Sermon 1-26-25

Pastor Ray Lorthioir

Trinity Lutheran Church

W. Hempstead, NY

Based on the Gospel Lesson for The Third Sunday After Epiphany, Luke 4:16-30

Spells

In a recent podcast, historian Victor Davis Hanson, noted that in the period between the November 2024 election and President Trump’s inauguration last week, there’s been a whole change of mentality. He noted that that the hosts of the Morning Joe program — who have called Mr. Trump a Nazi among other things — made — in Hanson’s words — “a religious journey” to Mar-a-Lago. Snoop Dog once made a video about shooting Donald Trump. Now, he has endorsed Trump. Hanson also pointed out that all of a sudden we’re having disclosures from the press about things that were long taboo — for instance, that President Biden has had cognitive decline. All through Biden’s term it was blasphemy to say such a thing. And all of a sudden it’s no longer heresy to admit that federal money was being used for what’s called “gain of function” research on viruses, as in Covid. Equally sudden, government agencies like the FBI are getting rid of their diversity, equity and inclusion departments. Also, the outgoing FBI director finally admitted that there are Chinese operatives embedded in sensitive places. Previously that was denied. On the foreign scene, suddenly Canada’s Trudeau is stepping down. In Syria the Assad regime collapsed, and Hamas became willing to negotiate. Domestically, Joe Biden kind of disappeared. Trump was de facto president for weeks leading up to his inauguration.

Hanson’s partial explanation for this was “the king is dead, long live the king. People gravitate toward power, especially when power is expressed by winning the popular vote, the Electoral College, having control of the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and having issues that all polled over 55 to 60 per cent. It was a mandate. Everybody wants to be on the winning side. . . .” Hanson noted that liberals have also realized that the enormous lawfare they waged against the President as well as the two previous impeachments against him and much more might make President Trump eager to get revenge. To appease that, suddenly the media is settling defamation suits and previously hostile business leaders show up at his inauguration.

But then, Hanson turned to what he thinks is a more important reason. “I don’t think it [meaning revenge] explains the vast change of heart; this new mindset. I think people as they look back, they think ‘we were in a coma. We were drugged. This was an aberration.’ . . . . I don’t know what it was, but it was a four year aberration. And now they’re coming to their senses and they’re thinking Joe Biden really was cognitively declined. A coup dismissed him. That was abnormal. The border should be closed. There really is [sic] two main sexes, not three. Looting and shoplifting have to be crimes or society will not exist. What happened in Afghanistan — turning over fifty billion dollars to terrorists — that’s not normal. That’s not the United States. Nor is putting ‘daylight’ between us and Israel. There’s a sense that Rip-Van-Winkle like we’ve woken up. And Donald Trump wasn’t a monster. In fact, Donald Trump has common sense answers to all the things of the last four years. So, we’re looking back and saying we were mad. And now there’s a common sense corrective and we don’t really care if it’s Donald Trump or not, but we’re going to go with the corrective and return America to common sense.”

I find this to be an interesting observation. Have we indeed been under a spell? If so, was that spell just the last four years, or was it cast all the way back in 2008 with the election of President Obama? As far as I can tell, the Obama spell was in full force during President Trump’s first term. And, it successfully prevented him from winning a consecutive second term.

However, has the spell now been broken? Are we slowly but surely returning to something called “common sense?” Hanson thinks so. And it looks like it. But until a trend is firmly established, I’m usually a bit skeptical of it.

Marxism is a sick, wicked thing because its first premise is denial of our Creator God. In Yahweh’s place it puts something called “history” or “historical necessity” as its idol. Marxism seeks to tear down every “common sense” structure in the world, to replace it with a heavenly vision of some kind. Most importantly, because it comes from the pit of hell, Marxism is all about lies — big lies and little lies, but especially big lies. It’s also about murder — violent revolution. And this should be no surprise. As Jesus put it in John 8:44 “. . . ‘He [the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.’” What is Marxism, then? Is it not of the devil?

As we’ve seen in the last hundred plus years, Marxism has the power of casting spells over entire populations. Given the power of the government sword, Marxism stays in power through violence and the threat of violence. It also stays in power by casting new spells through the spoken and written word. In Marxist speak, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of chairman Xi Jinping — or any other Marxist leader.

Like the devil, Marxism always relies on half truths. It criticizes flaws in society that are frequently legitimate, but sometimes made up. More importantly, it produces solutions for the flaws that are more flawed than the flaw. Therefore, it has to lie consistently that the fix is nearly divine. And to make sure we know how divine, it never ceases to blast the “horror” of the initial flaw into our ears.

Marxism always criticizes those in power when it’s out of power. But you don’t dare criticize Marxism when it’s in power. Therefore, just like skeptics are never skeptical enough to be skeptical of their skepticism, Marxists are never critical enough to be critical of their Marxism.

Now, how is it that Marxism got such a hold on what was formerly a Christian society? The answer is fairly simple. It all comes back to origins — the why and how everything exists. Indeed, what’s it all here for? And what are we here for?

The only answers to such questions are philosophical and religious in nature. Science, by definition, cannot answer questions about the origin of everything. Science can only answer questions about what is, not about what was. For, even when science is used to answer historical questions, it can only use what presently exists. For instance, present day science can do tests on mummies. But it can’t do tests on those people when they were alive. Only mummified bodies still exist in the present.

So, when we try to answer questions about the origin of the universe and everything in it, we only have what exists at present on which to base our conclusions, and not what actually existed at the beginning. In the present, we only have pieces of stuff lying around on earth and light coming from the night sky on which to base our ideas. Most important, nature gives us no story line attached to the stuff and the light.

However, without a story line, it’s impossible to say where everything came from. Therefore, we have only two choices. If a story line exists outside of nature, accept that. Otherwise, we’re free to invent story lines of our own.

As Christians, we have a very valuable story line. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  Psalms 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” John 1:1-3, “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

Indeed, this story line was the foundation of Western thinking and science from the time of Emperor Constantine until the end of the nineteenth century. Then something important happened. A new atheist/pagan origin story was invented using the work of such 19th century academics such as Lyell and Darwin. This Neo-pagan story has gone through many iterations since it first appeared. However, its one purpose is to maintain a plausible origin story without the need of a Creator God. 

Now, present discoveries are causing the plausibility of the Neo-pagan story line to come under increasing doubt. One area that has become problematic for the Neo-pagan story is cosmology. The doctrine of a monstrous explosion of stuff from a tiny super-condensed point of stuff — known as the big bang — is becoming more and more untenable because of what’s being seen by the new James Webb telescope. Right now cosmologists are scrambling to shore up the big bang. But a crisis point is being reached.

Even more problematic for the atheist story is biology. In the last several decades we’ve discovered that in order to live and thrive, every living cell is marvelously programmed with vast quantities of information. And more about the cell is being discovered all the time.

Now, the atheist/pagan origin story of life depends on a mythical first cell that appeared out of nowhere by random chance and time. All present living cells, including the cells of our own bodies, are supposedly descended from this mythical first cell.

The problem with this story is the marvelous complexity that present day cells have revealed to science. If present day cells are the descendants of that first mythical cell, it means that the first cell itself had to have had all the information needed to live, thrive and reproduce at the very moment it came into existence. All the information had to be in place. Otherwise, there would have been no cell, no baby cells and thus, no life on earth.

So where did all this DNA information come from that had to be instantly available to the first cell? The atheist/pagan origin story can’t answer that question. No amount of time and chance can account for the amount and complexity of the information. But, Genesis can. And Genesis tells us that life is not descended from just one mythical first cell. Yahweh created every creature whole — composed of the necessary huge numbers of specialized cells.

But, Scripture not only tells us where everything came from, and where we came from, it also tells us the way we should live. From the mouth of Yahweh Himself, Scripture describes what we know as proper moral behavior. Without such behavior, life becomes difficult and even impossible as Victor Davis Hanson noted.

However, in the atheist/neo-pagan story there is no source of moral imperative, other than we, ourselves. So, why shouldn’t we tell lies? Why shouldn’t we make “truth” out of whatever stories we want to concoct for ourselves? Why should we even begin to entertain the notion that we might need to be accountable to some unseen higher authority for any and all of our actions?

Thus, a nation and people who adopt the Neo-pagan story ultimately have no moral glue to hold them together other than man-made rules, force and punishment. And this is where we’ve gotten to in America. We’ve even gotten to the place where force and punishment are being administered against those who would intervene to protect others from godless behavior. And what about the unholy murder of the unborn? These days, it’s tolerated as some kind of “right” by just about every politician alive.

Our moral compass no longer points to the only source of genuine righteousness there is in the entire universe. I’m all for “common sense.” But if “common sense” does not acknowledge a Creator God, and accept the reality He created, then such “common sense” has no common sense. Ken Ham, the director of Answers in Genesis recently said in a podcast that we need more than Make America Great Again. We need to Make America Christian Again. And, the only way that can happen, is if enough people wake up to the fact that the atheist/pagan story and worldview they’ve been taught is a bunch of nonsense that imprisons in a spell all who hear it and believe it. Hopefully, this is part of what is going on. But we need more. For, freedom from human concocted nonsense can only be found in Yahweh alone — He who is the Creator of heaven and earth.

It’s no surprise, however, that we sinners would rather be under some kind of lunatic spell than be under the truth of our Creator God. For, the ancient serpent tempted our ancestors, Adam and Eve, into being their own gods and deciding good and evil for themselves. Thus, deciding good and evil completely apart from our Creator is the fundamental spell we’re all under. And there is no freedom from that spell apart from our Creator. Indeed, that’s why He sent His Son into the world.

In today’s Gospel lesson, we saw Jesus of Nazareth return to His home town. There, He claimed that a very significant Old Testament prophecy made six hundred years earlier was all about Him. He proclaimed Himself to be the one who would fulfill the prophecy’s promise.

The prophecy comes from Isaiah 61. And, here is how Jesus quoted it according to Luke 4:18-19, “18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’” That’s a spectacular promise. It’s liberation from the spells that the enemy weaves against us. It’s a promise that God will set our hearts and minds free from the enemy’s captivity. It’s a promise to establish Yahweh’s purposes and truth among us so that we may know the committed love of our Creator toward us.

However, the spells of the enemy are strong. Two weeks ago, we briefly looked at Matthew’s version of Jesus’ visit to Nazareth, and how the people reacted. Here in Luke we see a gentler reaction. It simply says in Luke 4:22, “And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’” In Matthew’s version, the people took offense at Jesus because He had finally unwrapped His identity as the Messiah, but they still saw Him as the local day laborer. Here, in Luke, we see an additional reason that they took offense — the Gentiles.

In this dispute the town of Capernaum figures prominently. Jesus had moved there and owned a house there. Capernaum was on the Sea of Galilee. It was along trade routes. It seems to have had a significant Gentile and Roman presence. Jesus had already performed many miraculous healings there. But here He was again in rural, very Jewish, Nazareth. And so, He put a challenge in front of the hometown folks. Would they accept His ministry in Capernaum where He was already ministering to Gentiles? Would they accept that the quotation from Isaiah 61 meant that Messiah would also liberate the Gentiles from the spells of paganism that bound them?

Jesus offered two very important incidents as proof that they should accept this as the will of God. We read in Luke 4:25-27, “25 [Jesus said,] ‘I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.’” Sidon and Syria were Gentile countries back in the days of Elijah and Elisha. They still were in Jesus’ time. So, if Yahweh had called the great Israelite prophets Elijah and Elisha to minister to people from these lands, shouldn’t Messiah do the same when He came? That was the challenge.

As we read, the challenge didn’t go well. Even though sufficient proof from Scripture had been placed in front of them, the hometown folks didn’t react in awe at the great good news that salvation would come even to the Gentiles. Instead, they took deep offense and tried to assassinate Jesus. But they couldn’t, because it wasn’t yet the time and place for Yahweh’s plan to unfold. Jesus would give Himself up in sacrifice — just not there and then.

But do you see the problem? Whatever their exact worldview, they refused to give it up when Yahweh’s truth was revealed to them. They preferred to live under some kind of spell. It takes direct intervention from God upon the human heart to break such spells.

And perhaps such intervention came to the people of Nazareth. We know that after His resurrection Jesus’ mother, Mary, believed. Paul tells us in 1Corinthians 15:7 that in His resurrected body Jesus came to His brother, James. James believed and became the head of the Jerusalem church for decades until he was martyred. James was in that leadership position when he accepted and rejoiced over Paul’s news about the conversion of the Gentiles. Jude tells us in his letter that he’s a brother of James. So, it appears that more than one brother of Jesus believed. And because of this, it’s entirely possible that back home in Nazareth there were more believers.

If so, that’s the way Yahweh does things. He has to intervene to break the spells that bind us. And, this is precisely what the Good News of Jesus and  the power of Holy Spirit given faith to believe the Good News does for us.

There’s good reason to Make America Christian Again. There is a Creator God. Absolutely everything revolves around His Righteousness. And this life is not the main event in life. Only the news of what Yahweh has done for us in Jesus can bring our people to their senses. For Jesus is Truth with a capital T. And Jesus Truth breaks in pieces spells of all kind. Amen.

All Bible quotes are from the ESV.