Advent I [Matthew 21:1-10] (28-Nov-2021)

              

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

This took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet saying, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

 

Behold, your king is coming to you!

The words do not say that you are coming to your king. The focus is not on you, it’s on the king! You are doing nothing, the king is doing everything. He is coming to you!

A good 500 years ago, Martin Luther got this right when he said: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.” We often blink and miss these words in the catechism: “or come to him.”

So as we begin a new church year on this First Sunday of Advent, we don’t begin the year by making some new resolutions, some new promises, we don’t set about saying to Jesus how much better we’re going to do things this year. We don’t come to make a decision for Jesus, to dedicate our lives to him, and come to him with great ceremony and great parade and great pomp.

Because the gospels aren’t about us flying up to God. We don’t confess in the creed, “I believe in me, the creator of my own destiny, the follower of my own dreams. I believe that I’m so wonderful that I’ve got my life back in order, I’ve fixed up all my own problems, and I believe that if I were in the garden of Eden that I’d know what to say to that pesky snake. I believe in my own sense of spirituality, and my own little club of like-minded people who think that we’re so much holier than the rest of the world.”

No—when we say the creed, we say: “I believe in God.” I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things seen and unseen.

We say: “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.” “I believe in the Holy Spirit” – not your spirit, the Holy Spirit – “and I believe in the Holy Christian Church” – of all times and of all places and for all people.

That’s the faith we’re called to have on our lips. The Christian faith does not set about trying to impress others with our spirituality, our friendliness, and other things that make us feel that we’re worth something in our own eyes. We are called to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. In fact, we say in the creed, that he is “our Lord.”

He is our Lord. Our king. He is the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. His kingdom is not of this world. His kingdom will have no end.

And it is this king that comes to you. Behold, your king comes to you!

You are not your own king or queen. You are not your own master. You are not setting your own course in life, and you are not in charge of your own salvation. You don’t come to Jesus, and you don’t bring him to you.

There is only one who is your master, who will be your master, who can be your master. His name is Jesus Christ – he is the King of heaven, the King of glory, and he comes in through the doors.

Behold, your king is coming to you!

And look at the way in which he comes: humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt the foal of a beast of burden.

If we presume to come to God by ourselves, and this is a very dangerous thing, we come to him with nothing but pride. We come to him with the devil whispering in our ear: “You will not surely die… You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” And so we eat from the tree, and we die. The people of this world spend all of their time trying to climb out of this pit, this septic tank of sin, filth, death, hell that we got ourselves into. We can’t come to God by ourselves, and we don’t deserve to. Think about the tower of Babel: the people wanted to build a tower all the way to heaven. We read that “the Lord came down to see the city and tower”. He came all the way down to see it (!), and he said: Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand.

Christianity is not about achievement. It’s not about reaching up to God. It’s not about flying up to God by yourself. Because simply put, you can’t.

Instead, you need your Lord Jesus Christ to come down and have a look at what you’re doing. You need your king to come to you!

And funnily enough, he doesn’t do it with great ceremony. He doesn’t set about showing off to you. He doesn’t come riding on a horse so high that can’t reach him. He doesn’t bring out the motorcade with a Rolls Royce and security guards so that you can only hope to wave at him from a distance.

No, your king comes to you! And he comes to you in a certain way: humble, and mounted on a donkey.

Humble, gentle. He comes not as a tyrant, not as a proud, puffed-up cockatoo of a king, he doesn’t come as a ruler to suppress you and to keep you down and make money out of you and dress himself up at your expense! He comes humble, gentle, lowly, meek. He doesn’t come to beat you into submission; he comes as your friend. He comes as your equal to win you over, he invites you to sit around his table – and he comes a lot of the time in such a friendly, such a kind way, that most of the time you don’t recognise him.

Your king comes to you, humble and riding on a donkey.

Everything is humble with Jesus. Everything is friendly with him. Everything is accessible with him. Everything is easy to reach, because he has come to you, he has reached down to touch you, not half-way for you to reach up the other half, but all the way – he has come all the way down to meet you and to come to you in a humble, gentle and friendly way.

And Jesus simply has to, he must come to us in a humble way. If he’s going to associate with us, he has to eat a big piece of humble pie. If he’s going to join us to him as members of his body, if he’s going to graft us on to himself like branches on a vine, he has to sink very low indeed, he has to climb down beneath his own dignity, beneath his own worth.

Everyone knows what it’s like to meet a snob: someone who thinks that they’re better than we are. It’s a great sin to put ourselves above others, and to push other people down and shame them to make ourselves look better and give ourselves the honour. And Jesus has every right to be a snob with us. He is better than us. He took human flesh with all its weaknesses, but without sin. Imagine what it would be like to live without sin – no guilt, no regrets, no suffering, no death, no pain, no war, no arguments, no evil, no distractions, no hatred of others or ourselves. Anyone who is like this has every right to treat us with contempt and not bother associating with us. But the book of Hebrews says: We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

And so, Jesus humbles himself. He is our king who humbles himself. He looks around to find out where we are, what we’re up to, what we’ve been doing, in what problems we’ve found ourselves, and then he forgives, forgives, forgives. He humbles himself because he just wants to be with us.

In fact, he plans everything for us to make sure that everything works out well for us. He says to his disciples, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them’, and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet.

Now it could have been a lot easier for him to go and get his own donkey. But that wouldn’t be humble. If the Lord needed them, if he wanted them, couldn’t he have made his own donkey out of the dirt?

But you see, he wants to show us that he comes down to our level. He wants to do things on our terms. He wants to be approachable, to be friendly, he wants you to love him, not just to fear him. It’s not the time for showing off. It’s simply the time to make sure everything works out right. For us in our lives he does the same all the time, as Romans says: all things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Here in our gospel all things work together for good too – for the express purpose that he should come to you as your king, in a humble way, in a friendly way.

And this is the way he always comes. The words of the prophets are fulfilled when he comes like this. We love because he first loved us. He first comes to us. And he rides into Jerusalem humble and mounted on a donkey, smiling, blessing all the children, laying his hands on them.

Behold, your king is coming to you at the beginning of a new church year, as we come together to hear the events of Jesus life once again.

Behold, your king is coming to you at the beginning of a new week, showering his blessing on everything you do.

Behold, your king is coming to you at the beginning of a new day, a new hour.

Behold, your king is coming to you, and sending out his Holy Spirit through his Holy Word, through his gift of baptism which you walk in every day, through his Holy Supper with his body and blood.

Behold, your king is coming to you, and he is humble, he is friendly, he mounted on a donkey, he comes to you with simple humble means, he comes with words, through preaching, through water, through bread, through wine.

So take off your old clothes which the devil would have you wear, and lay them on the donkey, let Jesus sit on them. Put off your old self, as St Paul says. Strip off your old rags and put them on the road and let Jesus walk all over them. Thrown down your worries, your cares, your sin. Thrown down your self-invented spirituality. Thrown down your own righteousness, your hypocrisy, your pretenses – Jesus won’t just sit on them, he’ll ride all over them with a donkey. The victory is won! The king of glory comes in through the gates with his free forgiveness, his free grace, and there’s nothing you can do in return.

Behold, your king is coming to you!

And the church replies with the palms of victory in their hands:

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna to the Son of David! Hosanna!

May our Lord Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords, come to us again this day, and bless our new church year, that this new church year may be a year filled of your grace, and showered with your blessings. Hosanna in the highest! Amen. 

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Last Sunday of the Church Year (Trinity XXVII) [Matthew 25:1-10] (21-Nov-2021)

              

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

 

In our Gospel reading today, for the last Sunday of the church year, we read a very rich parable of Jesus, the Parable of the Ten Virgins. We read: Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. The scene that Jesus paints here is one of ten virgins who are bridesmaids waiting for the groom to arrive so that they can go into a wedding reception, or a wedding banquet. At weddings, it is always important that things run on time, and there are a lot of jokes about brides running late. If a bride arrives early, the car might drive around the block a few times so that they arrive at the church at the right time. But in our parable, it is a groom—a bridegroom—that everyone is waiting for, and he is so late that everyone falls asleep.

In our reading, we read that the ten virgins went to meet the bridegroom. And later we read: At midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ So who is the bridegroom in this reading? The bridegroom is Jesus himself. One of the first things we read about in the book of Genesis is the marriage of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with God himself as the match-maker and the celebrant. And then, right at the end of the bible, we read in the book of Revelation: I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. A couple of chapters earlier, we read where an angel says: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Right back in the Old Testament, in the prophet Isaiah, we read about a faithful servant of God speaking of God like their husband: I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. In Ephesians, Paul has a lot to say about this: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

And so you can see this wonderful reality described in the bible here of Christ as the bridegroom, and the church as his bride. St Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:2: I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. He is not speaking only to the Corinthians who were outwardly celibate and virgins, but to the whole church here. And in the church at Corinth, there were virgins and widows, married people, and also people who had converted to Christ from prostitution, who were adulterers and who had slept around, and also Paul even mentions people who had converted to Jesus after having committed incest. But when these people repented and turned to Christ, they became virgins again, not because of themselves and their own righteousness and purity, but because of Christ’s righteousness which covered them. As it says in Isaiah: He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

In our reading, we read about the ten virgins: Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

On one hand, in the bible, the church is always depicted as Christ’s bride. But in this reading the bride isn’t mentioned, only these virgins, these bridesmaids. And so, we learn from this that in this life, in the church on earth, the bride of Christ is hidden, veiled. The church is often not a glorious place at all. It often seems quite ordinary, even a bit uninteresting and boring and commonplace. Sometimes in the church, there are fights and disagreements. From the outside, the church seems to have a lot of hypocrites. Many people don’t want anything to do with the church, because they see a community of ordinary sinners, and if God were really in charge of the world, why would he bother wasting his time with that lot?

But in this life, we don’t see the bride in all her glory. We only see ten virgins, five of them are wise and five of them are foolish. On one hand, the church is found wherever Christ’s word and the Gospel is preached in its truth and purity and where his sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are carried out according to Christ’s command and institution. The Word and the Sacraments are the Holy Spirit’s means that he uses to create faith in people. But on the other hand, not everyone who hears the gospel believes it. But faith is not something that you produce in yourself, but it is something that the Holy Spirit works in your heart. You might even think: “I want to believe, but I can’t”. St Paul writes that God wills and works in us to his good pleasure. If you want to believe, it means that God is already working in you, and you didn’t even know it. Thank him for working in you—he will continue to work in you, and he has already produced faith in your heart.

Now, the Holy Spirit is not a toy. He is the living God himself, and the Spirit of the Living God, and the Spirit of the living Jesus, who has risen from the dead. The Holy Spirit will not be manipulated. And so he works whenever and wherever he pleases in those who hear the Gospel. In John we read: The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. What this means is that just as we might be sitting inside one day and can hear the wind outside, so also when we hear the Word of God, we are listening to God’s own wind, the Holy Spirit. But just as you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going, so also we can’t see the Holy Spirit coming, and we can’t see the Holy Spirit working in this person and that person. As Paul says: I preached, [someone else] watered, but God gave the growth.

And so, we see this happen on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit comes down upon the disciples, but not everyone who sees this happening believes it or recognises it. We read: All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” Some were interested, but some mocked. When Paul preached in Athens, we read: Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So what we learn here is that we never know how the Holy Spirit is going to work. We should never second-guess him and say: That person’s never going to listen. We simply speak the word and go home, but the Holy Spirit then continues to work and create faith in people.

So on one hand, the word of God and the Holy Spirit comes to us from outside of us. And all of us hear the word of God altogether. But God doesn’t speak his word in such a way that it hits you on the head like a rock and bounces off. He calls you to believe it. And so, even though all kinds of people might come to church and hear the word, God calls each individual to be saved personally. Later in our reading we read: As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterwards, the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

We learn a few things here. Firstly, we learn that Christ calls us to receive the gift of salvation personally. When the time comes, it will be too late for the individual virgins to share their oil with each other. We can’t rely on others. We can’t say: I’m saved, because I go to church with bla-bla-bla, and he’s a good guy. Or: I’m saved because my grandma is a Christian. Or: I’m saved, because my grandfather, or my son, is a pastor. Or: I’m saved because I go to the church Martin Luther started, and he knew what it was all about. Or: I’m saved because come from such-and-such a country. No: we can’t get our righteousness from each other. We can only receive our salvation from Jesus and him alone. Now, sometimes, when a person dies, we don’t know about their salvation, and so we might commend them to God in prayer and to his mercy. But this does not mean that our good works or our prayers can earn salvation for someone else. Some of you might have a relative or a friend who is not saved and is an unbeliever. Of course, we should pray for them every day and not give up. But we don’t pray that we would be their saviour, but that Jesus would be their Saviour. So salvation is through Jesus and Jesus alone. Peter says in Acts: There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. So the oil cannot be shared between fellow virgins. It can only be received from Christ and the Holy Spirit, through the living and active word of God.

But secondly, there is a very important teaching here that not everyone will be saved. This is a very unpopular thing to say, but we must learn from the Scripture and not from our own ideas that there will be a judgment, and that each person will be judged by God. There are a number of parables where Jesus teaches this: one of them is the wheat and the weeds, where at the end, the wheat and weeds are separated into different piles. Another parable like this is about the drag net which pulls in all kinds of fish, and then they are sorted into the good and the bad. And here in the parable of the ten virgins, there are two types of virgins: the wise and the foolish. The wise virgins are ready and prepared and they go into the wedding feast, but then there are the foolish virgins who are not ready and it is too late for them, and then the door is shut. So you can see that there is a judgment.

Now today there are many people who don’t believe this. First of all, many people say that there is no distinction between God and his creation. They say that God is everything, God is the universe, or that God is in everything. The first verse of the bible contradicts this and says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is the creator, and the heaven and the earth are his creation. Second, many people say that the Holy Spirit is in everyone. This is not true. Everyone is born with a conscience, everyone is born with a soul, but to be saved, Jesus says you must be born again, a second time, in Holy Baptism, and God gives the Holy Spirit as a gift. Instead of being united around Jesus and his word, many people today just want to be united in their feelings and experiences, and so there would be no difference between the Christian faith and any other faith. But Jesus says: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If this isn’t true, then Jesus is a liar, and he’s not the true God. If the words of Jesus are not absolute truth, then nothing in this world is right or wrong, there is no good or bad, no heaven or hell, and of course, the church has no mission, and the missionary zeal of the church completely dries up.

Instead, the bible teaches us that God is the Creator, and he has made heaven and earth as his creation, which is distinct from him. Jesus is true God who entered into this creation and took on human flesh, and then died on the cross and made a payment and an atonement for sin. Through faith in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit. In the end, we will be judged; but through Jesus, forgiveness and eternal life has been won for us, and is ours through faith. Jesus is our Mediator, our Advocate, our Defender. The Holy Spirit brings us the Gospel, and through the Gospel the Holy Spirit creates faith in us. The Holy Spirit is the oil in the lamps, and the light of the Gospel in our hearts is the light. And so while we have the light of the Gospel shining among us on this earth, we need to make good use of the time we have to fill up our flasks with God’s oil. If we leave it, and refuse to believe the Gospel, there may be a time, then, when it is too late for us.

And so, at the very end of our reading, Jesus says: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Jesus here is calling us to repent and to reconcile ourselves with God now, in this life, while we have the Gospel. Psalm 95 says: Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Isaiah says: Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near. St Paul says in Romans: The hour has come for you to wake from sleep. And in Galatians we read: As we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone. The time for acquiring faith, and believing in Jesus, and receiving the Holy Spirit is now. It is not next year, not next month, not tomorrow. When we hear the Gospel, we can’t guarantee that it will be there for us when we need it. We might say: I’ll read the bible at home another day, but who knows if later you’ll go blind in your old age? People might say: I won’t listen in church all that carefully, but then later on they go deaf and it’s too late? They might say: I’d like to come to church, but then later they find themselves unable to come when they want to.

Or someone might say: I’m going to church at Easter. I haven’t gone to church for a long time. And then they go along, and the preacher tells everyone that Jesus hasn’t risen from the dead after all. It’s too late – the Gospel isn’t preached in that church any more, and the glory of God has departed from that place. They rejected God earlier, and when they sought him later, they couldn’t find him anymore. They might call for a pastor to come and see them on their deathbed, but then they can’t find anyone to come, because by that time, either no Christians live there anymore, or the Christians who do are too lazy and apathetic to come.

The time of grace is now. And while we have the Gospel, our Lord Jesus doesn’t call us to be apathetic, but to fill up, to stock up our vessels, and to keep our lamps burning. And when our lamps burn brightly, and when they burn with the wonderful light of God’s word and his Gospel, then the words will be fulfilled: Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Others may see the light in the lamps, and will say: I want to go and fill up on the same oil as they. I want to fill my lamp with the same word of God, and the same Gospel, and the same Holy Spirit.

And so, let’s be ready and prepared. Let’s continually learn God’s word, receive the free forgiveness of sins, and to fill up our vessels continually, so that when the time comes we can wake from our sleep and hear the words: Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him’. And those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast. We ask that Jesus, our loving bridegroom, will keep us watchful and ready, and continually fill our lamps with his precious Word and His Holy Spirit. We ask that He may wake us up from our sleep, forgive us all our sins, and lead us into the wedding banquet of eternal life. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Second Last Sunday of the Church Year (Trinity XXVI) [Matthew 25:31-46] (14-Nov-2021)

             

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all his angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. 

In the Gospel of Matthew, right in the last week before Jesus dies, we read that Jesus went up to the Mount of Olives to give his disciples a final sermon out in the open air. Our Gospel reading today is the last thing that Jesus teaches in this sermon, the last words of Matthew 25. In Matthew 26, we read about the Last Supper, Jesus' prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, his arrest and betrayal by Judas, and his trial. 

He says: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, with all his angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

There is not a flicker of fear in Jesus' eyes here. He preaches a powerful prophecy about the future, and he wants the disciples to remember this prophecy as he goes to his suffering and death on Good Friday. Here we see Jesus teach us that after everything that will happen to him—after he suffers, dies, rises again, ascends into heaven—after all kinds of things will happen in the world in history—after many nations will rise and fall, after many cultures and peoples will hear the Gospel, after the many crusades of the middle ages, after many wars, and world wars, famines, and hardships throughout history—after all of this, Jesus teaches us that he will come again.

He says: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, with all his angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Of course, all the disciples abandon him and run away from him as soon as he is arrested. But Jesus promises a number of things: first of all, he prophesies that he will rise from the dead. The Son of Man will come in his glory. This is a prophecy of the resurrection because he calls himself the Son of Man. God cannot rise from the dead, unless he has also become a true man, and taken human flesh. Someone who is truly God cannot die, and someone who is truly God cannot rise from the dead--unless God himself takes human flesh and becomes a human being. Jesus, who was true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, descended from heaven in all his glory, and took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. So Jesus says: The Son of Man will come. He emphasises his human nature--his true human body--by calling himself not the Son of God, but the Son of Man. On that occasion all his angels came to earth and celebrated with him. And they sang Glory to God in the highest when they went to the shepherds in their fields.

Jesus also prophesies that after the resurrection he will ascend into heaven. He says: The Son of Man will come in his glory. If he's coming in his glory, where's he coming from? There's no glory in hell. If he's coming in his glory, he must be coming from heaven. And if he's coming from heaven, he must have gone there--he must have ascended into heaven. It also says: He will sit on his glorious throne. Therefore, he must be sitting at the right hand of God the Father. So all these things from the creed that we say are all prophesied here, that on the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

But also, Jesus prophesies that he will come to judge the living and the dead. This Jesus describes in the rest of the reading.

So this fact that the Son of Man will come in his glory, with all his angels with him, and sit on his glorious throne, gives the disciples wonderful comfort, because they know that after Jesus has suffered, been crucified, dead, and buried, he will triumph over his enemies. He will be victorious. He will win the victory. He will be clothed in all the glory of heaven. In fact, as soon as Jesus rose again from the dead, that victory was already there, which is now hidden from our eyes. One day, when Jesus returns that victory will be shown forth in glory again.

Jesus says: Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Many Christians today don't like to think about judgment. Actually, all around the world, but also in Australia especially, there are a lot of people who don’t think very deeply about things, and who don’t like to discuss heavy and weighty topics, important things. Perhaps many people are too comfortable to really care, or are indifferent. Perhaps the fact that many people don’t think about these things is a real testimony to the godlessness of our society and culture. Whatever the case may be, we need to realise and bring to our attention the fact that there really is a God, and that there will be a judgment.

But judgment also means that there will finally be a time when the followers of Jesus will be separated from their persecutors. Even now, there is a growing separation in our times between those who hope in Jesus and those who don't. In politics, the catchphrase "separation of church and state" is often used as an excuse to keep Christians quiet, even when Christians are actually not making very much noise! Christian young people are feeling more and more isolated in their faith among their own generation that knows nothing of their faith. We might see in the world today all kinds of ways in which people are polarised, they are on opposite sides of a fence. All of this points to the fact that there will come a time when Jesus will come at the end of the world, when he will return as the judge of all the nations.

And he will separate people one from the other as a shepherd separated the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.

Notice, here Jesus calls himself the King: The King will say to those on his right. Remember that Jesus preaches this passage just before he is about the crucified at the end of the week. Jesus, on that occasion, will receive a crown, and have a kind of coronation as a king, but it will be a crown of thorns from the Roman soldiers. He will receive his royal robes from them, he will be given a reed in his hand, like a royal scepter, and then he will be led along a long road to ascend his throne on the cross. Yes, the Romans think that they are pretending when they mock him, but what they don't realise is that the crucifixion is the coronation of Jesus as the king of the whole world. This King is the Lamb of God who was slain, and he will speak to his fellow sheep. This King is the suffering servant of God and he will lift up his hands of blessing upon his flock, and they will see the glory of God, brighter than the sun, shine through the nail wounds in his hands, and he will say to them: Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.

The king, the Lamb, makes all his sheep kings as well. In the next life, there will not be one single Christian who does reign with Jesus in his kingdom. Jesus says: Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. I will crown you and make you a king, a queen. And this kingdom that is given at the end of the world, is prepared right from the beginning of the world.

This is what Holy Baptism is: it is when people are called out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. It is where we become disciples of Jesus, and are blessed by his Father, and named with the Father's name: I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Here at baptism is given the kingdom prepared from the beginning of the world to all who believe it.

Then Jesus says: For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'

As Lutherans, we hold very strongly to the biblical teaching that we are saved by grace, through faith, for Christ's sake, apart from works. But sometimes people think from this reading that we really might be saved by works after all. Many Christian charity organisations often print this passage on their brochures: I was hungry and you fed me, or something like that. Some people think that Paul taught salvation by faith, and that the Gospel of Matthew here and the book of James teach salvation by works.

However, there is only one way that a person can be saved: through Christ's work alone, which is given to us by grace alone, and is received by faith alone completely apart from works. The Law preaches to us that we are sinners, and calls us to repentance. But the only way that a person like you or me, crushed by God’s law and brought to repentance, can be saved, is to put our trust in our only Saviour, Jesus Christ, who has died for us, risen for us, and gives and applies to us the free forgiveness of sins in the preaching of the Word, in the Absolution, in Baptism and in the Lord’s Supper.

However, James also teaches that faith is dead if good works and the fruit of the Spirit of every kind do not follow. Love and good works are the evidence of faith. This is what it means when James says: You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Also he says: As the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. He's talking about the evidence of faith. It’s a bit like a tree: a living, healthy tree produces good fruit. It’s just what happens.

But earlier in the book of James, he says: Of his own will [God] brought us forth by the word of truth. Here we read that God made us his own children not by own works, but by his own will, by the word of truth. These things we simply receive by faith, and so James agrees with Paul.

So in our reading today, Jesus puts the sheep and the goats on trial. And just like any courtroom, he judges people by the evidence. He commends the sheep for their good works, and condemns the goats for their lack of good works.

He says: For I was hungry and you gave me food. It is a good thing for Christians to perform acts of charity and works of mercy to all people that we meet. And in many places in the bible, Jesus encourages us to be charitable, and merciful to all people. But in our reading, Jesus is talking about a specific kind of people. He says: As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. This is very important, because if we are to take this passage as talking about charity generally, Jesus’ brothers and sisters would have to be anyone and everyone in the world. Now, in some sense, when Jesus became a human being and took on flesh, he did become everyone’s brother and sister, but the Gospels don’t really talk like that. We could spin the text in that way, but it’s not really in line with the normal way in which Jesus talks. Normally, when Jesus speaks of his brothers, he is talking about his disciples, and often his apostles. He says: He who does the will of my Father is my mother and sister and brothers. He also says to Mary Magdalene and to the disciples to tell the news of the resurrection to his brothers. He doesn't mean his flesh-and-blood brothers, but his disciples and his apostles. Now, this is important, because when Jesus commends the sheep for what they did to his brothers, he is commending them for giving them the support they needed in response to hearing the words spoken from their lips. Sometimes, these people are pastors, and sometimes, these people are simply wise Christian friends, who are of great encouragement. We are saved by the Jesus’ Word alone and his forgiveness—when people speak this word to us, wouldn’t we want to help them and do everything that we can for them?

For example, Jesus says: I was in prison and you visited me. Here we see that close connection between Jesus as he suffers on the cross, and those who suffer for sake of the gospel. In 2 Corinthians 11, St Paul boasts of all the hardships he endured. He says: Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. James begins his letter by saying: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

What do you think you would do if you were alive at the time of St Paul and knew he was suffering nearby? What would you do if an apostle was enduring hardship, or if the people who speak God's word to you were suffering greatly? If a dear Christian friend who encourages you so deeply and profoundly in your faith suddenly falls into hard times? Just as Jesus was crowned with thorns, what would you do if you saw a fellow Christian neighbour crowned with many thorns of Satan? Wouldn't you want to protect that person from harm and help them? Wouldn't you want to savour the last words of Jesus that you could from them? Wouldn't you feed them if they were hungry, wouldn't you give them a drink if they were thirsty, wouldn't you clothe them if they were naked and welcome them if they were a stranger, wouldn't you visit them in prison and strengthen them in their sickness?

Of course, you would-- How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news! Anyone would do this for the sake of that Christian encouragement that we so desperately need. Anyone would do this to hear the word of life from their lips. Those who don't value the word of Jesus, wouldn't do anything to protect the people who bring it to them--these people are called the goats. How often the apostles address the readers of their letters so affectionately and with such friendliness and with such gratitude for the love which is showed them on account of their words!

So this passage is not about salvation by works, or salvation because of Christian charity--it's about our reception of the living words of Jesus through the messengers of Jesus.

And just so that you know this passage is not about salvation by works, listen to the way in which the sheep respond: Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' They don't even know that they were serving Christ.

And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' The least of these my brothers: not just the apostles and the St Pauls of the world, not just the bishops and the pastors, but every simple Christian who receives hardship because of the words of Jesus. Of course, when we see anyone in hardship or need, whether they are a Christian or not, we should help them in their need and show love to them. But Christian charity in general is secondary to what this text is talking about here. It’s not the main thing that we’re talking about in this particular text. This text is focussed particularly on the brothers of Jesus.  

And just as the sheep had no idea that they were serving Jesus, the goats had no idea that they were rejecting Jesus. Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?'

They do not value these living words of Jesus, and treat those who bring this word to them with contempt and so at the end they will depart from [Jesus], [as] cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Hell was not made for the sake of human beings, it was prepared for the devil and his angels. And just as there is an eternal life for the sheep, there will be an eternal punishment for the goats.

Now, this reading is almost too harsh for our times, and our society today. People have so much, and the more they have, the more they are afraid of losing. Many Christians too don't value the simple message of Jesus and his cross, and also don't value the simple--sometimes even simplistic--Christians who speak it to them. Many Christian reject their baptism, reject the church, reject the authority and care of their pastors, and reject the fellowship of Christians. When did we see you hungry and not feed you? they will say. This word is such a thunderbolt for our country and our times which are full of small churches with few people. Would that the Holy Spirit would open the floodgates that people may hear and receive the precious words of Jesus, and hasten to meet him as their brother, their king, the Son of Man who shares their flesh and blood!

Listen to those words of Jesus, little flock! Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. Come, you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Friend, come up higher! Come to the banquet, for everything is ready. Come, bride of Christ, come, beloved sheep of the Good Shepherd! Come, and hear the loving voice of your shepherd! Amen.

 

And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Third Last Sunday of the Church Year (Trinity XXV) [Matthew 24:15-28] (7-Nov-2021)

            

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

When you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. 

Our Sunday today marks the first of three Sundays at the end of the church year, which focus on things to do with the end of the world. Today, our Gospel reading is taken from Matthew 24, and this is a passage that we don’t often consider in preaching and in sermons, at least anymore.

Right at the beginning of this chapter, Jesus and his disciples are walking near the temple in Jerusalem and its buildings. And Jesus says: You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Jesus prophesies that the temple will be destroyed some time in the future. And this actually happened in the year 70 AD, when the Romans came into Jerusalem, and laid the temple bare. And to this day, over the course of almost 2000 years, the temple has never been rebuilt.

But of course, what Jesus said here is a prophecy of the things that would happen in those times. And the fact that Jesus mentions this provokes a question in the hearts and minds of the disciples. We read: As [Jesus] sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” They ask two questions: they ask about when the temple will be destroyed, as Jesus had just prophesied, and they also ask when Jesus will come and when the end of the age will come. In our reading today, Jesus particular speaks about the abomination of desolation. An abomination is something which is disgusting, and something disgusting that goes very much against God’s law, which defiles, which desecrates. And desolation means that something will be laid waste, laid bare, be made empty. And so this abomination of desolation that Jesus speaks about is something disgusting, something which is evil or filthy, something which defiles and desecrates, that then causes something to be made empty and laid waste.

Jesus talks about something that will come about in the Jewish temple, and will have a particular effect on the Jewish people at that time. But also, he speaks about the future history of the church, and how there will be an abomination of desolation in Christianity too before the end of the world. The first abomination is a physical one that stands in the physical temple built by King Herod, but the second abomination is a spiritual one that stands in the temple of the Christian church and the Christian community.

And so in our sermon today, we are going to consider first of all the physical abomination of desolation in the temple in Jerusalem, which was a sign of the future destruction of Jerusalem and of the whole land of Israel. Then secondly, we are going to consider the spiritual abomination of desolation, or the Antichrist, which the Lord calls false Christs and false prophets, which will be a sign of the end of the world.

Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to open our ears and our hearts and minds to understand his truth and his message to us today. Amen.              

At the beginning of our reading today, Jesus says: So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

First of all, we should take note that this is probably the only time when Jesus tells us particularly to take notice of a particular book of the Old Testament. Of course, he mentions Moses and the Prophets and David, but here he mentions the Prophet Daniel, and says to us: Let the reader understand.

So what particularly in the book of Daniel is Jesus talking about? The Book of Daniel has some particularly well-known passages in it, especially the event where the three men were put in the fiery furnace, and when Daniel was put in the lion’s den. But also, there are many things in the book of Daniel, which are prophetic, and not easy to understand, a little bit like the Book of Revelation.

In chapter 9 of Daniel, we read: The people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed…. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.

This passage describes the visible signs of the destruction of Jerusalem. Daniel mentions here the city, and the sanctuary. He also mentions wings of abomination. It so turned out in history, that all of these things were significant. At the time of Jesus, we know that the land of Israel was under the power of the Romans. We read about various centurions that met Jesus, we hear about some Jews like Matthew and Zacchaeus who were tax collectors working for the Romans, and also we read about various Roman people like Pontius Pilate, who was the Roman governor. We read also in the book of Acts, that Paul appealed to Caesar and was actually sent to Rome.

Now, many Jews were not happy about the Roman occupation, which continued still for many years after this, and there were various conflicts and tensions. Eventually, it happened that Caesar Tiberius set up his own image in the Jewish temple, which of course was a great offence to the Jews, and an abomination to God, to set up an idol in the temple. Then, afterwards, there was another Caesar, called Gaius Caligula, a particularly evil ruler, who was known for his cruelty and his immoral live. Caligula also set up a statue of himself in the temple in Jerusalem, and called the temple after his own name, “Gaius the Great God”. This, of course, infuriated the Jews, and there was much bloodshed. Then the emperor Nero, set up his statue together with a statue of the Roman god Jupiter in the temple.

So, all these things, all these idols and abominations that were set up in the temple, were to be a sign of the destruction of the temple, according to Daniel. And we read in Daniel that it was to take place like a flood. I remember seeing a place in Queensland where there had been a terrible flood, where there was a bridge in the middle of nowhere, because the river had moved. Eventually, the city of Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed so mightily and so terribly by the Romans, that is was a like a flood, and the city was completely laid waste. Jesus says in our reading: For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. It must have been such an incredible, unspeakable, horrific thing when Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed in those times.

In our reading, Jesus says: When you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Jesus is telling the people that when these things happen, it is time to get out. He gives them a warning, and tells them not to back to their houses to get their things and their possessions. He even laments about women who are pregnant and nursing babies. He also tells them to pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.

Now in the bible, we read about all kinds of reasons why particular cities and societies have been destroyed and desolated. For example, first, we might think of idolatry and false teaching. This is why God’s people were taken into captivity into Babylon, before the time of Jesus. Second, when God’s people and the prophets are persecuted. Jesus says in Matthew 23: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets… your house is left to you desolate. Third, when unrighteousness prevails, when poor people are oppressed, and courts and leaders become corrupt. Fourth, cities and societies are often desolated and destroyed because of people’s godless life, particularly, when people fight to destroy the family and indulge in all kinds of sexual sins, such as when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. Fifth, is when a society is divided, and there is revolt and revolution. Jesus says: A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. So, for example, we know that Jerusalem was destroyed at this time, but also after the time of the apostles, and such like, there were plenty of other cities throughout Asia, and in other places because of these kinds of things.

Of course, today, we see that the whole world is full of these things. There is idolatry everywhere, false teaching everywhere, persecution of Christians everywhere, unrighteousness everywhere, corruption everywhere, sexual sin everywhere, division, protests, riots everywhere. And when these things happen, desolation cannot be too far away.

Now, in our reading about these things, Jesus gives us many different comforts. He says: Flee to the mountains. Jesus points these things out to people, and then gives them a way of escape. In a similar way, Lot was rescued from Sodom. The Israelites were rescued from Egypt. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were rescued from Bethlehem, when King Herod went to kill all the baby boys there.

So, for example, when there is great trouble in a particular place—like war, or plagues, hunger, war, and all that kind of thing—it is a perfectly legitimate thing for a Christian to flee. If God gives a means of escape, and a means to save and preserve your life, it is a perfectly legitimate for you to take it. However, sometimes, people are called to stay in a difficult place, because of their vocation and calling. For example, you can’t abandon your family and children. Also, sometimes, our confession of faith may require us to have to stay in a particular place where things are difficult. Throughout history, many Christians have had to consider these matters. In these situations, we place our lives and our situation into the hands of God, and we trust that he will rescue us and deliver us in his own way and in his own time. Psalm 50 says: I will deliver you. Psalm 46: God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble. Psalm 91 says: I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honour him.

But then also, there is a second comfort, and that is that Jesus particularly shows his concern and his care for those who are vulnerable. He says: Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! He knows that there will be people who will need particular care and looking after. Pregnant mothers, new mothers, old people, weak people, disabled people—Jesus knows how to care for each of us in our particular situation, and he knows how to rescue each person from whatever situation they find themselves in.

The third comfort that Jesus gives to us in these situations is prayer. He says: Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. When we see all kinds of various troubles happening in the world, and we are worried about what might happen, Jesus asks us to commend our worries to him in prayer, and we know that he is a loving Saviour and that he will hear us.

So, when we look at all of the abominations in our world today, and begin to consider the desolation and destruction that may very well come as a result, let’s look to God—the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—as our own means for rescue and escape. Let us remember Jesus’ particular concern for us in all of our weakness, and turn to him in prayer, knowing that he is our faithful friend and loving Saviour.

In the second part of our reading, we read about the future history of the church, which Jesus speaks will come after the time when he is speaking. He speaks about a spiritual abomination of desolation, that will come about even within the church, which we call the “spirit of antichrist”.

Now, one of the things we have to understand is that right from the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples, and when they spoke in many languages, and the wind and the fire came down, right from this time, when the Gospel first was preached by the Apostles, this was the last days. The whole life of the church is the “Last Days”. Sometimes people look around at world and they say: I really think we’re living in the end times, or in the last times. Of course, we are. The fact that Jesus has a church on earth means that it is the last days and the end times, and we are really only looking forward to one thing, which is when Christ will return. So on the day of Pentecost, when Peter preached the Gospel to the people who saw the tongues of fire and everything else, he quoted from the Prophet Joel, which says: In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. When does God pour out his Spirit? In the last days, says Joel, and Peter in his sermon.

Also, in the Apostle John’s first letter, we also read about something else in the last days. He says: Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they are not of us.

So, John here speaks about the spirit of antichrist as coming about in the last days too. He says twice here that it is the last hour. And that these false teachers went out from us—they came up from within the church and from within Christianity, but did not stick with the teaching of the apostles but went their own way. Sometimes, in the history of the church, Christians have had to expel false teachers from their midst, and sometimes Christians have had to run away from and flee false teachers.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus gives us a few marks of this spiritual abomination of desolation. Firstly, he calls them false christs and false prophets. A false prophet is a person who claims to speak for God, but is actually not speaking the word of God at all. Sometimes, people don’t know the difference between a prophet and a fortune teller. We know that there are these mystic types, occultists, or fortune tellers, who claim to give people insights into the future. Of course, then, there are people who call themselves Christians who also claim to do the same thing, but they give a Christian appearance, and they use the names of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But in actual fact, they don’t tell the truth. We are living in a country and a world where there are many false prophets. But then, also, a false “christ” is someone who puts themselves in the place of the true Christ, and instead of pointing themselves to Jesus Christ crucified, as their Saviour, their Lord, their King, their intercessor, their Good Shepherd, as the head of the church, etc. they point to themselves, or other things, to replace Christ in these situations, whether it is a particular pastor, or a bishop, or the Pope, or a charismatic preacher, or whoever.

Second, Jesus speaks about false prophets and false christs who want people to find Christ in all kinds of places where he has not promised to be. Jesus says: Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it… So if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness’, do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. Now, it is true, that Christ wants us to meet him and to find him in his Word and Sacraments. He specifies this in his own Word in the Holy Scripture. But here Jesus is talking about where people are pointed to all kinds of other people, as if they are the Christ, or a kind of Saviour. Or where people are pointed to all kinds of places, in deserts, in inner rooms, as if they can meet Jesus through this experience or that experience.

But then, thirdly, Jesus speaks about these false prophets and false christ performing great signs and wonders. This is a big topic, because there was a time when it was not common for Christians necessarily to expect many miracles in their every day lives. Today, many Christians are always looking for miracles. Sometimes, there are very large gatherings of Christians, where it is claimed that there are miracles on tap. We always need to be mindful of the fact that Jesus has prophesied that there will be signs and wonders performed by false prophets. I’m not just saying that they are fake miracles, such as when people have a person in a wheelchair stand up who is not actually disabled. Sometimes, the miracles are genuine, but the prophet is false. Jesus says in our reading: They will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. Even Jesus says that these prophets and false christs are dead, and that even vultures gather around a carcass. He says: Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

So, in our reading today, Jesus teaches us to be wary, to be alert, to be discerning, to be watchful, to be careful, and make sure that we are following him and not some kind of false prophet or false christ. It’s a very important lesson for us to learn in our climate today. However, Jesus also gives us some wonderfully rich comforts too.

First of all, he comforts us with the fact that he has elected us, that he called us, that he has gathered us into his kingdom. When we hear his Word, and believe it, and take our stand in our Baptism, where he washed us with water and the Spirit, we can take comfort in this, knowing that we have been adopted as a child of God and made part of God’s family and his kingdom. Jesus says: For the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. He cares for his own people, and he knows that things can be hard for his own children, and he won’t let them be tempted beyond what they can bear. So we can take comfort in the fact that Jesus cares for you, and takes care of his sheep, even though there are many difficult things happening in the world, and many false teaching and false prophets at work among the church. The Scripture says: Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.

Second, he comforts us with the promise of his own coming. He says: For as the lightening comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. When Jesus returns, or even if we die before he returns, this will be the time when he will wonderfully rescue us from this valley of the shadow of death, and will take us to be with him in heaven. We pray in the Lord’s prayer: Deliver us from evil. And Luther writes very nicely and beautifully in his Small Catechism: We pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.

Let’s commend ourselves to our loving Saviour, Jesus Christ, and trust in him to rescue us from every evil of body and soul. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Reformation Day [John 8:31-32] (31-Oct-2021)

           

This sermon was preached at St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. 

The festival of the Reformation is a wonderful occasion in the church year, which we particularly celebrate in the Lutheran church, where we remember those series of events in the 1500s in Europe, and in Germany particularly, where there was a tremendous theological and spiritual revival, the effects of which changed the course of history, and which are still felt today. At the heard of these events was a rediscovery of the Gospel, as the free forgiveness of sins, which was won by Christ alone in his death and resurrection, and bestowed upon lost and condemned sinners completely free for the sake of Christ, which we then receive by faith, apart from any works, contributions or efforts that we make ourselves. As St Paul says: By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, but it is a gift of God, apart from works, so that no one may boast. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

The 31^st October was chosen for this commemoration centuries ago, because on this day in the year 1517, Martin Luther, who was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, a monk of the Augustinian order and a professor of theology at the university of Wittenberg in Germany, is reported to have nailed a document to the church door in Wittenberg, his 95 theses. This document was against a certain practice that was alive and well in the Catholic Church of Martin Luther’s day, the selling of indulgences. Although we could talk at great length about what this “selling of indulgences” is, the short version is that it was a certificate issued by the Pope in Rome to cancel the punishments in purgatory for a person’s sins. Purgatory is a Roman Catholic belief, which is not held by other churches, that there is a kind of half-way station between heaven and hell. I won’t go into all the detail now, and I could explain all this much better than I have.

What this meant in history is that this was the beginning of a great controversy where Martin Luther, as a student and teacher of the bible, came into conflict with the Pope in Rome and the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. As a result, Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, and many Christians throughout Europe who accepted his teaching as true and right became separate from the Roman Catholic Church, to form the Evangelical church, or as it is commonly called today, the Lutheran Church, or the Church of the Lutheran confession.

Now, on one hand, Martin Luther was a highly significant person in all of this history. On the other hand, the whole Reformation which occurred at this time was not about one man, or the teachings of one man. Rather, this whole event was about a return to the Word of God, in such a way that that the Holy Scriptures once again had pride of place in the church over and against every human word, every human tradition, every word of people, of man, every human idea.

In our Gospel reading today, we hear these wonderful words of Jesus, where he says: If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Let’s pray that the Holy Spirit will enlighten our hearts and minds, as we consider this verse today, and remember the wonderful events that occurred 500 years ago at the time of the Reformation. Amen.

Now, in our sermon today, I’d like to first of all talk about what the Lutheran Reformation was, and what it wasn’t. And then secondly, I’d like to talk about the significance of the things that happened at that time for today.

Firstly, at various times and places, in history, there have been all kinds of revolutions. For example, in 1789, in France, there was the French revolution, where the executed the king of France and all the aristocracy. There was a big revolution in Russia about 100 years ago, where communism came in, and they started the USSR. And people might look back at the time of Luther, and think that it was a kind of revolution. But it wasn’t.

The Reformation was not about revolution, or rebellion. It wasn’t some kind of anti-authoritarian event where all kinds of people wanted to drag down the social structures of the day.

The Reformation did have to do with authority, but it was not against authority. It was simply against false human authority in the church, and on the other hand, a return to the true authority in the church, namely, the Holy Scripture. In the church, wherever the authority of the Word of God is lost, it always means that mere human authority can replace it, because that’s the only other authority that there is.

So, the whole of the Reformation, was essentially a call to repentance, and it is one of the most amazing calls to repentance that has ever occurred in church history. When Martin Luther wrote his 95 theses and put them on the church door in Wittenberg, 504 years ago today, the first thing he wrote was: When our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’, he meant that the whole of a Christian life should be one of repentance. This document spread like wild-fire throughout Europe at the time, and even reached the desk of the Pope. To think that a document like that made such an impact, with such a strong call to repentance right at the top.

You might remember that in the Scripture, when John the Baptist went out and preached at the River Jordan, he called people to Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. When Jesus began his ministry, after his baptism and his temptation in the wilderness, he also said the same thing. The word, ‘repent’, means to turn around, to change one’s mind, or change one’s heart. It has a picture of a person walking in one direction and then turning around going back the other way.

When we are called to repent, what are we called to turn away from? And what are called to turn ourselves to? We are always called to turn away from our sin, and also our sinful mind, our sinful flesh, our sinful heart, our own ideas, our own human opinions, our own solutions. And we are always called to turn back to God, and to his Word, as he has wonderfully and marvellously revealed it in the Holy Scriptures.

And so right at the heart of the Lutheran reformation was a renewal of the Scripture in the life of the church. It was not philosophy that should direct the church, or human reason, or human tradition, or human leaders, such as a Pope. Instead, the Word of God, as it is revealed in the Scripture, should be the thing that directs and guides the church. The Scripture is clear fountain of Israel, the clear light of God which he shines on human darkness, a lamp which shines in a dark place, the light which is a lamp unto our feet and light unto our path.

Now, just as that light of Holy Scripture then shone its light on human darkness and sin and evil, so also the Holy Scripture reveals to us how lost and condemned human beings can be saved. Human beings like you and me, who carry around with us our sinful human hearts, and are corrupted in our mind and in our thinking by sin, cannot save ourselves by doing things that are tainted by that same darkness. Only Jesus, the Son of God, can save us, and we can only be saved in the way that he prescribes.

And so, in a world that was full of people performing all kinds of works and deeds in all kinds of attempts to save themselves and make themselves acceptable and pleasing to God, the Gospel came to light. That Gospel is that people cannot save themselves by their own works, by their own efforts, by their own actions, and solutions devised by their own choosing and their own thinking, but by faith in Jesus Christ alone. His death on the cross alone was that wonderful event where the divine righteousness and justice and judgment of God was satisfied, where a full payment was made for each and every sin of the whole entire world, and where he defeated death, the devil and every power of darkness. His resurrection demonstrated to the world that this sacrifice and atonement that he made was acceptable to God the Father, otherwise this all would have meant nothing if Jesus was still dead and in the grave. For us, who believe in him, it means that we have the forgiveness of sins delivered to us and applied to us, not in such a way that we reach all the way back to him, but he actually comes to us. In holy Baptism, what Christ did on the cross all those many years ago is applied to us through water and the Word of God. And in the Lord’s Supper, we receive the wonderful body and blood of Christ as our food for this journey of life, until we reach our heavenly home with Christ in his kingdom. On our part, we simply receive these things freely, as a gift, without paying for them, without earning them, without working for them. We simply trust that God is faithful and that he has done these things and given them to us, and they are ours. This wonderful Gospel message was at the heart and centre of the Reformation, which was so long clouded and shrouded in all kinds of human ideas and philosophies. Still today, in many parts of the world, and even in churches, human ideas still prevail, and the Gospel still remains silent.

But also, sometimes we forget that because the Reformation was a biblical renewal, a rediscovery of the Holy Scripture, it also had an effect on all kinds of other things. So for example, in the Roman Catholic Church back at that time, and still to this day, when it came to the next life, they believed in heaven and hell, but also purgatory. Purgatory was a kind of half way place, where a person worked off the effects of their sins before they could enter heaven. However, at the time of the Reformation, they realised that this was not a teaching of Scripture at all. In fact, in the passage about Lazarus and the rich man, it says that there is a chasm fixed between where Lazarus was in Paradise and where the rich man was in hell, such that no one could cross between. So, another thing that came from the Reformation, was a renewed understanding of heaven and hell. This is extremely important when we come to understand faith, because when Christ calls us to eternal life, he saves us from hell, from the devil, and all of that. He saves us for eternal life in heaven. He doesn’t save us from purgatory, and he doesn’t save us for purgatory, because it doesn’t exist.

Also, the Reformation brought about a renewal in the way we understand prayer. At that time, many people prayed to Mary, and all kinds of different saints. And there were all kinds of different saints that were prayed to for all kinds of different reasons. Some of these reasons were quite superstitious, for example, it you lost something, you might pray to such and such a saint. In some sense, many of the old pagan ideas about prayer, from the old religions of Greece, of ancient Rome, of the ancient Vikings, came back into Christianity. People used to pray to different gods for all kinds of different reasons, just as they do today in Hinduism. However, with the Reformation, came a renewed understanding of prayer, because they rediscovered the teaching about prayer in the Scriptures, that we pray to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit alone, that we pray in the name of Jesus, and all that kind of thing. Luther summarises much of this in what he taught about the Lord’s Prayer in the Small Catechism.

But also, at that time, many people thought that living a holy life meant that you had to become a monk or a nun, that you had to go on pilgrimages to holy places, and all that kind of things. This brought about an idea that marriage and having family was a kind of dirty thing. However, the Reformation brought to light the fact that Christians, wherever we are placed in our life, whether as a husband, wife, child, or a worker, or a boss, or as a soldier, or as a ruler or leader, or whatever, that we serve God as a holy person in those callings.

So, there are many things that we could talk about that were affected by the rediscovery of the Scripture, and the authority of Scripture. Of course, at the heart and centre of it all was the bringing to light of the Gospel in all of its glory. However, it’s also useful to see where all kinds of other things were impacted, because they often have some impact on how we understand the Gospel. For example, if people believe in purgatory, they often don’t have a need for the Gospel, because they think that at the end of the day, everything will be fine for them because eventually they’ll get out of purgatory, or they despair, because they think they’ll never get out purgatory. Many people who pray to the saints, often do so because they think they are not worthy to pray to Jesus himself. Of course, no one is worthy to pray to Jesus, but through Holy Baptism and through faith, God makes us his beloved child, and he asks us and commands us to pray to him, because of what he has done for us in making us his own. This is all effected by the Gospel too. If people think that living a life as a monk or nun gives us a special kind of holiness, this can also effect the way in which we understand the Gospel. You see, the forgiveness of sins is not given to us because of the austere life we might live, or because we’re married or celibate, or because of the spiritual exercises we choose to take on. It’s given to us freely for Christ’s sake. Of course, we are called to live a holy life, and some people who are single may choose to live a certain kind of life, but it’s not the life that they choose for themselves that saves them.

So let’s come back to Jesus’ words: If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. These words of Jesus have a profound significance for us, as it had for Christians at that time, and for Christians today. First of all, Jesus teaches us that those who are truly his disciples are those who abide in his word. The disciples of Jesus are never guaranteed to always be his disciples, unless they abide in the words of Jesus. Jesus does not make us join a particular church who are always guaranteed to keep the word pure. No—we must always keep returning to the Scripture, and letting that clear light of God’s Word hold sway.

People might be attracted to a particular kind of music in the church, to a certain kind of style, to a certain feeling of being new, or to a certain feeling of being old, or to a church being ancient, or a church being really modern, or all kinds of things like that. But none of this makes the church the church. The thing that makes the church is the Word of God and abiding in that word. It is the word of God that makes the church and when people are gathered around that word, there God’s church on earth grows.

However, today, we live in very strange times. Jesus says about his Word: You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. In many parts of the world, in many parts of our country, in many of our towns and cities, in many of our homes and families, the truth is not known, and as a result people are slaves, bound, captive, and are imprisoned. They are slaves to their own selves, to their own sin. And as a result they are not free.

If we want to know the truth, we must go to Jesus Christ and his Word. We know today that there are many people who don’t hold to the truth about all kinds of things. The fact that a lot of people hold to a particular opinion doesn’t make it true. There are many people, for example, that don’t believe in God at all, and who don’t believe he created the world. There are many people who don’t believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. There are many people today who believe in abortion, who don’t believe that a baby in a mother’s womb is a human life worthy of our protection. There are a growing number of people who believe in the transgender philosophy, that sex and gender are completely interchangeable, and that men and women don’t really exist. This is a powerful lie, which is causing great problems especially among young people, and young women especially. There are many people who believe in communism, that people shouldn’t be allowed to own anything, and that everything should be the possession of the state. There are many people who believe in eugenics and transhumanism, that human beings are going to get better and better, and that technology is going to turn us into a kind of super-people. All of these things are lies—powerful, destructive lies—which many people believe. But just because many people believe them doesn’t make them true. Power and numbers is not the same thing as truth.

Rather, Jesus is the Truth. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No-one comes to the Father except through him. Jesus will destroy ever lie and error and falsehood in his path. And every lie and error falsehood stands in direct opposition to the Gospel, because every lie is from the evil one, who is the father of lies, and he concocts every lie and falsehood, because the Gospel rescues people from himself. Of course, every lie will be directed against the Gospel.

So when we have the Gospel, what a wonderful gift it is. It is something to rejoice in, but not to brag in, and boast, and be proud, in such a way that we think we are better than the people who don’t have it. No, the people who don’t have the Gospel are living in darkness, the darkness that each and every single person was born in. The Gospel must be kept, held on to, and shared. And every error, every lie, every falsehood, must be deconstructed and destroyed.

So let’s abide in Christ’s Word, so that we may truly be his disciples, so that we may know the truth, and that the truth may set us free. Let’s thank God for the wonderful event that the Reformation was, the wonderful gift of the Gospel that it brought to us through the rediscovery of the Word of God, and also for the wonderful example that is gives to us for our times. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.