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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.
Some of you are aware that for a number of weeks now I have been attending the Kilgore Police Department’s “Clergy and Police Alliance Academy”, which is intended to educate clergy in the community about such things as K‑P‑D’s policies and procedures and so ultimately to improve relationships in the community. Not surprisingly, we have spent a good bit of time learning about the law, such as this past Thursday night’s session on the Driving While Intoxicated law, which the officer who presented seemed to have made the primary focus of his enforcement when he was on patrol. We probably should expect such an emphasis on the law from police officers, but we hopefully do not find such an emphasis on the law among “church” officials. Yet, in today’s Gospel Reading, that is exactly what we do find, as one of the Pharisees asks Jesus about the greatest commandment in the Law, followed by Jesus’s teaching about the Christ as David’s son and Lord. This morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “Commandments and the Christ”.
In today’s Gospel Reading, the Pharisees are picking up where their disciples and the Herodians in last week’s Gospel Reading, and the Sadducees in the meantime, left off: in bad faith testing Jesus with a question, ultimately seeking to arrest Him (Matthew 21:46). Jesus answered the question with two great commandments at the center of the Law and the Prophets, and Jesus went on to silence them with a question of His own about the interpretation of another Divinely‑inspired Old Testament writing, Psalm 110, with which the Pharisees should have been familiar, from, if nothing else, the worship life of the church.
The Pharisees counted 613 individual commandments in the Law: 248 enjoining things to be done and 365 prohibiting things not to be done. Some commandments were lesser and others greater; some commandments were lighter and others weightier. Yet, the Pharisees apparently thought that they could keep all of the commandments, seemingly underestimating their sinful natures and the fact that they were cursed for failing to keep the Law in even the slightest regard (Deuteronomy 27:26; Galatians 3:10). In today’s Old Testament Reading (Leviticus 19:1-2, 15‑18), we heard God say that people are to be holy as He is holy, a statement essentially repeated by Jesus when He said His followers were to be perfect, as their heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
You and I likely realize how imperfect we are! We do not need 613 individual commandments; we have enough trouble with ten commandments, or even the two great commandments that Jesus gives that summarize the ten and the 613. We fail to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind, and so we also fail to love our neighbors as ourselves. In fact, we may not even love ourselves! Like the Pharisees, we are sinful by nature and cursed for failing to keep the Law in even the slightest regard. On our own apart from the Holy Spirit, we not only fail to keep the commandments with our mind and the rest of our beings, but we also are incapable of thinking rightly or understanding about the Christ.
But, the Holy Spirit does not leave us on our own. God enables us to turn in sorrow from our sin, trust Him to forgive our sin, and want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our not loving Him with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind, and God forgives our not loving our neighbors as ourselves. God forgives our sinful natures, our sins against the Ten Commandments, the 613 commandments, or whatever other commandments there might be. God forgives us completely, for the sake of His Son, Jesus, the Christ.
Jesus’s Jewish opponents at least pretended to recognize Him as a teacher (confer Matthew 22:16), but what they at least were not willing to grant, if they even understood it at all, is that Jesus is the Christ, David’s son and Lord. The Pharisees may have been focused on the Law, but Jesus is focused on the Gospel. King David’s words in Psalm 110 show that the Christ—the Messiah, God’s anointed Savior—is not only a human descendant of David but is also the Divine Offspring of God the Father, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. We would not understand it either, if the Holy Spirit did not work through Holy Scripture so to reveal Jesus to us! Jesus’s Jewish opponents eventually found their excuse to arrest Him and to crucify Him. There on the cross we see the greatest love of God and neighbor: God’s love for us in giving His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). In this is love, St. John writes: that God loved us and sent His Son to be the sacrifice for our sin (1 John 4:10). Jesus the Christ perfectly kept the commandments and made up for our failure to keep them! Humbled in death, He was exalted in His resurrection and ascension (Philippians 2:8-9). Now, as we sang in the Introit (Psalm 9:1-2, 9-10; antiphon Psalm 9:18) those who know His Name put their trust in Him, and He does not forsake those who seek Him.
We seek God in the same ways that He reveals Himself to us and gives us His forgiveness: in His Word in all its forms, including the Sacraments of Baptism, Absolution, and Communion. Through God’ s Word read and preached, applied with water, spoken with the pastor’s hand on our head, and combined with bread and wine, God calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies us so that we rightly know Who the Christ is, what He has done for us, and how He comes to us. If we rightly know Christ as the center of Holy Scripture, this is where we are (Beckwith, CLD III:183)! And, as we who are baptized and absolved gather around Christ’s Body and Blood, we are truly blessed with the forgiveness of sins, and so also with life and salvation.
Recently I took delivery of a long-overdue Christmas and birthday present: a new recliner and footstool for my home. Having the footstool properly angled under my feet makes the chair that much more relaxing. There is a different kind of “footstool” in view in today’s Gospel Reading but one that should be all the more relaxing for us! In keeping with the inter‑Trinitarian dialogue to which the inspired David gives us a listen, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father, waiting until the Father puts all Jesus’s enemies under His feet, submitted and destroyed in defeat, as promised in the Garden (Genesis 3:15). Then, when that happens, we will be completely free from the torments of the devil! Of course, our victory over them in Christ is assured already now. And, already now, from God’s perspective, Jesus’s work of perfecting us is done, even though we see ourselves as still being sanctified. (See Ps 110:1; Hebrews 1:13; 2:8; 10:12-13; 1 Corinthians 15:25, 27.) With God at work in us, we love Him with our whole beings, we love ourselves appropriately, and we love our neighbors as ourselves. We not only keep those two great commandments but also the ten they summarize. In short, as today’s Epistle Reading describes (1 Thessalonians 2:1-13), we walk in a manner worthy of God, Who calls us into His own kingdom and glory. Or, as the Hymn of the Day put it, we walk as children of the Light (Lutheran Service Book 411).
Police officers and even some “church” officials may focus on the law, but, thanks be to God, Jesus focuses Himself and us on the Gospel. We have realized that the Christ kept the commandments for us and made up for our failure to keep them. As we live each day with sorrow over our sin and trust that God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake, God forgives us our sins and grants us eternal life—our possession already now but enjoyed fully beginning on the Last Day.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +