Quinquagesima Sunday Sermon| Rev. Rolf Preus| February 15, 2026| Luke 18:31-43<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today\u2019s Epistle lesson is familiar to many people who know little about the Bible. It is very popular because it is so beautiful. Nowhere will you find a more beautiful description of love than here in these words. It\u2019s called the love chapter. It tells us what love is and does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Easy to say. Not easy to do. By nature, our love turns in on itself. That\u2019s because, since the fall of Adam, everyone born into this world (except for Christ who was born without sin) is born self-centered. Since we are the center of our world, we assume that we are the center of the world. This innate self-centeredness and selfishness that is a result of original sin has gotten praise from preachers of another gospel, the so called \u201cgospel\u201d of self-esteem. You must first love yourself, they say, and then you can know how to love others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, that doesn\u2019t work. If you want to learn how to love as St. Paul describes love in these beautiful words, we must not first love ourselves. We must deny ourselves. It is only in Christ that we can learn to love. This is not only because Christ\u2019s love serves as the model of true love. It is also because receiving Christ\u2019s love in faith enables us to love. Without faith we don\u2019t have Christ\u2019s love. If we don\u2019t have Christ\u2019s love, our love for others will remain essentially selfish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love is patient, kind, doesn\u2019t envy or parade itself, is not proud but is gentle, humble, self-effacing, and pure. What a beautiful virtue love is! Nothing can compare to it. What can compete with love? Can you think of anything? Faith? Well, first, saving faith isn\u2019t a virtue. It doesn\u2019t do anything. It receives everything freely from God as a gracious gift. But when we speak of faith as a virtue, as the Bible sometimes does and as St. Paul does here in 1 Corinthians 13, even if we had the faith to move mountains and did not have love we would be nothing. Justice is not greater than love. Indeed, justice must bow before love. Honesty is not greater than love. Hatred is, after all, very often quite sincere. No, love is the greatest virtue. As far as God\u2019s law is concerned, there is nowhere, no time, and no circumstance where love is not required. In fact, love is the fulfillment of the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you want to find love, if you want love to fill your heart, if you want to live a life of loving others and placing their needs before your own, in short, if you want to live like a Christian, you must receive God\u2019s love in Christ. You must believe the gospel. Faith in the gospel. This is the prerequisite for true love. Concerning this, our text for today makes two things quite clear. First, you must know your need for the gospel before you can receive it. Second, the gospel is not pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You must know you need the gospel before you can receive it. Do you need God\u2019s love? It may not be apparent that you do when life is going the way you want it to go. One man who needed it and knew he needed it was blind Bartimaeus. We know his name from the parallel account in St. Mark\u2019s Gospel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bartimaeus needed God\u2019s mercy. He relied on begging. That was the only way he could make a living. He relied on the mercy of the public, which was a bit fickle. He knew that Jesus\u2019s mercy was more powerful and reliable, so when he heard that Jesus was passing by, he cried out to him, \u201cJesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.\u201d Thinking he was being a nuisance, some of Jesus\u2019s followers told him to be quiet, but he cried even more, \u201cJesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.\u201d By calling Jesus Son of David, he was calling him the Christ. The Son of David is the Christ. The blind man knew who Jesus was. Faith recognizes who Jesus is. He\u2019s not just a great leader, or prophet, or teacher. He\u2019s the Christ. He\u2019s the promised Savior spoken of by the prophets of the Old Testament. He is true God and true man. Bartimaeus confessed that Christ was God in the flesh when he addressed him as Lord. Faith recognizes Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of the world. Faith not only confesses who Jesus is, it trusts in his mercy. He asked Jesus to give him his sight because he could do it and would do it. What a wonderful example of faith! He sees his need, he confesses Jesus for who He is, the Christ, and he asks him for mercy. Not money, not power, not fame or glory or status in this world. Mercy. Faith lives on God\u2019s mercy. Faith trusts in the gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the gospel is not pretty. The gospel is love. It is mercy. It is the forgiveness of sins. It is peace with God. It is everlasting life. These are beautiful things. Why do I say that the gospel is not pretty? Listen once more to the first portion of today\u2019s Gospel Lesson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.” But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus\u2019s disciples didn\u2019t understand. This was the third time that Jesus told them that he would suffer, and die, and rise again. They didn\u2019t understand because the gospel isn\u2019t pretty. That\u2019s why is it an offense, as St. Paul writes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians 1:23-24<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A stumbling block to the Jews. An offense. It\u2019s the deal breaker. Every time. The cross is the deal breaker. The message of love is wonderful. The announcement of the forgiveness of sins is a great comfort. That God is merciful and kind is very welcome. But the gospel requires what is an offense, not only to the Jews, but to people of every generation. He will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. This is necessary. Without this, there can be no forgiveness, no peace, and no mercy from God. God requires it. This is what people find so offensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s called the vicarious atonement. Vicarious means Jesus acted as our substitute. He took our place. He took our place by offering his obedience to God to replace our disobedience to God. His obedience was active. He actively did everything the law told us to do. He obeyed the Ten Commandments. He loved his Father in heaven above all things. He glorified his name. He fulfilled the Sabbath. He honored his father and his mother. He did not hurt anyone but rather healed the sick and fed the hungry. He lived a chaste and decent life in word and deed. He stole nothing, told no lies, and did not covet what was not his. He actively obeyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He passively obeyed. He suffered. He suffered everything that we deserved to suffer on account of our sins. He chose to take our place under the law to obey it and to suffer for our disobedience. Every sin you have ever committed was charged to him and he paid its penalty. The greatest suffering he suffered was not the mockery and shame and bodily pain inflicted on him by the sadistic Roman soldiers at the urging of the Jewish religious leaders. The greatest suffering he suffered was bearing the sin and guilt of us all. The prophet Isaiah wrote,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:4-6<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He had to be stricken, smitten, and afflicted. He had to be wounded, bruised, whipped. Underneath this visible abuse from men was divine retribution against all sinners. Punishment from God. The holy Son who from eternity loved his holy Father became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, it\u2019s not a pretty picture watching Jesus suffer such abuse. But it was necessary. By taking our place, Jesus has made peace between the just God and us sinners. Our sins have been taken away. We are at peace with God. The vicarious atonement is a wonderful truth. It says that because of Christ\u2019s vicarious, that is, substitutionary obedience and suffering, we are at one with God. That is beautiful. The suffering of our Savior is not offensive to us. It is peace, joy, and new life. It is God\u2019s love to trust and God\u2019s love to teach us to love. As St. Paul writes, \u201cFor the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.\u201d 1 Corinthians 1:18 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blind Bartimaeus plead the plea of faith for us all. For nearly two thousand years now the church has gathered to together every Sunday for worship. At the beginning of the service is the Kyrie Eleison. Lord have mercy upon us; Christ have mercy upon us; Lord have mercy upon us. That\u2019s the posture of our worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A blind beggar\u2019s need is obvious. Not all needs are visible to others. Not a one of us comes to church with no problems \u2013 issues, they call it \u2013 that beset us and cause us grief. We come and lay those problems before God and trust that he will carry us through them. We come begging God\u2019s mercy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the heart of God\u2019s mercy is his grace. That\u2019s the vicarious atonement because there is no grace without it. That\u2019s the suffering and death of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. The vicarious suffering our Savior endured may offend the self-righteous who don\u2019t think they need a Savior to suffer and die for them, but for us who know our need his suffering is precious. Why is that? Because at the heart of our every need is our need for the forgiveness of our sins. And that God gives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You come for mercy from Jesus, the Son of David, and that\u2019s what you get. So many of our troubles come to us because of our sins. We ignore the law of love and put ourselves above others. It comes back to bite us. Why? Sin does that. And we are guilty of sin. Consider your life in light of the Ten Commandments and ask yourself: what is my greatest need? Your greatest need is the forgiveness of your sins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You confess your sins to God and God\u2019s servant speaks to you God\u2019s absolution that gives you forgiveness of all your sins. And if that were not enough, the Savior who bore your sins to take them away invites you to the altar where you eat and drink his body and blood for the forgiveness of all your sins. How can God not be sincere in forgiving you when he puts in your mouth the very means by which forgiveness was obtained for you? If he gives me his body and blood to eat and to drink, he most certainly forgives me all my sins and embraces me as his dear child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this, brothers and sisters in Christ, is where love is born in our hearts. From the ugliness of Christ\u2019s suffering comes the beauty of his grace and from that grace there is born in us the love that is patient and kind, that does not envy; that does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. May our gracious God perfect this love in us all. amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Quinquagesima Sunday Sermon| Rev. Rolf Preus| February 15, 2026| Luke 18:31-43 Today\u2019s Epistle lesson is familiar to many people who know little about the Bible. It is very popular because it is so beautiful. Nowhere will you find a more beautiful description of love than here in these words. It\u2019s called the love chapter. …<\/p>\n