September 28, 2025
Sermon on Luke 10:17-20
(The following is the English translation of a sermon preached in German at Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin-Steglitz. Even at the German service, the vast majority of the people were of Persian descent.)
The decision maker at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees was really upset: "I can't understand these refugees who have become Christians! They have just escaped the prison of Islam – and now they are immediately putting themselves back into the prison of the Christian faith!" Yes, the listener had paid close attention in school during the GDR era in civics class: All religions are just opium for the people. Only when scientific socialism has opened one's eyes to the truth of atheism does one become a truly free person. If someone, as a refugee, converted from Islam to the Christian faith, it was such an expression of great stupidity that it should not be rewarded with the granting of residence in Germany!
Again and again, the members of our congregation encounter such open hostility towards the Christian faith in German authorities and simply cannot understand the world: In their reception centers, they are threatened and attacked by radical Muslims – and in the rejection notices from the Federal Office, they repeatedly read how contemptuously German officials speak about their faith. Who can understand that?
One can only understand all this if one perceives what a completely different battle is taking place in the background, a battle that the evangelist St. Luke reports to us in the Holy Gospel of this feast day: Jesus had sent out the 72 disciples to proclaim the good news to the people: The kingdom of God has come near to you! Jesus had given the 72 no means of power, on the contrary, he had announced it to them: "See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves!" The only means of power the disciples had was the word itself, which they proclaimed to the people. Jesus had not mentioned anything about a power to cast out demons when he sent them out. But now the 72 return after some time and report with joy: Even the powers of evil are subject to us in your name. Yes, the disciples had experienced and recognized: Proclaiming the gospel is not just a nice advertising measure, but where the gospel is proclaimed, it encounters the resistance of anti-Christian forces that do everything to silence this good news. But in the end, these forces cannot prevent the proclamation of the gospel from creating faith in people.
And Jesus confirms this in his response: I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Yes, we are in the midst of a great battle between the powers of the devil, the powers of darkness on one side, and the hosts of God on the other side. In the epistle of today's feast day from the Revelation of St. John, we heard about this battle, the battle between the archangel Michael and his angels against the powers of Satan and his angels. And in this battle, there is a clear winner: Satan, who wants to take command of this world and its history, is thrown out of heaven, away from the heavenly command center. He no longer has a chance to prevent Christ from bringing the affairs of this world to a good end. Yes, Satan has lost – but he is still active, raging here on earth because he knows that he has only a short time left.
It is a battle with unequal means, a battle in which it seems that the devil has the much better cards: He repeatedly allies himself with those who have power in this world, repeatedly uses all means to act against those who belong to Christ and hold fast to faith in him. Yes, in the truest sense of the word, it is satanic what so many members of our congregation have experienced in their home countries, satanic the hatred, satanic the sexual abuse, satanic the brutal violence that so many members of our congregation have experienced in their past. Satanic are the state measures that are particularly directed against converted Christians in Iran and Afghanistan. And satanic is the hatred that the members of our congregation face in their reception centers here in Germany, yes, no less satanic is the cynicism with which German authorities want to deport members of our congregation to certain death in their Muslim homeland. And no less satanic is the indifference with which the political leaders in our country watch this activity and even support and promote it.
Yes, it is a battle with unequal means. The devil is raging, and we experience it in many ways, especially in our congregation, how he tries everything to hinder and destroy our work – with the whole range of slander to the use of violence. And we – we are in this battle like lambs among wolves. No, Jesus does not call us to ally ourselves with any political groups, to strive for positions of power ourselves in order to enforce our Christian agenda. He does not promise us spectacular successes, certainly does not promise us that we will one day succeed in making Germany a Christian country again. By the way, we have learned that the word "Christian" in politics often enough represents a threat to the members of our congregation rather than support or even a power base to enforce our concerns.
No, we have no other means of power than the word of God alone, which we proclaim. This word of God is dismissed with contempt by so many, yes, it provokes nothing but aggression in quite a few. And yet it happens, as we repeatedly experience in our midst, that through this word people are snatched from the power of anti-Christian forces and led into communion with Christ. We repeatedly experience that through this word people are called from the darkness of a life without Christ into the bright light of the presence of their Lord. Yes, this is a real battle that is taking place, a battle that we name very clearly at every baptism, when we command the evil spirits in the name of Christ to depart from the baptized, a battle that we name very clearly at every baptism, when our baptismal candidates not only renounce Satan and his works and ways, but also very specifically Islam, the prophet Muhammad, and the 12 Imams. And when the water flows over the head of the baptized, combined with the name of the Triune God, then at that very moment the name of this baptized person is written in heaven, then at that very moment this person is naturalized into the kingdom of God; receives a citizenship that no power in this world can take away from them.
Yes, we experience it in our midst again and again: the defeats that the devil suffers when people are snatched from his jaws in baptism. Yes, it would not be difficult for us to present success statistics about all that happens here in our congregation year after year. But Christ warns his disciples, warns us too: Do not look at your successes, do not look at what you have seemingly achieved and accomplished! Instead, look solely at what he, Christ, has done for you and to you, look at your baptism, look at the fact that your names are written in heaven. The joy over the names that are written in heaven, this joy alone should shine again and again in the midst of the battles we fight as Christians, especially here in our congregation – the joy over the victories that we ourselves have not won, but that Christ himself repeatedly wins in our midst.
And if we feel so little of this joy in all the battles and hostilities, in the face of all the hatred that confronts us, if songs of joy come so hard over our lips – then we do well to gather here in worship again and again, here where heaven comes to earth, here where the angels of God already sing their songs of victory in our midst, because they can already see with their own eyes that the devil has lost and remains the loser, no matter how ugly he continues to behave in our midst. Yes, come here again and again, where the future has already begun, where the victory celebration has already started, where you may experience that you are never alone in your battle, but surrounded by the angels of God, who accompany you through your whole life until you will one day take your place at the great banquet in the kingdom of God, where your place card with your name is already set up and where you will one day sing forever, free from all hostilities: “Jesu, meine Freude!” (Jesus, o my joy – “Jesus, priceless treasure”)! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment