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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.
Depending on what team or teams you and I are fans of, we may have had more or less reason to rejoice over the outcomes of yesterday’s football games. (As a fan of both the Illinois State Redbirds and the University of Texas Longhorns, I certainly rejoiced over their victories, and I would have had reason to rejoice regardless of the outcome of the Arkansas and T‑C‑U game.) Even if you do not follow college football, you certainly rejoice in other circumstances, perhaps even over finding something that you had previously lost (such as cell‑phones, keys, and the like). In the ten verses of today’s Gospel Reading, our Lord Jesus mentions both “lost” and “found” five times each, and He also mentions rejoicing and joy a total of five times. All of that repetition drives home the main point that there is joy in heaven before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. So, this morning we reflect on today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “Joy over Repentance”.
At the end of last week’s Gospel Reading (Luke 14:25-35), about the costs and benefits of discipleship, Jesus called those who have ears to hear to hear. And today’s Gospel Reading picks up St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired account right after that, with the tax collectors and sinners all drawing near to hear Jesus, and with the Pharisees and scribes grumbling, grumbling continuously, grumbling through their whole company, perhaps even grumbling everywhere Jesus went on His continuing journey to Jerusalem. So, Jesus told them—and tells us—essentially three parables about joy over finding something that had been lost: a sheep, a coin, and a son (we heard that third parable in Lent).
We may identify with the Pharisees and scribes grumbling over Jesus’s receiving the tax collectors and sinners and eating with them, perhaps even thinking about the Internal Revenue Service and those whom we might consider to be particularly notorious sinners. In Jesus’s day, not only the Jews but also those of other nations detested the tax collectors “both on account of their employment and of the harshness, greed, and deception, with which they did their job” (ESL #5057); the tax collectors were considered to have alienated themselves from God in a special way by their profession (Michel, TDNT 8:103-105). As in today’s Gospel Reading, the tax collectors often are associated with “sinners”, usually those who did not belong to the community of the Israelites, such as Jews who were excommunicated and Gentiles in general (Michel, TDNT 8:103-105). Such sinners may have fallen into the guilt of a particularly heinous sin, but the Pharisees thought of anyone who did not agree with their interpretation as “sinners”, including Jesus and His disciples (Rengstorf, TDNT 1:328, 329). To some extent, Jesus may have appreciated at least the Pharisees’ distinction between the outward life of the Pharisees and scribes compared to the tax collectors and sinners, but Jesus rejected their hypocrisy of only a righteous appearance, their false confidence in their own piety, and their contempt for others; Jesus called the Pharisees and scribes and everyone else both to repent and to rejoice with Him over every single sinner who repents (Schrenk, TDNT 2:189‑190).
God’s call to repent and to rejoice with Him over every single sinner who repents extends also to you and to me. We may share the Pharisees and scribes hypocrisy, false confidence, and contempt for others, and we certainly sin in other ways. For, by nature, our whole lives are “fundamentally and perpetually” opposed to God (Michel, TDNT 8:103-105). With St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Timothy 1:12-17), we can think of ourselves as the “foremost” (or “chief” of sinners. We “have need” of repentance: turning in sorrow from our sin, trusting God to forgive our sin, and wanting to do better than to keep on sinning (Solid Declaration V:7; Pieper II:502). As with today’s Psalm (Psalm 119:169-176, antiphon: v.176), we confess that we have gone astray like a lost sheep, and we pray the Lord to seek us.
While the two parables we heard in today’s Gospel Reading and the third that follows in Luke 15 seem to be told primarily as law to show the Pharisees and scribes and all of us our sin, we also can find in the parables the Gospel of God’s forgiveness of sin by grace through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Especially the two parables we heard today exemplify God’s care and concern for us sinners, the great lengths He will go to in order to bring about our repentance—our repentance itself is a miracle that God accomplishes in us (Michel, TDNT 8:103-105), as was the conversion of St. Paul mentioned in today’s Epistle Reading. The lost sheep and the lost coin do not make themselves found, but the man and the woman in the parable carefully search for them until they find them. Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, not only seeks us, but on the cross He laid down His life for us and then took it back up again (John 10:11, 17-18). Indeed, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man, came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). As we, like the tax collectors and sinners, come to God’s house confessing our sin and seeking mercy, we go home justified (Luke 18:9-14), forgiven of our sinful natures and actual sins, whatever they might be. For, here in God’s house, Jesus receives us sinners—He graciously gives us access to Himself, receiving us into His companionship (ESL #4327; Grundmann, TDNT 2:57 with n.2)—and, here in God’s house, Jesus eats with us.
We rightly think especially of the Sacrament of the Altar, where Jesus is really, physically present with His Body in bread and His Blood in wine, to give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The joy of finding that which is lost, over sinners who repent, is “shared at a meal in fellowship around a table” (Just, ad loc Lk 15:4-10, 589), in this case, where heaven and earth come together with the whole company of heaven, which sees God rejoice and shares in His joy (Arndt, ad loc Lk 15:10, 348). Yet, God also receives sinners through the preaching of His Word, in Holy Baptism, and in individual Holy Absolution. In all of these ways, God, in the words of today’s Old Testament Reading (Ezekiel 34:11-24), searches for us, seeks us out, rescues us, brings us and gathers us, feeds us, binds us up, and strengthens us.
God is pleased when we use His Means of Grace not because we are following His commandments that are necessary for our salvation, but because through His Means of Grace He brings about our repentance and so our salvation (see Scaer, CLD VIII:131). Through His Word and Sacraments, God seeks and finds the lost, and His Church does likewise (Lenski, ad loc Lk 15:3, 794-796). With daily sorrow over our sin and faith in God’s forgiveness, we live as His forgiven children, and, in turn, we forgive others, invite them here (like the man and the woman in the Gospel Reading invited their friends and neighbors), and we rejoice both with God and with them over every single sinner who repents. Notably in today’s Gospel Reading the focus is not on the number of people who repent but on the “Joy over Repentance”.
Here and now we may have temporary joy over football victories, finding lost possessions, and the like, but as forgiven sinners we have permanent “Joy over Repentance”, our own repentance and that of others. As we sang in today’s Psalm, our cry and plea for the Lord to seek us lost sheep come before the Lord; He seeks and finds us, and our lips pour forth His praise, our tongues sing of His Word, now and for eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +