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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.
A national survey, the full results of which will be released later this week, suggests that only 56-percent of Americans, not even three out of five, strongly or at all agree that hell is a real place where certain people will be punished forever. Analysis suggests that people are less-likely to agree that hell is a real place where certain people will be punished forever if they live in the Northeast and West, or have a college degree, or have annual household income of more than 50‑thousand dollars, or do not attend a religious service once or twice a month. (State of Theology.) That hell is a real place where certain people will be punished forever certainly is what the Bible teaches, for example, as we heard, in today’s Gospel Reading, with its mentions of both “the eternal fire” and “the hell of fire” (confer Stephenson, CLD XIII:114). Yet, today’s Gospel Reading more‑often mentions earth, and today’s Gospel Reading most-often mentions heaven. This morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under that three-fold theme, “Hell, Earth, and Heaven”.
To some extent, the Gospel Reading’s mentions of “Hell, Earth, and Heaven” are distributed throughout the Gospel Reading. And, while the Gospel Reading at first may seem to be a collection of disconnected sayings of Jesus, the sayings can be said to have a common theme—namely, how members of the Kingdom of Heaven that is the Church act toward one another—and the collection of sayings of Jesus together expresses well God’s desire that we not go to hell as we deserve but live on earth in such a way that we end up in heaven.
As we heard at the beginning of the Gospel Reading, the disciples came to Jesus asking who the greatest was in the Kingdom of Heaven. The disciples may have misperceived what Jesus did in the immediately preceding verses, miraculously providing payment of the two‑drachma tax for Himself and Peter, in order to not give offense to the tax’s collectors, even though Jesus seems to indicate that He and Peter did not have to pay the tax (Matthew 17:24-27). Jesus’s answer to the disciples’ question about who the greatest was in the Kingdom of Heaven was that the disciples would never even enter the Kingdom of Heaven, unless they were turned and became like little children, humbling themselves like the literal little child whom Jesus put in their midst. And, Jesus said, the disciples needed to receive (or, perhaps better, “welcome”) in Jesus’s Name all such who so believed in Him, not causing them to sin or despising them, but searching (or, “seeking”) them out and taking steps, including binding their sins and so cutting them off from the Church, if necessary, in order to gain them back for the Kingdom of Heaven.
How do we act toward one another in the Kingdom of God that is the Church in this place? Do we think of ourselves as the greatest? Do we humble ourselves like the little children that Jesus puts in our midst? Do we welcome in Jesus’s Name all those who believe in Him? Or, do we cause them to sin (and maybe even to fall from faith)? Do we despise them? Do we seek them out as we should and take steps, including binding their sins and so cutting them off from the Church, if necessary, in order to gain them back for the Kingdom of Heaven? Too often we, like the disciples, fail to act toward one another in the Kingdom of God the way that we should. We sin in those ways, and we sin in countless other ways, for we are sinful by nature. On account of our sinful nature and all of our sin, we deserve to be thrown into the eternal hell of fire, to not even enter the Kingdom of Heaven, unless we are turned and become like little children, who need help and receive that help (Behm, TDNT 4:1003), openly and confidently (Grundmann, TDNT 4:533). When we are so turned, then God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin, whatever our sin might be, for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ.
As we heard Jesus say in the Gospel Reading, it is not the will of His Father Who is in Heaven that one such little one should perish. Or, put another way, God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). In verses before today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus again foretold His betrayal, death, and resurrection (Matthew 17:22-23), which betrayal, death, and resurrection, as we heard in last week’s Gospel Reading, were Divinely necessary in order to accomplish God’s saving will (Matthew 16:21-28). So, out of God’s great love, the God-man Jesus Christ took our sins to the cross, there He suffered the pains of hell for us, and there He died in our place, the death that we deserved. There is the help that we need, and God Himself turns us and enables us both to recognize our need for that help and, if we do not refuse Him but believe in and trust Him, to receive that help, through His Means of Grace.
Today’s Gospel Reading again makes clear that God’s Means of Grace operate on earth with results also in heaven, either to bind our sins and effectively cast us into hell, or to loose our sins and effectively allow us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. For most of us Holy Baptism is where we first were forgiven as we were welcomed into the Church in the one Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). At the Font we are born from above by water and the Spirit and so enabled not only to see but also to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (John 3:3, 5). Once so in the Kingdom of Heaven, we privately confess to our pastor the sins that we know and feel in our hearts for the sake of individual Absolution, two agreeing about a matter and two gathered in that same Triune Name, with Christ Himself present in their midst (confer Smalcald Articles III:iv). But, despisers of the Sacraments (Apology of the Augsburg Confession XI:4) and those who do not repent when they are shown not only their gross and manifest sins but even their subtle and secret sins (Smalcald Articles III:vii:1)—those despisers and impenitent are cut off from the communion of Christ’s Body and Blood in the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar (confer 1 Corinthians 5:4), while those who are instructed, examined, and absolved (for example, Apology of the Augsburg Concession, XV:40) are admitted to the altar and there receive Christ’s Body and Blood and so also there receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
We might say that right now, we on earth are, in a sense, between hell and heaven. Through faith in Jesus, we have been rescued from hell, and so we at least have begun to receive heaven, but, if we turn away, we can still be cast into hell and so be kept from heaven. That possibility is why Jesus speaks so seriously about our avoiding temptations to sin, the people and things that cause offense, give occasion to sin and even to fall from faith. For example, we might avoid people whom we know tempt us to sin, and, when we can, we do not go to places where we know we will be tempted to sin. Similarly, we do not watch movies or shows in theaters, on television, or on our computers, tablets, or phones, that we know will stir up sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. Our redeemed nature tries to put our sinful nature to death with daily contrition and repentance (Small Catechism IV:12), but we are not surprised when we nevertheless still sin, and, with that same daily contrition and repentance, we live both in the forgiveness of sins that we receive from God and in the forgiveness of sins that we receive from and extend to one another.
That survey, the full results of which will be released later this week, found, perhaps not all that surprisingly, that Americans who are more‑likely to agree that hell is a real place where certain people will be punished forever are those people who, among other things, reported strongly agreeing that the Bible is the highest authority for what they believe (92% to 47%). More important than the Bible’s authoritative teaching about hell, of course, is the Bible’s operating as the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes on earth, by teaching about Jesus Christ as the only way to heaven. This morning we have considered today’s Gospel Reading under the three-part theme of “Hell, Earth, and Heaven”. By God’s grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, we avoid hell in our lives on earth as we wait for our lives’ fullness in heaven.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +