1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. Our enemy is both external AND internal. Outside of us AND inside of us. It is the old evil foe who prowls around us AND the old Adam who wreaks havoc inside each of us. That’s why it’s important for us to be reminded as we observe the 14th Sunday after Pentecost that, “Christ Comes to Defeat Our Enemies,” the message today is taken from Mark 7:14-23. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Maybe you have heard a version of that quote. The original came from an American naval officer in 1813 after the Battle of Lake Erie, but it was made popular by Pogo the Possum in several cartoon strips in the early 1970’s. Since then, it continues to resurface here and there in moments of honesty, transparency, and political convenience.
3. This came to mind as I read the appointed Gospel reading for this Sunday from Mark 7:14-23. Both the quote and the reading from Mark 7 articulate a truth about the source of evil and the reality of the human condition. As is often the case with Jesus’ teaching, this truth arose out of a much narrower and specific context. In last week’s Gospel reading from Mark 7:1-13, Jesus engaged in a back and forth with religious leaders about the authority of human traditions, the practice of washing hands, and what makes a person ritually unclean. At the beginning of today’s reading, Jesus expanded the audience by inviting the crowd into the conversation (maybe they were the same people he had miraculously fed in Mark 6). Jesus says in Mark 7:14, “Hear me, all of you, and understand” (7:14). Then, with everyone’s attention, Jesus taught about what makes a person truly unclean. Jesus speaks of the Old Testament Law, from Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, and declares that food does not make a person unclean. What goes into the body is not the problem. It’s what comes out. Jesus says in Mark 7:21-22, “Out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:21-22). Such evil comes out because it already lurks within. As Pogo says, “We have seen the enemy and he is us.
4. What Jesus says here in Mark 7 causes us to think about the identity of our true enemy. It is good for us as Christians to think about our true enemy, because in our increasingly polarized culture it is far too common to find mortal enemies around every corner. Who is my enemy? It is the network pushing fake news. It is the political party trying to destroy the country. It is the local public-school board, the ambitious colleague, the omnipresent screen. There are many enemies. Notice they are always someone (or something) else.
5. Our Epistle reading from Ephesians 6:10-20 paired with our Gospel today from Mark 7 helps us to further identify the enemies we face as Christians. Unlike Jesus, who emphasized evil comes from within, the reading from Ephesians 6:12 emphasizes the external nature of our enemy. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” It is almost as if Paul is saying our enemy is NOT within, but rather far above and beyond flesh and blood.
6. So, which is it? Is the enemy within? Or is it without? The answer, of course, is: “Yes.” Our enemy is both external AND internal. Outside of us AND inside of us. It is the old evil foe who prowls around us AND the old Adam who wreaks havoc inside each of us. The reality is that we actually have three enemies that we face as Christians, Martin Luther says that we wrestle against the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh and they are relentless. He comments on this as he teaches and instructs on the need to receive the Lord’s Supper on a regular basis to do battle against our three enemies in the Large Catechism and to receive the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation that Christ has won for us through His cross and empty tomb. (LC V, Sacrament of the Altar, 75-80).
7. So, what does all this mean for the Christian life? First, it means we are in trouble. History clearly teaches it is really hard to fight a battle on two, much less three, fronts. The message is rather simple: We need to be on guard. This is important, because most of us are in the habit of practically ignoring at least one (and usually two or three) of our enemies. As a result, the evil lurking in our hearts comes out far too often in the forms Jesus mentions in Mark 7:21-22.
8. Our nature is to focus on external sin rather than on internal sin. We are in a “beauty is skin deep” culture that judges by appearance. We act like Pharisees in focusing on external sins of others rather than the sins from within ourselves. We see a married man holding hands in public with a woman 25 years younger, not his wife. But, we don’t see what’s going on in our hearts when we flip the remote or click on our smartphone browser back to the channel or the website we shouldn’t see. We see a woman flaunting her furs and jewelry. But, we don’t see the catty thoughts that cross our minds about how she thinks she’s so great.
9. Have you ever known of someone who looks healthy but has a disease raging inside his or her body? Looks can be deceiving. People can smile nicely and be pleasant but still have sin down deep at their core. We are also those people who may look okay on the outside but are not fine on the inside. The old radio show The Shadow always began by asking, “Who knows what evil lurks within the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”
10. Second, and this is where the good news really is good, there is one who rules over all our enemies. He is the victorious one, the conqueror of death, the master over sin, the risen and reigning Lord Jesus Christ who has tamed the evil foe and the old Adam and keeps them both on a short, if hidden, leash. When Jesus returns, He will end the tyranny of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh for all time.
11. Jesus points out the evil that lurks in our hearts that we may be able to hide from others here in Mark 7:14–15, 21–23. It takes something completely outside us to wash us clean on the inside. God looked into his heart to devise a plan for our salvation. It wasn’t anything inside us that paid for our sins—no good, pure thoughts of the heart, no outward action that would please the strictest Pharisee. It was the God of heaven, infinitely above us, completely outside us, who came to earth and paid the price: his life on the cross.
12. Look away from ourselves. Look to Jesus up there on the cross: his pure, undefiled, sinless heart broken, pierced through for our sinful ones. And then the Holy Spirit—from outside—comes into our sinful hearts and brings the cleansing of Jesus’ death. He comes to us in the water of Baptism, which washes away our sins in a miraculous way. He speaks to us, not in a whisper from within (our sinful hearts could play all kinds of tricks with that!), but in God’s external Word—of preaching, of absolution, when we read the Bible—and he declares us pure, holy, forgiven. And while nothing outside a person and coming into him can defile us, taking into ourselves Jesus’ very body and blood in the Lord’s Supper does purify us. It brings forgiveness so real to us that we can taste it.
13. Third, this promise of deliverance from our enemies not only fills us with hope for future relief, but also transforms our lives here and now. Through these Means of Grace—God’s Word and Sacraments—God creates saving faith in our hearts. See, that faith is totally from outside us too. And a heart of faith is a clean heart, purified of that sin within, and it receives eternal life. In Christ, we are washed clean of the sin lurking on the inside. We are saved also from our enemies outside of us as well: the devil and the world. With the help of the Holy Spirit through God’s Word and Sacraments, we no longer have any excuse to give into temptation, whether it comes from without or within. Instead, we are to live by the Spirit in the victory of Christ by refusing to conform to the will of our enemies. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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