Creation is Being Re-Created in Christ - Mark 7:24-37

 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

There is an interesting term that is used in the world of high finance, particularly in the insurance industry*. When there are natural disasters that occur, the industry refers to these things as “acts of God.” Check your home owners, flood, and renters insurance and you’ll probably find that there is a whole section outlining what they will and won’t cover should “acts of God” like wildfire, flood, tornadoes, hurricane, and earthquakes occur.

I find it interesting because they connect God’s act with terrible destructive forces. Hurricane Ivan that ripped apart the coastline of Louisianna, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida? Act of God. The post-hurricane flooding that has washed its way across the southeastern United States and into New England? Act of God. Fires that have consumed almost 2 million acres of California, alone? God’s action. I wonder if Covid-19 is considered an act of God, too? They give God the credit, or more accurately, the blame for all of these kinds of natural disasters.

Theologians speak of these kinds of things as the left-hand work of God. In His perfect wisdom, God allows such things to happen. These events, these disasters, these so-called “acts of God” do show us the power of the wrath of God. Could you imagine what the full, unfettered fury of God’s anger would be like if it wasn’t for God’s mercy and Jesus’ intercession at the cross? These events show us in a very real, very powerful, and very present way that we are not living in paradise. The world, creation, and all that is in it – including mankind – is under the curse of sin that leads to death. The devil loves to remind us of that curse, to rub our faces in the mortality of the world and our own lives, to leave us with a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. In his Large Catechism, teaching on the 4^th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” Luther writes this:

“But this petition is especially directed also against our chief enemy, the devil. For all his thought and desire is to deprive us of all that we have from God…. [The devil] also prevents and hinders the stability of all government and honorable, peaceable relations on earth. There he causes so much contention, murder, treason, and war. He also causes lightning and hail to destroy grain and cattle, to poison the air and so on. In short, [the devil] is sorry that anyone has a morsel of bread from God and eats it in peace. If it were in his power, and our prayer (next to God) did not prevent him, we would not keep a straw in the field, a farthing in the house, yea, not even our life for an hour. This is especially true of those who have the Word of God and would like to be Christians.” (Large Catechism, Lord’s Prayer, 80-81, bookofconcord.org).

You see this powerfully and vividly in viruses that infect, diseases that maim, fires that consume, winds that blow, and waters that wash away life of all kinds, including people. When you hear them referred to as “acts of God,” make no mistake: these things are the direct result of the devil’s handiwork, trying to turn our eyes from Jesus.

Yet, we also know this: God, in His wisdom and in His strength, takes this thing that Satan intends for the evil destruction of God’s creation and God uses it as a means of blessing the communities and citizens therein. The insurance agents declare it an act of God and writes it off as devastation. The Lord looks at it as a place for new seeds of the Gospel to be planted and grow and bring forth life in the midst of death.

No, if you want to see an act of God, you don’t look at floods, fires, earthquakes, viruses, and hurricanes. If you want to see acts of God, look to Jesus.

When the daughter of a Gentile, Syrophoenician woman was ill with an unclean spirit, the mother turned to Jesus. When Jesus seems to deny her His mercy, demonstrating His left hand in testing her faith – now, there’s an act of God for you! – with the comment, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs,” she clings to what she knows to be true, He desires to show mercy, even as it seems that God’s left hand is held out against her. “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table get the scraps.” Ask any dog who sits at the foot of his or her master at dinner time. They’ll gladly take whatever is offered, even if it is only a few precious crumbs. They may be “just” crumbs, the leftovers, but when it comes to Jesus’ gifts, even the scraps are filling, sweet to the tongue, and satisfy fully. Hidden behind the left hand of God is the right hand of Jesus, extended in mercy and compassion, releasing the daughter from the demon’s grip.

When the man with deaf ears and mumbling speech is brought to Jesus, Jesus sticks His fingers into the man’s ears, then spits onto His fingers, and touches the man’s tongue. Gross, we say, but Jesus is showing His power. The man can’t hear, so Jesus touches, and in that touch, there is no doubt that Jesus is acting. The man can’t speak, so Jesus touches the tongue, again, leaving no doubt. Jesus puts sound into deaf ears and places life into a dead mouth. The man can neither hear nor speak, so with a word – just a sigh - Jesus both intercedes for Him and commands that which is broken: Ephphatha! Be opened! In that moment, in that act, you see the mercy of Jesus in returning the man to the community where he can hear the Word of God and receive the blessings given to God’s people.

With these two miracles, Jesus shows Himself to be God of creation, able to restore that which is broken, heal that which is sick, redeem that which is lost, and restore that which was taken. In these miracles, Jesus acts with the mercy of God, rich in compassion and love – even if at first hidden.

But, if you really want to see an act of God, you don’t look into a full ICU, or a wrecked shoreline, or a washed-out neighborhood. You look to the cross. The cross is where the ultimate act of God takes place. There, Christ bears all of creation’s brokenness into Himself. The wind that tore, the floods that wash, the fires that burn, the earthquakes that shake, Christ bears all of it at the cross, dying even for a fallen and broken creation. All of these terrible and terrifying events that take and destroy life, Christ’s life is surrendered for them. And, on the third day after the most terrible act of God the world has ever seen, the innocent death of Jesus, Christ is raised from the dead. Behold, He is making all things new. He has taken us, who were held captive by sin, death and the grave, and he has made us captive to Him.

You know, it is no small thing that the same water that caused so much destruction is also used to baptize and give life. It was through the water that God saved Noah; it is through the flooding of your baptism that God saved you. It is no small thing that the same wind that caused so much loss is also the same breath of God that gives faith. It was the sound of the wind that brought the Jerusalem Pentecost crowd to hear the Gospel preached in their own language. It’s no small thing that the same fire that burns to the ground also was used to mark the presence of God in the Temple, to Isaiah, and even to the disciples. It wasn’t by fire or flood, but through Water and Word, by grace through faith, our Lord Jesus Christ has taken care of you into eternity.

Although it is already redeemed, this side of heaven, the world is still fallen. When natural disasters occur, when loss of property and life happens, we hurt. We hurt and we grieve and we mourn, whether it is our home that was lost or our neighbor’s, or someone we don’t even know in a different part of the state, country, or world. In Christian compassion, we remember them in our prayers. As we are able, we offer what we can for the good of our neighbors, material gifts, words of encouragement, the Word of hope and life. There will be moments to be silent, there will be moments to laugh, and there will be moments to speak of the hope that is theirs in Christ.  

The hope is this: while the world is still fallen, it is being re-created in Christ’s resurrection. You get a glimpse of it, already. After the destruction, after the fires and floods and hurricanes and earthquakes, there will be new life. New trees will grow, new grass will sprout, new animals will return. It’s a foreshadowing, a foretaste of the new creation when Christ returns.

And, in the new creation, hurricanes, fires, floods, famine, earthquakes will cease to exist, at least as destructive forces. Instead, all of creation – even the wind and waves - will give the glory to Christ Jesus for His redeeming it. And you and I, rescued into eternity, will give thanks to God for the act of God at the cross which gives us the new creation in Christ Jesus, now and forever. Amen.  

 * Please understand this is not a criticism of the term, "act of God," as is used in the insurance business, the insurance industry as a whole, or any legal documents using the term. Understand it in the context in which it is being used, and only in such a context.