Sermon: St. Luke 10:17-20 2-26-12 (Invocavit, 1 st Sunday in Lent), Bethany-Princeton MN JESUS SEES AND OVERSEES THE CASTING AWAY OF SATAN Prayer: Dear Lord, help us as Your baptized children to renounce the devil, all his works, and all his ways. But because we are too apt to take pride in our own victories against temptation, and thus play into Satan s hands, we also ask You to lead us to repent, find our true joy in knowing You have written our names in heaven, and in Your Gospel learn that a word shall overthrow him. Amen! The Text, St. Luke 10:17-20. Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name. And He said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Amen. Fellow redeemed in Him who was born of a woman to crush the serpent s head: A statement like this one by Jesus, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, sure gets your attention. It s the sort of fantastic statement, or fantastic scene, that makes your imagination go to work. We want to know more about this. We also know others who could benefit from this. People who might not believe that Jesus is God, or who aren t convinced of His power. Or people who don t believe that Satan exists, they might believe in evil in a general sense but not that the devil is a personal being. Or they don t take sin, hell or Satan seriously. Or they don t take Jesus seriously, or the need to repent. Here Jesus calls the devil by name, Satan, showing that the devil is a real, personal being, and Jesus declares His own superiority to Satan; Jesus says He saw him fall like lightning from heaven. Wouldn t this convince people if they could see it too? It s tempting to think that Jesus is speaking about something that took place prior to the fall into the sin. We know that Satan who is a created being, is 1
an angel, and thus was part of the creation in the first 6 days of the world, and was even considered very good when God looked at all that He had made (Ge 1:31) later sinned, rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven, as the Bible says in a few places but giving very few details. Now when we hear Jesus say, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, it s tempting to think He s opening the window into that secret knowledge about which we are naturally so curious. But Jesus is not talking about that. He isn t feeding anyone s unhealthy fascination or speculation about demonic activity and the spirit world. He isn t speaking, out of the blue, about something that happened in the heavens prior to recorded history. Jesus is not saying that Satan fell from the heavens, but that he fell like lightning from the heavens, in other words, it s lightning that comes from the heavens or the sky, that s what Satan s fall was like, as suddenly as that. Jesus connects this not to something that takes place in the invisible realm but something people heard and saw -- the preaching of the seventy, men Jesus had sent out to preach, to whom He had even given authority or power to heal diseases. This gift was important to the evangelist St. Luke, who himself was a doctor by vocation. In fact, it s assumed by many that Luke was one of these Seventy sent out to preach and given by Jesus this power to make sick people well, not as a physician but as God s demonstration of the power of His Word. This power to heal included power and authority over all demons (Lk 9:1), but the purpose was for these miracles to help people believe that the word they preached in His name was true. Preaching His Word is what mattered most. This is so much the point St. Luke wants to get across or rather, that our Lord wants to get across, through Luke -- that the verse just prior to our reading, the last words Jesus is recorded saying to them before sending them to preach, are these, in Luke 10:16: He who hears you [preachers] hears Me, he who rejects you [preachers] rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me. 2
This verse is a powerful statement about the power of the preached word, that in the stead and by the command of Christ the pastor forgives the sins of repentant sinners so that their sins are actually forgiven in heaven, in the stead and by the command of Christ when the pastor withholds forgiveness from the unrepentant they are not forgiven by God, and that the pastor s forgiveness is God forgiving. And what happened when Jesus sent out these preachers? We find out at the beginning of our reading, when they returned. They returned with joy, it says. They saw things they didn t expect. They saw demons actually submit to them. But they also add the words, in Your name. They knew that the devils left in response to Christ s word, yet when they saw it happen they were still amazed to us! they said, incredulous and it filled them with joy. This shows that when the called and ordained pastor forgives sins, then the sins really go away, and not only that but Satan himself has to flee. Consider how Jesus responded to the preachers who joyfully reported to Him. He said that as they saw demons depart from the people who had been under their control, Jesus saw the prince of the devils, Satan himself, suffer a great fall, his power and dominion over and hold on those very people slipped away all of a sudden. Just as Jesus said in the wilderness, Away with you, Satan! and Satan left Him not willingly but by the power of Jesus mighty word, now Jesus sees as His Word is preached that not only do the demons depart the ones they inhabited but Satan himself has a sudden loss of power, as suddenly as lightning falls from heaven. This should comfort and strengthen you! It should drive home that the most blessed thing you can be is a hearer of the Word. The catechism s Table of Duties divides us by vocation into preachers of the Word and hearers of the Word. Perhaps we think of it academically, just a very basic description. What do you do? You come to church, hear the Word, try to pay attention, not much to it. But Jesus shows how blessed you are to be a hearer of the Word. 3
For do you see what happens in your hearing of the Word? The hosts of hell must flee (#330 v. 2)! When Jesus goes on to say, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, He is addressing not just those 1 st century preachers but all divinely called and ordained pastors. The poisonous serpents and scorpions aren t actual snakes and insects but every poisonous influence of Satan. Where does Satan inject his poisonous influence into your life? The question is, where doesn t he? The hymn we sang doesn t picture big cosmic events, but things like sorrow s night pain and sadness this is where the battle is fought. Satan comes to very basic locations: church, home, work. He injects his poison into the church, making it at times a community of criticism and complaint rather than one of prayer and faith centered around Christ. He comes into the marriage as he did in the Garden of Eden and brings finger-pointing by spouses just as he did then. The home should be a safe refuge from the world but Satan injects his poison at close range through the TV, through the computer where pornography is readily available and people can be cruel to each other online, and time for families is cut short so all they are is impatient, which produces hurt feelings, resentment, and guilt. Satan injects his poison into your work, feeling bitter toward your employer or resentful of the people there. But Jesus sends out His preachers where? to all these places, wherever you are. He sends His preachers into the world, to preach to you in church and home so you take His words with you wherever you go, into all your vocations. And guess what? Christ is always there. This is the part of the story I love: Jesus first words, I saw Really what He says is more like I was watching Satan fall This is what happens when you are hearing the Gospel. Jesus is watching what happens. It s all under His watchful eye. He who can see your doubts and your fears, your guilt and your inability to trust others, He who knows the sins that you are confessing silently to Him alone, as you hear the for- 4
giveness spoken He can see what you can t: your sins flying away and Satan going away too. He not only sees this, He oversees this. It s His doing. It s by His power. His Word does it. How blessed you are to be a hearer of the Word! This is the comfort for us preachers of the Word as well: that I am not doing my work alone. He is here. Jesus is seeing it. He alone is my Judge, but He is not here to judge; He s here to see the preaching of the Word prosper, to watch as His Word goes forth from my mouth to chase all your sins away, as His Word gives you the faith by which you trust in the word of forgiveness contrary to all your conscience tells you, to cling to what your Savior taught and trust it whether felt or not (#226 v. 10). Not only is Jesus here watching, but He s overseeing it, He is here to bless the preaching of His Word both in my speaking it and your hearing it and applying it to your faith and to how you live your life. How blessed it is to be a preacher of the Word, to know that He is here to bless His Word! This is what Jesus would have His children rejoice in, as He says here. He said not to rejoice in the outward signs of success, which for those preachers was that the spirits are subject to you, something they could see outwardly. He doesn t want you to rejoice in the outward signs of your obedience or victorious Christian living, He doesn t want the church to rejoice in the outward signs that it s successful, but: rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. This leaves you looking to Jesus and taking refuge in His Word, in the promises which He makes to you in His Word, that in Christ your Savior all your sins are forgiven and Satan can t accuse you and must leave you alone. Isn t your name important to Him? He s written it in heaven. The church looks to promises that the Savior keeps. We trust that His Word sends Satan away, and we will wake up in heaven and find that he isn t there, he s fallen and cast completely away, just as Jesus promised would happen by preaching of His Word. The kingdom s thine forever. That promise faileth never. (#586 v. 2) Amen! 5