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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.
Tonight as we continued hearing St.Matthew’s Divinely-inspired account of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, we heard the second of St. Matthew’s seven unique contributions to our Lord’s Passion for us, when Jesus, moments after His arrest, essentially said that “Neither swords nor angels will prevent Scripture’s fulfillment”. Tonight we consider the circumstances of that statement and what it means for us.
Despite St. Matthew’s Gospel account’s certainly standing on its own, in the case of this unique contribution of St. Matthew’s, we arrive at a fuller and clearer understanding from examining and comparing something uniquely found in St. Luke’s Gospel account (Luke 22:35‑38; confer Catholic Online). Before heading out to the Garden of Gethsemane, where we so clearly see our Redeemer’s conflict (Lutheran Service Book 436:1), Jesus had warned His disciples about how the circumstances regarding their ministry in His Name was going to change, and, in that warning, Jesus spoke of the disciples’ need to buy swords, and Jesus seems to have further connected their buying swords with His fulfilling a prophecy of Isaiah that numbered Jesus among the transgressors (Isaiah 53:12), or, we might say, the “lawless” (ESL #459). At that point, the disciples said that they had two swords, and Jesus said it was enough.
Fast-forward to Jesus’s arrest, when Peter drew his sword to strike and cut off the right ear of the servant of the high priest named Malchus, but Jesus commanded Peter to put his sword into its sheath, commanded the disciples to permit the arrest, and healed Malchus’s ear, some of which we know from the parallel accounts (John 18:10; Luke 22:51; confer Mark 14:47). Listen again to what St. Matthew uniquely reports that Jesus said next:
“For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. 53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once send Me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (ESV; confer Genesis 9:6; Revelation 13:10)
Jesus did not direct the opposition to His arrest, but, in fact, He stopped the opposition to His arrest (Brown, A Crucified Christ, 37). Moreover, Jesus did not need the disciples to intervene, for He could have appealed to His Father (Psalm 91:11-12; Matthew 4:6-7), Who would at once have sent Jesus more than twelve legions ofangels, four to six thousand angels for each of the disciples, so more than 72‑thousand or countless angels. But, Jesus’s Kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36) and, like the sword, the angels’ intervention would have kept Scripture that it must be so from being fulfilled.
No doubt we can relate to Peter and the other disciples who in this case might have felt that they had to take matters into their own hands. Maybe they acted out of misguided love and devotion to their Lord, or maybe they acted out of fear and worry. Either way, they sinned, as do we. Our misguided love and devotion can lead us to take either action that we have not been commanded to take and should not take or action that brings about consequences that we might not have anticipated. Our fear and worry ultimately flows from a lack of trust that God will work through the actions that He has commanded us to take and will bring about the results that He knows will follow and wants for us. For all our failures to think, speak, and act as we should, as for our sinful natures themselves, we deserve both death in time and torment in hell for eternity. But, God calls us to repent of our sin and so receive the forgiveness of sins Jesus earned for us.
More than fulfilling only a prophecy of Zechariah about God’s striking the Shepherd and the sheep’s fleeing (Zechariah 13:7; Matthew 26:31), Jesus is surely concerned about fulfilling all the Scriptures that speak of the Divine necessity of His going to Jerusalem, and suffering many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and being killed, and on the third day being raised (Matthew 16:21; Luke 24:26-27), all for our benefit. Although the God-man Jesus had in some sense “evaded” arrest miraculously at other times (for example, John 8:59 and 10:39; confer Brown, A Crucified Christ, 37-38), His hour had come. Jesus willingly, as it were, in our place, drank the cup of His Father’s righteous wrath against us. Regarded as worse than a murdering insurrectionist (Mark 15:7), Jesus died on the cross the death that we deserved. When, enabled by God, we repent of our sin, then God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake. God forgives our sin of taking matters into our own hands and all of other sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sin through His Word and Sacraments.
God’s Word is applied to us together in groups such as this that hear His Word read and preached, and God’s Gospel is applied to us individually as we are baptized, absolved, and communed. The Word with the water of Holy Baptism brings us into His Kingdom, and the Word with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution and with bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and with wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us in the Sacrament of the Altar keep us in His Kingdom. In these ways God forgives our sin and strengthens our faith so that our love and devotion is not misguided and so that we do not need to worry or fear but trust that God will work through the actions that He has commanded us to take and will bring about the results that He knows will follow and wants for us. In the end, those good works are not ours but those God works through us (1 Corinthians 15:10). As St. Ambrose of Milan is translated as writing in one of our hymnal’s Evening hymns, the Triune God’s light is the glory of our pilgrimage (LSB 890:2).
A Vietnam veteran today was telling me how when he returned from his time of service that he stayed away from the Lord’s Supper because he felt that he had sinned by killing people as a soldier and apparently thought that he could not be forgiven, not recognizing that forgiveness was precisely why he should have received the Lord’s Supper. The vet’s pastor eventually helped him understand that soldiers following legitimate orders were not sinning but were part of the governing authorities’ bearing the sword entrusted to them by God (Romans 13:1-7). To be sure, in tonight’s Reading Jesus’s statement about those taking the sword’s perishing by the sword is not saying that there is no place for using military and political means, even to serve religious ends, but governing authorities should do so only with God’s clear command. And, we ourselves should act in keeping with our callings in life, when and where we can, giving God actions that He can and will bless, as He promises to do.
Tonight we have considered the circumstances and meaning of the second of St. Matthew’s seven unique contributions to our Lord’s Passion for us, when Jesus, moments after His arrest, essentially said that “Neither swords nor angels will prevent Scripture’s fulfillment”. Rather than the legions of angels’ preventing Scripture’s fulfillment, tonight’s Office Hymn, drawing on tonight’s Reading, describes legions of angels’ helping us (LSB 521:6; confer LSB: CttH, p.438). I was reminded of when Elisha’s servant was afraid after the city they were in was surrounded by an enemy’s great army, including horses and chariots. Elisha tried to assure his fearful servant that those who were with them were more than those who were with their enemies, and, in answer to Elisha’s prayer, the Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and so he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:8-23.) So also with us: we do not need to be afraid or take matters into our own hands. God’s angels do not prevent but help His Scripture regarding us to be fulfilled.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen. + + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +