Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Luke 15:1-10)
Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep – I have found the coin – that I had lost. Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Ezekiel 18 says: I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn and live.
I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn and live.
In our reading today, there are many people who come to Jesus – tax-collectors and sinners. They all draw near to him to hear him.
Open sinners. People who have their feet caught in the net of sin. People who sin out of habit. People who can’t get themselves out of sin. People who know their sin and want to escape from it. These are the people who come to Jesus and want to hear him.
And Jesus doesn’t turn them away and say that they are not good enough. In fact, he does exactly the opposite. He welcomes them. He eats with them. He has a meal with them. He has a drink with them. He puts them like sheep over his shoulder and carries them in his arms. He is happy like a widow who has found her missing coin. And he calls together all his friends and neighbours, he calls together all the angels of God, and celebrates with them. As he says:
When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep that I lost.” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
The fact that the tax collectors and sinners, the people who are caught in sin, come to Jesus makes Jesus rejoice. And not only that, it makes the whole company of heaven rejoice – all the angels of heaven want to celebrate.
But at the same time, it makes certain people cross. It makes the Pharisees and the scribes murmur. They point the finger at Jesus and criticise him for being too generous. They think that Jesus is either a false prophet because he doesn’t know who he is eating with, or either if he does know, they think he is totally wrong for eating with them.
It’s a bit like in another passage in the gospel where a woman comes to Jesus and anoints him with oil and kisses his feet and a man said: “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” Just as well Jesus is your judge, and not these people!
Jesus knows who the people who are coming to him. He knows that they are sinners. Some people say, “If you knew what sort of a person I was, you wouldn’t forgive me.” But Jesus does know what sort of a person everyone is. He knows what sort of a person you are. And he welcomes you and eats with you. If you a person who knows your sin all too well, then you are exactly the sort of person whom Jesus welcomes and eats with. And not only that, the angels in heaven rejoice. There is joy in heaven!
This is what grace is. And there are many people and many Christians who have never understood and never experienced what it means that God is gracious to you. It means that God forgives your sins, freely. There is nothing that you can give him in return. Jesus has died for every sin, he has died for every type of sinner, and there is no one who is too much a sinner that Jesus will not welcome you and eat with you. So come to him while you are still a tax-collector and still a sinner, and he promises that he will eat with you. He promises that he will welcome you. And he promises that all the angels in heaven will rejoice!
In Isaiah 53 it says: “All we like sheep have gone astray, everyone to his own way.” That means that every single person who has ever lived is a lost sheep. Every single person is a lost coin. If you think that you are one of the 99 sheep that don’t need repentance, then there is no rejoicing in heaven over you. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. As soon as Adam and Eve ate their apple, everyone has been straying like a lost sheep ever since, every day, every hour, every minute. Genesis 6 says: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Every intention of the thoughts of his heart. How can you escape that? – was only evil continually. There is no escape. Every person, every word, every thought, every action is tainted by sin. All of us, all we like sheep have gone astray.
But Jesus has taken our sin upon himself, and he has died for it on the cross. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is lamb who has taken away the sin of the sheep. And in baptism we have received everything back again. When we were baptised all of us were brought back over Jesus shoulders, and a celebration was held for us.
But even now, even though we are baptised, we are still wandering away. We are still finding ourselves like coins slipping into the cracks between the sofa cushions, down the back of cupboards, underneath rugs.
What then do you do then? Is baptism nothing?
No! baptism is something that covers us every day. Many people think that Christ died for us once, therefore, we are converted once, and our sins are forgiven once.
That’s ridiculous. Husbands and wives don’t say that they love each other once, and then never again! Do you think the Good Shepherd says: I’ll go looking for you once, but if you stuff up again, you’re on your own, you stupid sheep? Do you think the woman says: I’ll look for my coin once, but if I lose it again, I’ll go and steal someone else’s coin?
That’s rubbish!
Baptism and repentance go together. When we repent, we’re doing nothing, but walking back to our baptism, and receiving the kingdom of God like a little child again. Every day baptism is there for us. It washes us clean every day, even though it only happens once in our lives. Every day, we are called to drown the old person, and let the new one arise.
But many people don’t understand what it means to repent. First of all, repentance means this: God comes and gives you a good whallop on the head with the 10 commandments and makes you see your sin. He comes up to you and says: You are a tax-collector, You are sinner.
If you say: No, I’m not, then the devil’s got you. If you say, “No, I’m not a sinner”, then you’re still wandering away in the wilderness. You’re a coin which is still stuck underneath the sofa cushions.
If you say: Yes, I am, Yes, I am a sinner, then you’ve got a question to answer. Now what? Now that I know that I am a sinner, what am I going to do about it?
Now that God has found me out, what I am I going to do?
Well you better duck for cover. Because the wages of sin is death.
But as we said before, “God does not take pleasure in any one but that they should turn from their ways and live.”
If you know that you are sinner, the thing to do is not to try and fix it yourself. The thing to do is to put your trust in Jesus and hide in his wounds. Take cover under his arms, which drop his atoning blood on your head. And Jesus says: “I forgive you all your sins.” And Jesus sends out his apostles and pastors into the church to make sure that these words are applied to you: “I forgive you all your sins.”
Repentance means first of all that we listen to God’s law and say Amen. We listen to God’s word of judgment, his words of cursing on our life, and we say, Amen. Yes, God you are right.
But then we listen to the holy Gospel: the free forgiveness of sins, won for us on the cross by Jesus Christ. We listen to his words of blessing, his words of forgiveness, and we say, Amen. Yes, God you are right.
And this judgment of God which he speaks on you: I forgive you, God actually speaks in the pulpits of the church, God actually speaks at the altar of the church when he says This is my blood given for you for the forgiveness of sins. And God actually speaks through the words of the pastor in what we call the “absolution”. The absolution is those words which we have heard already in our service today, where the pastor says: “On behalf of my Lord Jesus Christ and by his command, I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” This is how God cares for his sheep. This is how God actually finds his sheep. This is how he actually finds his coins. This is how he welcomes sinners and eats with them. He sends out his word in the ministry of the church, so that you stop listening to the condemnation which you hear in your own heart, and listen to the living voice of the Gospel, the voice that comes out of heaven. He sends you pastors so that the gospel is applied to you – whether in public in the divine service, or privately in private confession and absolution.
By the way, some people think that private confession is only for Catholics. Catholics are forced to do it. They’re church rules say that they have to do it. Catholic laypeople are forced to confess “all their mortal sins” – any Catholic who doesn’t confess their sins to their priest is not a good Catholic according to what the pope says. The Catholic Catechism says that they have to go once a year at least, and it also says that they have to recount everything that comes to mind. But Lutherans are not forced to confess all their individual sins out aloud to pastors, because we can’t know our sins fully enough. If we were only forgiven because of how good our confession is, we would never have any hope!
But Lutheran pastors are forced to forgive. Lutheran pastors are forced to absolve. When pastors are ordained, they are basically told one thing: Go out and find the lost sheep. Go and forgive their sins on behalf of Christ. Go and comfort them with the good news of the forgiveness of sins.
So use this precious gift to your benefit! People forget that conversion and repentance and being welcomed by Jesus, doesn’t happen out there somewhere. It happens in the church, in the fellowship of the church, among the people that Jesus sends to the church. There is actually a place where you can physically come and be welcomed by Jesus and where you can eat with him: It’s called the Holy Christian Church. Remember that the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. There is no repentance without hearing the words of Jesus. And the church is here, the ministry of pastors is here, in order to speak the words of Jesus, just as if Jesus Christ were speaking to us himself.
So you see, everything that we are doing all the time is tainted by sin. We are always doing what is wrong, because we are corrupt. We are always wandering away. But also, when we start a new week and a new day, and turn over a new leaf and try to do better, we will still sin. “All we like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way.” And Jesus died for that too. “But the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And he is always welcoming you back to him and inviting you to eat with him, no matter what the grumbling Pharisees and scribes might say about you. They are not your judge, God is: God is your only judge. And he has sent Jesus to suffer for you, die for you, rise again from the dead for you, search for you, find you, forgive you, welcome you and eat with you.
And when the shepherd comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” ..Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, we draw near you with all the tax collectors and sinners of history to hear you. Receive us today and eat with us. Welcome us to yourself, put us over your shoulders, and rejoice with all your angels over us. Amen.
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