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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.
Happy Father’s Day to every father and also to all those who have “fathered” anyone in any way! This year our secular Father’s Day coincides with the Church’s Third Sunday after Pentecost, the appointed Gospel Reading for which includes Jesus’s speaking about such things as fathers’ delivering over their children to death and children’s rising against parents and having them put to death. This continuation from last week’s Gospel Reading from Jesus’s so‑called “Second Discourse” recorded by the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew also continues next week, when we will hear even more of Jesus’s teaching about division in families that results from His coming (Matthew 10:34‑37). Happy Father’s Day, indeed!
But, there is good news even in this week’s Gospel Reading, including God’s saving the one who endures such division and persecution to the end, God’s intimately knowing and putting value on us, Jesus’s acknowledging (or, better, “confessing”) before His Father in heaven those who acknowledge (or, “confess”) Him before people, and so our not needing to fear those who malign or otherwise persecute us, or, really, our not needing to fear anyone, other than God, or even anything, including any “pestilence” (or, “plague”), as mentioned in today’s Psalm (Psalm 91; antiphon: v.1). Today’s Gospel Reading draws from what are said to be two different parts of Jesus’s “Second Discourse” in Matthew, one part perhaps is more applicable to pastors and the other part perhaps is more applicable to pastors’ hearers, but I think we all to some extent can apply today’s Gospel Reading to ourselves and together safely consider it under the theme “Wrong Fear and Right Fear”.
In just six verses of today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus four times commands His hearers either not to fear or to fear. Considering the original Greek verb tenses and their usual meanings, we might say that Jesus says: not to begin fearing those who malign those of His household, to stop fearing those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, to continue fearing Him Who can destroy soul and body in hell, and to stop fearing, probably in some general sense, because the hairs of your head are all numbered and you are of more value than many sparrows, whose fall to the ground does not happen apart from the foreknowledge and at least the permissive will of God. So, in general we might say both that wrong fear is fear of any human being or anything other than eternal torment in hell, and that right fear is fear of God.
How well do you and I do with not fearing who and what we should not fear and fearing Him Whom we should fear? For example, are we fearing what the pandemic coronavirus still might do to those we love or to us ourselves, even though only temporal life is at risk? Are we fearing the ongoing economic and other impacts of both months of coronavirus lockdowns and the more‑recent racial unrest? Are we afraid of the persecution that comes with being a Christian, even though the truth will be revealed and known in the end? Are we afraid that God does not know or in some sense control what happens to us? Are we terrified enough of God’s eternal punishment in hell to not disobey His Commandments? Do we revere God enough to seek His forgiveness for our sins in all the ways that He gives for us to receive His forgiveness?
When we are honest with ourselves, we must confess both that we do fear who and what we should not fear and that we do not fear Him Whom we should fear. From these and all of our sins—for which, today’s Epistle Reading reminded us (Romans 6:12-23), the wages is temporal and eternal death—God calls us to repent—to turn in sorrow from our sins, to trust God to forgive our sins, and to want do better than to keep sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us, and by His forgiveness we through faith receive God’s free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Before the apostles had gone through all the towns of Israel, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, came, with His death on the cross and with His resurrection from the grave, for us and for our salvation. Although prior to today’s Gospel Reading Jesus is said to have not yet spoken about His suffering in St. Matthew’s Gospel account, Jesus’s suffering is arguably implicit in the Gospel Reading when He speaks about His followers’ being like Him in being persecuted. Jesus was maligned by the Jewish leaders, delivered over by one of His apparent “brothers” in the faith, and put to death by Roman soldiers, but all of that happened because God loved the world, including you and me, and because He was working to save the world from the eternal destruction of soul and body in hell that we otherwise deserved. So, Jesus suffered and died for us, in our place. God the Father reveals Jesus to us, so that we can both confess Jesus, as Simon Peter once did (Matthew 16:16-17), and be forgiven when we deny Jesus and then repent, as Peter did (Matthew 26:69-75). And, we are forgiven as we in faith receive God’s Means of Grace.
For most of us, Holy Baptism is where we first confess Jesus, have God’s Name put upon us, know that we are forgiven, and become members of God’s “household”. The water and the Word work forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and give eternal salvation to all who believe the words and promises of God. When particular sins trouble us, we can confess them privately to our pastor for the sake of individual Holy Absolution, forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself. The pastor’s hand on only your head and the words effecting God’s forgiveness spoken only to you provide great comfort! And, we receive God’s food for the way through this life in the Sacrament of the Altar, where bread is the Body of Christ given for us, and wine is the Blood of Christ shed for us, together giving us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen and preserve us in body and soul to life everlasting.
Getting to that life everlasting entails enduring present and future suffering and persecution—division, betrayal, and risk of death not only from those within our own families but also from all people, who, Jesus says, will hate us for His Name’s sake. But, the one who endures to the end, Jesus also says, will be saved. If we persevere, we do so only through God’s gracious preservation, while those who do not persevere fail through their own fault (Pieper, III:89). Us, who confess Jesus before other people—speaking and doing what we are given to say and do—Jesus confesses before His Father Who is in heaven. So, we do not fear those whom and what we should not fear, and we do fear Him Whom we should fear. With “fearful reverence and humble submission” (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 10:28, p.206 n.30) we endure what God in His wisdom, with His foreknowledge and at least permissive will, permits us to face. We do not seek out suffering or persecution, but we expect it to come, and when it does come, we recognize that it can be a sign of our faithfulness. Ultimately, the suffering and persecution does not last long; certainly, for those who repent and believe, it does not last forever. Like Jeremiah in today’s Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 20:7-13), we cannot hold in the Word of God, and we are confident of both the Lord’s final vengeance upon our persecutors and His deliverance of us.
This day of our secular Father’s Day and the Church’s Third Sunday after Pentecost, even a Gospel Reading that speaks of strife and threats between fathers and children has brought us good news, as we have considered “Wrong Fear and Right Fear”. We who live in that “Right Fear” with daily repentance and faith are sure that our Heavenly Father will, in the words of today’s Psalm, satisfy us with long life and show us His salvation.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +