Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus, Especially When Other Things Are Commanding Our Attention
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
For this past week, and especially the last few days, this is what this broken, fallen, cursed world has been preaching to us, especially as creation has been groaning around us through Hurricane Florence.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
And we of course can’t help but!
The winds and the flooding and the storm surge and the destruction and the loss of property and the loss of life and the fear and the panic and the uncertainty.
There are forces in this fallen world that command our attention because they seem to command our ultimate fear and our ultimate confession of helplessness.
Today, as we and many in our region have been looking at this storm while it is talking to us, we have a text in Luke 7 in which death preaches the same –
Look at me when I’m talking to you,
and we see a dead man being carried out and the longer death commands us to look at it while it’s talking to us, the more we despair and fear and confess our helplessness:
First we see a man who had died [and] was being carried out [near the gate of the town],
And then we see that he is the only son of his mother,
And then we see that she was a widow, that death had ripped her husband away from her, as well.
Helplessness and despair and uncertainty and fear are the result when death preaches the sermon, “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
But the Christian knows sin, death, and the devil are not the only voices we hear that command our attention.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author of Hebrews says –
In many and various ways, God spoke to His people of old by the prophets, but now in these days, He has spoken to us by His Son, the author of Hebrews says –
“Look at me, when I’m talking to you,”
Our Jesus is commanding and inviting and assuring us today of His love and peace and victory by speaking to us in these last days – that He commands our ultimate fear, but also our ultimate love and trust.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.
Jesus has compassion,
Jesus says, Do not weep,
He came up and touched the bier and bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, Arise.”
And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Let fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Fixing our eyes on this fallen world, on Hurricane Florence, on ourselves, on this groaning creation, on sin, death, and the devil is the author of despair and fear and feeling of helplessness and selfishness.
Fixing our eyes on Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, hope, compassion, love, and peace.
Jesus, who can defeat death with a word.
Jesus, who awakens the dead as if they were simply in a light sleep.
Jesus who came and touched death here and who the Scriptures say tasted death for everyone (Hebrews 2:9) and shares and partakes in flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through the fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (Hebrew 2:14-15).
Be strong and courageous. Have no fear little flock. The Son has set you free from the lifelong slavery of the fear of death – you are free indeed.
He has tasted death for everyone – you and me and all whom He created and preserves.
This text fixes our eyes on our help in the midst of what seems to be so much helplessness.
Luther says this text helps us see that there is nothing that Jesus cannot help.
This text works in us courage. All is not lost. All is never lost. Jesus lives.
Weeping may tarry though the night, but joy comes in the morning.
Death is powerful, but Jesus is more powerful.
Our sin demands an eternal payment, but Jesus has made it.
Our debts are paid.
Jesus had compassion. Jesus has compassion. And fixing our eyes on Jesus strengthen our faith and strengthen our compassion for others, too.
Our Collect says it this way:
O Lord, we pray that Your grace may always go before and follow after us, that we may continually be given to all good works;
Good works – that is, confident that God’s grace is for our neighbor before us and after us – we are also confident that God also then uses us to have mercy on our neighbor, show compassion for our neighbor.
In the coming days and weeks, we will have the opportunity to be given over to good works and show compassion toward those who were and are being affected the storm.
We will likely use the trusted resources of our District and the Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod’s Disaster response.
They are asking for the good works of the giving of your money, as well as your time and energy as you are able.
But God’s grace that goes before us and follows after us is worked in us to continually be given to all good works.
Jesus’ Word of life roots and grounds our everyday living – love of husbands and wives for each, fathers and mothers for their children, and children for the their fathers and mothers, the love of and for grandma’s and grandpa’s, caretakers, friends, fellow Christians.
The opportunity for good works is a continual as you getting ready to be around others, and then being around others, and then following after being around others as you pray, love, and serve.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, who as the author and perfecter of our faith, fixes our eyes on His grace and compassion and the opportunity to continually be given over, in a much smaller way, to the same.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,”
God be praised He speaks to us and that when we look at Him, we see His facing shining upon us and being gracious to us.
God be praised that as we look at Him as He talks to us, as we receive the body and blood of Jesus, we sing, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to Your Word, for my eyes have seen Your salvation.