Sermon for The Commemoration of St. Luke, 2026
Unlike the damage sin works upon the body, its damage to the soul is harder to see. Others can see the scars you wear and bear; they cannot see the wounds upon your soul. When someone hurts you, betrays you, or fails to help you, your soul bears the scar. When you lose a parent, a spouse, a child, or a dear friend, how can that not leave its mark? And then there are the sins which you, yourself, commit, which do greater harm still. The damage is there, and to the all-seeing eyes of God it is plainly visible.
If the soul is damaged, so is the body. The reverse is also true: if the soul is healed, so, ultimately, will be the body. Upon the Cross, Christ Jesus took your sin into His own body, and by His stripes [you] are healed. When He declares His forgiveness to you, as He did in the Absolution spoken over you this day, He delivers to you what He won there: the guilt and the penalty of your sins, every one of them, taken away. Your sins are forgiven. Even so, because of the damage you have both suffered and done, the soul remains wounded and in continual need of medicine.
Here, at this altar, is that medicine. The Great Physician does not simply give you a prescription; He gives you His very Body and Blood, the medicine of immortality, for the forgiveness of your sins. In this Sacrament, Christ joins Himself to you, body and soul.
Readings:
Old Testament: Isaiah 35:5-8
Epistle: 2 Timothy 4:5-18
Holy Gospel: Luke 10:1-9
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