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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
No doubt parents can relate best, but one does not have to be a parent in order to love or care about another person and to want for that person to do what is best for him or her. Such great, earnest love for the other person, that wills the best for the other person, often is heartbreakingly disappointed, as the other person rejects the love and is unwilling to do what is best, in fact doing the opposite. Thus, parents and others can relate to our God and Lord, especially in the Third Reading appointed for today, the Second Sunday in Lent. In those verses from St. Luke’s account, we have perhaps the clearest contrast in all of Holy Scripture between, as I have titled this message, “Jesus’s Willing and Our Willing”.
The Third Reading is usually thought to be of two separate parts: “A Warning against Herod” and “The Lament over Jerusalem”. St. Luke alone tells of the “Warning against Herod”, and, while St. Matthew also reports “The Lament over Jerusalem”, St. Matthew’s account comes up in our three-year series of readings only on the 26th of December, St. Stephen’s Day, which is rarely if ever observed. On the other hand, St. Luke’s account comes up once every three years, as it does today. So, today we consider these five important verses from St. Luke’s account, arguably the center of Jesus’s journeying to Jerusalem. And, the two parts may not be as separate as some might think, for both the “Warning against Herod” and “The Lament over Jerusalem” tell of Jesus as the rejected prophet Who will finish His course in the city of Jerusalem.
Apparently Jesus had been journeying toward Jerusalem through the towns and villages of the area known then as Perea; He was teaching about the narrow door and how many will seek to enter but not be able, and so be excluded from the feast of the Kingdom of God (Luke 13:22-30). At that very hour, some Pharisees came and told Him to get away from there, saying that Herod, the ruler of the area, wanted to kill Him. We do not know the Pharisees’ motives, or, for that matter, whether or not Herod actually wanted to kill Jesus. But, what we do know and what matters is Jesus’s response: essentially sending the Pharisees back with a message for Herod that Jesus would continue His work and that that work would, in fact, include Jesus’s leaving Herod’s territory to finish His course in Jerusalem. The mere mention of Jerusalem seems to prompt Jesus’s lament for the city, His expression of sorrow that, while He lovingly willed to save them, they were not willing to be saved.
Some who consider themselves to be Christians look at the end result, that not all people are saved, and deduce from that end result that God must not actually will or want to save all people. Some go to great lengths to avoid accepting that God wills something that does not actually happen, when, in fact, Scripture definitely teaches that God intends something, in this case, the salvation of all people, that is not actually accomplished. The Third Reading clearly shows God’s earnest and urgent loving will to save frustrated by human wills’ rejection. God does not arbitrarily damn some people from eternity. Holy Scripture never attributes the loss of someone to God, but Holy Scripture always attributes the loss of someone to human resistance (Acts 7:51; 13:46). There is “Jesus’s Willing” and there is “Our Willing”. By nature, we and all people are like those in Jerusalem who were not willing to be saved. Our perverse wills lead us to countless sins of thought, word, and deed. By nature, we and all people deserve to be forsaken by God, now and for eternity. Yet, God calls us and all people to turn in sorrow from our sin, to believe He forgives our sin, and to want to do better.
Like Jeremiah before Him in our First Reading (Jeremiah 26:8-15), our Lord Jesus in the Third Reading faces death in Jerusalem for being a faithful prophet and yet continues to call all to repentance. (Repentance and faith before it is too late is a recurring theme in Luke chapter 13, as we will also see in next week’s Gospel Reading.) In today’s Third Reading, Jesus had no reason to change His plans or otherwise to fear Herod’s threat, for He was in total control of when and where He would give His life. Like so many prophets before Him, Jesus would later give His life in Jerusalem—Jerusalem, what should have been the City of Peace but instead was the city that killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent to it. For all its past bloodshed, Jerusalem’s bloodiest moment was, in some sense, still to come. Yet, even as Jesus anticipated His death on the cross, He spoke in such a way that we are reminded of His resurrection from the grave on the third day. Everything Jesus did, He did for us and for our salvation. In Jerusalem Jesus carried out the very loving will He expressed in His lament over Jerusalem: His loving will for all people to be saved by coming to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4)—the truth of salvation through faith in His death and resurrection for us. Drawing on a rich Old Testament figure of speech, He likened Himself to a hen that would gather her brood under her wings. Now, He gathers the whole Christian Church on earth, although He does so resistibly, through His means of grace, that is, through His Word in all its forms, including the Sacraments.
In the Third Reading, Jesus told the Pharisees that He would continue casting out demons and performing cures day by day, and still today Jesus continues to do those very things in and for the benefit of His Church, through His means of grace. If the preaching of God’s Word has not already converted us, we are made God’s children with water and the Word in Holy Baptism, given salvation at the Baptismal Font. Instead of God removing Himself from us, in Holy Absolution He removes our sins from us. And, in Holy Communion, we hail Him as “Blessed” as He comes to us “in the Name of the Lord” in bread that is His body and wine that is His blood. We repent in time and are not ex-cluded but are in-cluded in the feast of the Kingdom of God: we are forgiven of our perverse wills and all our sins and are thereby saved.
Now, if for some reason some people despise God’s means of grace and the community of God, if they do not receive the Sacraments and absent themselves from the Divine Service, such people cannot be saved. Such people will be forsaken, as the city and people of Jerusalem who did not repent were forsaken. For, they in effect reject the very means by which God would save them. God alone brings to faith those who are saved, human beings alone reject such saving faith, and, beyond those two statements, why some are saved and others are lost remains a mystery in this life, a part of God that He does not reveal to us. However, we who live every day in repentance need not fear that we are lost, but we confidently look to God’s Word and Sacraments and know that He saves us. Though in this lifetime we continue to sin, “Jesus’s Willing” ultimately becomes “Our Willing”, as part of the transformation St. Paul described in today’s Second Reading (Philippians 3:17-4:1).
Parents or not, we can and do feel great, earnest love for others in our lives. In some cases, we may not be able to express that love, or they may be unwilling to hear about it. Our Lord’s loving will to save us, however, is expressed, and He enables us to be willing to hear and receive it. Though His call to faith is resistible now, His final call from the grave on the Last Day will not be resistible. We who repent look forward to that Day, for then we will fully experience the eternal life that is already ours now. In fact, we pray for that day, right now, as we will do again in the final stanza of our Closing Hymn:
O Jesus Christ, do not delay, / But hasten our salvation;
We often tremble on our way / In fear and tribulation.
Oh, hear and grant our fervent plea;
Come, Mighty Judge, and set us free / From death and ev’ry evil.
(Lutheran Worship, 462:4)
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +