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Have you ever been to an event or party where you know everyone there except that one stranger who doesn't belong? He or she is a stranger. Someone invited this person, but who are they, and why are they here? It's like seeing a spouse at a high school reunion. We know him, but not her.
Have you ever been that one uncomfortable person at a party that knows only one person there? It can be a very humbling experience. Will anyone talk to me? If you lose the person you came with, you might become a bit hopeless. It can be tough trying to act like you belong when you know everyone else knows you simply are new, different, an unknown. Someone needs to step up and make you feel welcome.
“It came to pass [that] Jesus went into a house of a certain ruler of the Pharisees, to the eating of the Sabbath meal…” (Luke 14:1, my translation). This was a great weekly feast that the Pharisees, no doubt, took great pride in hosting.
This was no ordinary dinner party. This was the weekly, Friday night, Sabbath cedar meal, a solemn ceremonial dinner that was a weekly miniature of the once–per–year Passover cedar meal. There was spiritual significance to this meal. It was preparation for the hearing of God's Word the next day in the Synagogue. It was a small weekly reminder of God's grace to His children given in the Passover and Exodus. It is sort of like how we talk of our weekly Divine Service here each week being a little Easter and a little Christmas and, even more, a foretaste of the heavenly feast to come.
But lo and behold, there he was — a stranger who certainly did not belong at the dinner party. He was actually worse than a stranger. He was ceremonially unclean and ran the risk of ruining the Sabbath for the invited guests. The man had a disease called dropsy — what we today would call edema. This is usually a result of congestive heart failure. His body was retaining too much fluid which was causing parts of his body to swell and become severely deformed.
Today, doctors would simply give a diuretic drug such as Lasix to relieve this. Back then, there was no help. One just lived with it as it became worse. The Jews considered such a person to be no better than someone with leprosy — to be unclean, unholy before God.
How did this man get into the house of the ruler of the Pharisees? It seems like he just appeared there. Saint Luke even uses the word “Behold” or “Lo” as in “Lo, the angel of the Lord appeared to them.” It would be like one of us hosting a party in our home and all of a sudden a stranger just invites himself in. The appearance of the man with dropsy must have been a shock and surprise — but not to Jesus, of course.
Here was a man who was as low as one could go. He didn't belong. He was cursed, unholy, without hope. Notice that the stranger never says one word in this story. He may well have been unable to speak from his condition. He may even have been hardly able to stand; fluid tends to accumulate in the lower extremities. But the Holy Spirit gathered him in, inviting him on the scene into what becomes Jesus' own Sabbath feast. Just as suddenly as the humble man with dropsy appears, equally as suddenly Jesus takes over as the host of the Sabbath meal.
Jesus responds by getting up to teach. This is what Jesus does at His meals. He speaks His Word of Law and Gospel to the invited guests before they are fed. He speaks to the ones who are humble and don't belong there, like our humble man with dropsy, and to the ones who feel important and exalted. You know them: the long time members of the club, the ones who always know each other and are always inviting each other, who always go straight to the head of the table, assuming they have the place of honor because of their own deeds amongst themselves, who have quite a nice clique going amongst themselves, all the while not noticing their neighbors in need.
Jesus' teaching of the Law was this: “Is it permissible on the Sabbath to heal, or not?” Should I give relief for this man's suffering, or not, on the Sabbath? Jesus asks.
This is the Law to everyone. To the man with dropsy, it was a reminder that he did not belong, that he was unable to help himself, that he was there for help, that his body was ravaged by the effects of sin.
But he was there because he was banking on something more than his action of showing up. Without saying a word, he was banking on Jesus being merciful and gracious, as He had been to so many others He had healed. He was there by God's grace, through faith in Christ — counting on Jesus to act for him.
This question is Law to the Pharisees. If they say “No” to Jesus' question, they are denying a neighbor in need the help he so clearly needs. By saying “No” to Jesus, they would be saying, “Yes, I would leave my priceless son or my valuable ox stranded in the well from Friday night until Sunday.” This would make them either the most heartless of people or make them a liars and hypocrites.
But if they say “Yes” to Jesus' question, they are saying that all of their layers of regulations and unbiblical traditions that they had come up with over the years — which they pridefully followed with zealous fervor — that told everyone what could and could not be done in order to correctly honor the Sabbath day — and in order to earn God's favor and theirs — would be totally worthless in the face of the need of the hurting neighbor. And of course, they were worthless. Of course, they would retrieve at all costs their own son or even their ox out of the well.
They remained silent. They were made unable to respond to Jesus' teaching. The devil in the details had their tongue.
That's what happens to those of us who dare to go to the head of the table on our own accord. Sooner or later, God's righteous Law reflects back to you just how much of a hypocrite and liar you are as a sinner. Sooner or later, the real host of the feast is going to come by and call on you to repent of taking the first place at the table at your own invitation. And you are going to see the humble man with dropsy, who came by faith in Christ, seated where Jesus has given it to him to sit.
The host is going to call on you to repent of being so self–righteous, to repent of handling everything yourself, to repent of wanting to do everything according to your own rules and by your own wisdom. Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled by God. He is going to call you down from your lofty perch and put you where you belong, at the low end of the table.
We need that change. Thanks to our sinful flesh, we constantly need to be reminded of our inability to be righteous in God's sight by our own power and strength. You simply have no ability to follow, much less make and demand, rules for being pious or religious or devout. You need to be reminded by the Law that you are not the host of God's feast. You are merely the guest. You need to repent and humble yourselves. As a matter of fact, you need to realize that you are the man with dropsy. You are the man who has no place at the feast, on your own account, thanks to your inherited sinfulness.
It is at this point — when one is convicted of the Law and realizes humbly that one needs help and forgiveness — that Jesus speaks His precious, life–giving Gospel in our ear. “Friend, process up higher, for your benefit.” (Luke 14:10, my translation). Then, God's glory is yours. Jesus does for you what He does for the man with dropsy. “After taking hold [of him], He made him well and He forgave him.” (Luke 14:4, my translation).
Jesus takes a hold of you in Holy Baptism, you who have no standing before Him resting in your diseased, sinful flesh, unholy, unclean, without hope. Jesus takes you up into Him and makes you well with His eternal life–giving waters. And at His Word, He forgives you. It is as simple as that. Then, He invites you to process up to His table and take the place of honor at His rail, kneel down and humbly receive His ongoing meal of salvation and healing and forgiveness and comfort. Here, in His Holy Word of Absolution and in His Sacrament, Jesus gives you His glory. Jesus allows you to share in His exaltation.
Jesus is exalted, because, first and foremost, He appeared suddenly in this world, for our sakes. He didn't belong in our sinful dinner party. He is the perfect and one true Son of God, but He humbled Himself and became the ultimate man with dropsy for all of us, taking on our sins and diseases and bearing them to the ultimate Friday night Sabbath meal where death devoured our Lord into the tomb that belonged to us. Since He died innocently in place of the guilty, He could not be held in that tomb. The Father brought His Son out of the pit of His tomb alive. The hold of sin and death was broken forever. And Jesus emerged glorified, resurrected, and exalted, having earned it all for you and for me.
Now, in His Baptism, you belong to Him. He is the host of an eternal feast where He steps up and not only makes you feel welcome, but makes you into one who belongs. He makes you into one who can stand confident and full of hope in Him. He gives you the ability to tell the devil and this world to take a hike with their doubts and temptations. I am God's own child. I'll gladly say it. I belong to Jesus. I am baptized into Him. I am fed by Him. I am told just how much I am loved by Him. This is how you can now speak. In Jesus, you can boast of what He has done for you, and you can enjoy His escort as He takes you to the head of His table, as He showers you with His gifts of love — now and in the great heavenly banquet to come.
Now, friends, process up for your great and eternal benefit, up to the head of this table, and receive your Lord's great gifts: His own body and blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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