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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. (Amen.)
Think of how much you and I might rejoice when we find something important to us that we previously had lost: maybe our car keys, our cell phone, or even a family member or friend. Surely much greater is our God’s joy when someone lost to Him is found. In today’s Gospel Reading, we heard both of a man’s joy over finding a lost sheep and of a woman’s joy over finding a lost coin, joy that in both cases was shared by their friends and neighbors, likely in a festal meal. Both of those “parables”, as it were, illustrate what is God’s and His angels’ joy over sinners who repent and should be His Church’s joy over sinners who repent. So, this morning we consider primarily today’s Gospel Reading, and we do so under the theme “Joy over sinners who repent”.
At the beginning of today’s Gospel Reading, the Divinely-inspired evangelist St. Luke makes clear that the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near in order to hear Jesus and that the Pharisees and scribes, apparently standing back, were grumbling that Jesus was receiving sinners and eating with them. The Jewish leaders’ grumbling and judging contrasts sharply with Jesus’s joy and acceptance. The Jewish leaders detested the tax collectors and notorious sinners and likely had kept them out of their fellowship, but, in the third related “parable” that Jesus tells—the so-called “Parable of the Prodigal Son”, which was not included in today’s Gospel Reading, but which we heard back on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, in that parable—Jesus seems to suggest the Jewish leaders would end up outside of God’s fellowship, if they continued to reject His call to repent.
Apart from our being called and so enabled to repent, you and I are also outside of God’s fellowship, because of our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, and so we deserve both temporal death and eternal damnation. But, the antiphon of today’s Psalm (Psalm 119:169-176; antiphon: v.176) had us confess that we have gone astray like a lost sheep—which lost sheep apart from its shepherd and pasture inevitably will be destroyed—and the antiphon also had us plead for God to seek us. Seek us lost sheep is exactly what, in today’s Old Testament Reading (Ezekiel 34:11-24), through the prophet Ezekiel, God promised to do, and seek us lost sheep is what God Himself does. Whether through His Son, as in today’s Gospel Reading, or through those whom He sends, God seeks the lost, calling them to repent. The Jewish leaders apparently wrongly thought that they were righteous and did not need to repent (confer Matthew 9:12-13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:29‑32), but their hypocritical self-confidence and their contempt of others demonstrated that they were not righteous (Schrenk, TDNT 2:189-190), as our hypocritical self‑confidence and contempt of others can demonstrate that we are not righteous.
Whatever Jesus might mean in the Gospel Reading when He speaks about “ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (see also Matthew 18:13), Holy Scripture makes clear elsewhere that no one living is righteous before God, not one (confer Romans 3:10, apparently citing Psalm 14:1-3; 53:2-4; confer Psalm 143:2). By nature, all of our lives are as the Jewish leaders thought of the lives of those whom they considered sinners: that is, “fundamentally and perpetually in contradiction to God’s demand” (Michel, TDNT 8:104). As with St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Timothy 1:5-17), God’s law helps us realize that each of us is, as it were, the foremost or “chief” of sinners (KJV, ASV). The key is repentance. When someone does not repent of his or her sin (or is not even willing to sit down and talk about it), the Church declares and effects judgment and does not acquiesce in the sin and so pollute itself (Luther, ad loc Genesis 19:2, AE 3:240), but, when someone does repent of his or her sin, the Church declares and effects forgiveness and shares with God and the angels the “Joy over sinners who repent”.
That forgiveness and joy is possible because, as God promised in the Old Testament Reading not only to seek but also to rescue His sheep, so Jesus came not only to seek but also to save the lost (Luke 19:10). All we like sheep have gone astray, God says through Isaiah; we have turned—every one—to his or her own way, and the Lord has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). God in human flesh, Jesus is the Good Shepherd, Who on the cross laid down His life for the sheep, as He said that He would, and then took His life back up again (John 10:11, 15, 17‑18). Out of the great compassion of God, Jesus tenderly and diligently searches for each and every single lost sinner, for we cannot find ourselves or of ourselves repent. When enabled by God we are sorry for our sins, trust God to forgive our sins for Jesus’s sake, and want to stop sinning, then God forgives us: our sinful nature and all our actual sin, whatever our sin might be. We are truly righteous by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
“This man receives sinners and eats with them”, the Jewish leaders mocked Jesus, but their words in our mouths are a hymn of praise, “Jesus Sinners Doth Receive” (Lutheran Service Book 609; confer Kretzmann, ad loc Luke 15:1-2, p.348). God receives us sinners into His gracious fellowship and eats with us at a joyous festal meal. Most of us probably were first officially welcomed into the Church in the waters of Holy Baptism, which forgives sin, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe the words and promises of God about Holy Baptism. Unlike the tax collectors and other people who were baptized, the Jewish leaders rejected the purpose of God for themselves (Luke 7:29-30), and so they rejected baptism and the other ways that Jesus saves sinners, such as Jesus’s eating with sinners. Here at this Altar and its Rail, we have table fellowship with Jesus, Who is present with His Body and Blood in the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar, and Who so gives us forgiveness, life, and salvation. Here we also have fellowship with one another and share with one another God and the angels’ “Joy over sinners who repent”.
Although perhaps a little bit off of today’s Gospel Reading’s main point about not grumbling but “Joy over sinners who repent”, we may take note of the rejoicing shepherd’s laying his found sheep on his shoulders. Much is often made of this image of the shepherd carrying a sheep on his shoulders (for example, Kretzmann, ad loc Luke 15:3-7, p.349), which image seems to be found in Holy Scripture only here in today’s Gospel Reading (compare Isaiah 40:11; 49:22). Lost sheep are said to be “huddled and incapable of movement” and to “lie down helplessly and refuse to budge” (Just, ad loc Luke 15:4-10, p.589 with n.14). So, again perhaps notably, the rejoicing shepherd does not beat the exhausted sheep in order to compel it to walk, but he carries it (Arndt, ad loc Luke 15:5, p.347). To be sure, the Lord our Good Shepherd carries us through all that He permits us to face, not only seeking and rescuing us, but also both binding up the injured and strengthening the weak.
We may not make a big deal over—calling together our friends and neighbors to rejoice with us over—our finding something important to us that we previously had lost: car keys, cell phone, or family member or friend. But, our Lord makes a big deal over His finding us sinners who repent. And, we in His Church share with one another God and the angels’ “Joy over sinners who repent”. With daily repentance, we live both in the forgiveness of sins that we receive from God and in the forgiveness of sins that we in turn extend to and receive from one another. We rejoice already now, but, when we eternally partake in the marriage feast of the Lamb, all the more will we rejoice and exult and give Him the glory (Revelation 19:7).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +