, you know, they're just tombs, and the Pharisees are whitewashed tombs. [00:06:51] There's not a lot of difference. [00:06:55] And Jesus has come for all of them. [00:06:58] Jesus says. [00:07:01] He says, I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners. [00:07:07] It's like the key is he's come to call sinners. And who's that? [00:07:11] The Pharisees and the tax collectors and sinners. [00:07:17] They're all tombs. [00:07:22] Just some are whitewashed. [00:07:25] So which are we? [00:07:29] We're on both sides of that, right? Do you ever feel despair over your sin? Do you ever feel ashamed or like an outcast or afraid for it? Well, then you're a tax collector, a sinner. [00:07:46] Do you ever feel like you're a little higher than the others and like, well, I didn't do that. [00:07:53] A little bit better than thou. [00:07:56] Well, then you're a Pharisee. And for me, that's. I mean, for everybody. We're on both sides of that equation. [00:08:05] And we all need Jesus. [00:08:07] We all need him to come to us and to call us and to sit with us and eat with us, but not to leave us there. [00:08:20] You know, Jesus comes and he eats with the sinners and the tax collectors, but that's not the end of the story. [00:08:25] It's not like that was the goal and now it's been accomplished. [00:08:32] There's another feast. [00:08:34] He comes to where they are to bring them to where he is. [00:08:38] He's the man from heaven come down to give us heavenly food. [00:08:45] And the beauty of it is he doesn't just sit up there with his food. [00:08:50] It's like, oh, well, they're missing out, their fault. [00:08:55] He comes to us first and eats with us, and then he draws us on. [00:09:03] So the Pharisees are sitting there looking down on this meal, thinking, I'm not going to go sit there. [00:09:13] But then here's the man from like, are they really looking down? [00:09:16] They think they're looking down at this meal, but they're looking up at it and thinking, like, ah, I'm not going to go that low, right? Like, you can't look down at Jesus really. [00:09:28] You only think you're looking down there. Jesus is there. Jesus is the one who's been given all power and authority in heaven and on earth. The one whose name is above every name, at whose name every knee bows in heaven and on earth and under the earth. [00:09:47] There. Jesus is eating with them. [00:09:51] Like, consider that meal elevated. He has lifted them up. [00:09:57] That's our meal today when we receive Jesus, body and blood for our forgiveness and life and salvation, for union with Christ, being incorporated into his body, being knit together. [00:10:19] Remember that this meal is happening in heaven. Jesus has brought it to earth, but Jesus brings heaven to earth. [00:10:28] This is heaven on earth. Like, think of your favorite meal ever. [00:10:35] Now, is it a meal you ate alone? [00:10:39] Think of another one. [00:10:41] Think of your favorite meal ever where you were sharing it with other people. [00:10:51] And then remember that this one is. [00:10:54] Is higher than that Jesus lifting us up into his own life. [00:10:59] And when he does so, things melt away, like the grudges that we held against each other. [00:11:07] Right. [00:11:10] You know, just in regular family life, there's a lot that comes between us that is really silly. Right? And I'm constantly saying, like, look, this is not to the level that it should be disrupting our family life together. This just happens, really. Not just with children, but with adults. [00:11:29] We make silly things a big deal. [00:11:32] Right? Oh, okay. [00:11:35] Let's just bring it out here. We've got a clock in the back. Thank you. Margaret. Are you here, Margaret? [00:11:42] Not in this service. [00:11:44] Yeah, Margaret donated a clock. And you've probably noticed it because it's huge back there and it's awesome. It's the same color as the wood in our sanctuary. It's kind of that dark color and such. [00:11:57] But those are the kinds of things that are easy to make a big deal. [00:12:01] It's like, we've got a new thing in here. [00:12:04] I'm sure we all know the carpet's green, but I don't even know what it was before that or if anybody had a problem with changing it, but. And it's like not saying there's going to be a problem with the clock, but we all know that those are the kinds of things that could be a problem, right? And the beautiful thing is that, like, when we look to Jesus and we realize what's going on here, that Jesus has come from heaven, you know, to earth, to us, to bring us up and, like, this is heaven on earth, we sharing a meal together, like, all those things can just melt away, right? As we look to Jesus now, we could look another way, right? Jesus, I mean, so Abraham, okay, Abraham, was called by God. God told him, I'm going to make your name great and you're going to be a blessing to all nations through your offspring. All nations are going to be blessed. He gives him the world. [00:13:05] Abraham could have, when he considered his own body that was as good as dead because he was about 100 years old, or the barrenness of his wife, small issues to God, he could have faltered in faith. He could have said, no. These are bigger issues right now than what God has just promised to me. [00:13:26] God, who is above all, who actually has everything and is giving me the world, he could have let those silly things be a big deal, but he didn't. And it was counted to him as righteousness. [00:13:41] Why? Because he looked to God and his promises and not to himself or to any of those other little things. [00:13:48] Today we rejoice at Oakley and Sarah and Brandon's Fuller Communion, fuller participation in, in the life of our church. They're on a journey that we've all been on from baptism, receiving the Holy Spirit and faith and Christ and his gifts. [00:14:09] We're all on this journey of transformation. [00:14:13] Christ making a garden in us. Christ conforming us to himself continually until that, that final feast when the story's completed or begun and he's come back and has purified us completely. [00:14:33] You guys are on this journey that we're all on together. And the key is as we walk, as God opens our ears to hear Christ calling us and leading us, that we all look to Christ, that we all look at him, who is our road and the end of the road, right? The goal, the purpose. We would focus on Christ alone and rejoice in his gifts at being lifted up into his life. In Jesus name, Amen.