Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord which engages us this morning comes from our Gospel lesson (Mark 7: 31-37). ����������������

Think of how often you are asked to evaluate something. When you eat at a restaurant, or have some service done on your car, or you stay in a motel, or you take a class at school, you often receive an evaluation form. When you buy an appliance you are asked to evaluate the product and the service you received. Even on one of the news services I sometimes read on the Internet, at the end of each news story there is a short evaluation form to let the editors know what I thought of the writing in that story. I've never taken the time to tell them, but it's always there. ����������������

The Holy Gospel for today shows how some people evaluated the work of Jesus. � We are going to study this Good News story in four parts. Part 1: to determine what kind of evaluation Jesus received, then Part 2 also to see how we evaluate him. Part 3 we'll look at how we evaluate ourselves, and through all parts we will study how he evaluates us. ����������������

Let's look at Jesus' evaluation. People brought a deaf and nearly mute man to Him and asked Him for help. They begged Him to place his hand on the man. Jesus gave them the help they asked for and they responded with his evaluation "He has done everything well." They were overwhelmed with amazement. But what of others with physical problems, or their loved ones? Would others who didn't get to be touched by Jesus have given the same evaluation? We know from Scripture that Jesus healed scores of people, perhaps hundreds or thousands. But yet there were thousands more in that region who were deaf and blind and crippled and mute and sick who were not healed. How would they have evaluated Jesus? ����������������

Jesus got this overwhelmingly positive evaluation from the people who knew he healed this deaf/poor-talking man. Yet Jesus commanded the people not to tell anyone. Why not? Why didn't Jesus want their evaluation spread? Who doesn't like to hear good things said about themselves? Mark obviously recorded this story, perhaps about 30 years after it happened, so that more people like us could hear it and read it and evaluate Jesus and spread his story? Why were the people right then told their evaluation was premature? ����������������

Remember that Jesus had already received the ultimate in evaluations at his Baptism. There His Father in heaven had said: (Mark 1:11) "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." In just a short while, at His Transfiguration, he would receive yet another such evaluation from heaven (Mark 9: 7) "This is My beloved Son, listen to Him." Yet Jesus also knew that He would be receiving other evaluations. The religious leaders would look for others to give false evaluations, false testimony about Him so they could kill him (Mark 14: 55). They would then evaluate and mock him when he hung on the cross (Mark 15: 31ff), judging him to be a failure by human standards. So why didn't Jesus want to have his evaluation after this miracle publicized? Perhaps he was like a coach whose team is way ahead after the first quarter, but who knows that the opposition still has its best plays and players yet to come. Too much early enthusiasm can lead to despair when the tough times come, and Jesus knows that the tough times of the cross are still to come. ����������������

Part 2: How do you evaluate Jesus' ministry to you? God doesn't always do the things we want, especially when we want them. On an episode of the Simpsons, when Homer got religion and then expected to cash in on his new connection, his wife Marge chided him: "God isn't just some global concierge, there to do whatever you want." (from R. Rosin in Concordia Journal, July 2003). Some people give God low grades, a low eval, if he doesn't do what they want. Many of those people become disenchanted and leave Him. But others accept that God's thoughts are not our thoughts nor his ways our ways (Isaiah 55: 8-9). They understand that God's grace in Christ is often hard to comprehend in the short-term. God gives us many things in this short-term life, many blessings given to some and not others. James 1: 17 "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father." We can use those gifts for both good, for his glory or for bad. For example, our tongues, our gift of speech. Our lips can be used to praise God and tell our neighbors of His love in Christ Jesus. Or our tongue can be used to express our sinful anger or to slander or gossip. Our epistle lesson from James speaks of the importance of keeping a tight rein on our tongues. ����������������

The greatest gift that came from the Father above is his Son, the God-Man Jesus. The rest of the story that comes after this miracle is Jesus' payment of our sins by his death on the cross. The rest of the story is His resurrection from the dead as our guarantee of eternal life. When we evaluate Jesus in our lives, when we say "He has done everything well", we need to see all his gifts through the cross. Jesus is not just a small or medium-sized part of our gifts from God. His suffering, death and resurrection for us is the core message of God's Word (Luke 24: 27). Because of Him, all of our short-term gifts of this earth will be replaced with eternal gifts and any lack of earthly gifts will be replaced with overwhelming amazement when we go to be with him in heaven. ����������������

Part 3: How do we evaluate ourselves and others? A little boy was once hunting through the family garage when he found an old pedal car that his older brother had played with years before, but had discarded as worthless after one wheel had been broken. The younger brother got in and found that he could still drive this broken car and have great fun with it if he only leaned back in the seat just right. He loved this broken car. He and his father eventually repaired the wheel and made the car whole again (modified from Ideas for Illustrating from Concordia Pulpit Resource, Fall 1994). ����������������

Without Christ, we would all be judged as broken, ready for the junk heap of eternity. By God's standards we have done nothing right, nor is there anything right in others. "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all" (James 2: 10). All of us have been tainted by sin. ����������������

But Christ has done everything well � even perfectly. Through trusting Him we receive the benefit of his perfect evaluation. He has given to us his "high marks", his perfect righteousness. At Jesus' baptism the Father proclaimed "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." At each of our own Holy baptisms, God names us his beloved child and begins his loving repair work on us, work that takes up a lifetime of hearing His Word and receiving his sacrament. Through his Word, God continues to announce his acceptance and approval of us, for CHRIST's sake. And we have his assurance that as we remain in Christ's love, He will say to us on that Last Day "Well done, good and faithful servant!" (Matthew 25: 21). ����������������

His evaluation on us also changes us and how we view others. Now we can also evaluate others � not by human standards of success and failure, rich and poor (James 2) � we can evaluate others in light of the perfect evaluation Christ earned for us, for all. Instead of being judgmental, we can be merciful, even as we have been shown mercy. � We live in a world where we always evaluate others, and others are always evaluating us. We can feel very condemned, and we can be very condemning. Remember what Jesus has told us (Mark 4: 24) "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you." That verse is scary if the measure you primarily use is God's perfect Law, as in the 10 commandments. But Christ has given us a new measure, a new yardstick, by his death and resurrection for you. When you remember that you are saved solely by God's unlimited grace in Christ, you hear Jesus say, "The measure of love that I have used to evaluate you is the measure for you to use to evaluate others."

And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 7)

Note: The structure and much of the content comes from sermon suggestions made by Rev. Eldon Weisheit in Concordia Pulpit Resources, Fall 1994, pp. 19-21.