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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.)
As if the temperatures so far this summer have not been hot enough, at least one forecast now has predicted a high temperature of 104-degrees Fahrenheit here for each of the next five days! Elsewhere, Phoenix, Arizona, has had 30 days of more than 110 degrees! But, if you think even that streak is hot, how about the figurative, if not literal, temperature of hell for eternity? Today’s Gospel Reading, like last Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43), again includes our Lord’s speaking of the unrighteous being thrown into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That eternal fire, Jesus says elsewhere, has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41), and God does not want any human being to go there but to be saved from such eternal punishment that we all deserve on account of our sins (1 Timothy 2:4). In fact, God has gone to great lengths to save you from the hell that you deserve: God decided that “You were ‘to die for’”. (Confer Cwirla, CPR 33:3, pp.39-42.)
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field that a man found, covered up, sold all that he had, and bought. Similarly, Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls who found one pearl of great value, sold all that he had, and bought. As Jesus in the last two weeks’ Gospel Readings was both the Sower Who went out to sow and the Man Who sowed good seed in His field, so Jesus is the Man Who found the treasure and the Merchant Who found the pearl of great value. Jesus gave up all that He had; Jesus gave up His very life, in order to redeem you: “You were ‘to die for’”.
Now to be sure, there is nothing about you, me, or anyone else that makes Jesus want to die for us. In today’s Old Testament Reading (Deuteronomy 7:6-9), we heard Moses tell the Israelites that it was not because they were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on them and chose them as His treasured possession, for they were the fewest of all people. Rather, Moses said, the Lord redeemed them from the house of slavery because He loved them and kept the oath that He swore to their ancestors. Similarly in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 8:28-39), the Divinelyinspired St. Paul describes for the Romans and for us how God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified His chosen ones.
Since God has redeemed us, we should keep His Commandments, but we do not keep them as we should keep them. Like our first ancestors before us, we sin, and then we try unsuccessfully to hide ourselves from the presence of the Lord God (Genesis 3:6-11). We do things that we should not do. We do not do things that we should do. We may wrongly make excuses for our failures—justifying ourselves, rationalizing our failures—and we may wrongly think of ourselves as better than others around us. As a net gathers out of the sea good fish and bad fish, so the Church on earth outwardly appears to gather both the righteous and those who turn out to be evil people, those who are hypocrites (confer Apology of the Augsburg Confession VII/VIII:1, 19; cf. Marquart, CLD IX:18). Arguably, we should be less concerned about the person next to us in the pew’s hypocrisy, and we should be more concerned about our own hypocrisy. All of us by nature are equally sinful, evil and un-righteous, and so equally deserving of being segregated from the righteous and banished to hell to suffer intense agony of body and soul for eternity.
But, God seeks us out, finds us, and buys us back from our slavery to sin. God calls and thereby enables us to be sorry for our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, to trust Him to forgive us for Jesus’s sake, and to want, at least, to do better than to keep sinning. And, when we so repent, then God forgives us. For, “You were ‘to die for’”.
The exaggerated expression “to die for”, meaning something wanted or liked very much, is thought to date from the late twentieth century (remember then?); the expression is perhaps of Jewish origin and derives from the expression “drop-dead”—as in “drop-dead gorgeous”—to describe something superlative or excellent. Yet, saying that “You were ‘to die for’” in reference to the Gospel is more than a figure of speech, for Jesus literally died for you on the cross. He died in your place, the death that you deserved. And, where other people’s literally dying for a chocolate cake or sculpted body generally would keep them from enjoying what they died for, Jesus rose from the grave, and so He lives to welcome you into the Kingdom of Heaven and enjoy it with you. Jesus gave everything. Contemporary Christian songwriter Michael Card in his track “The Promise” insightfully asks, “What more could God have given[?] Tell me what more did He have to give[?]” True God in human flesh, Jesus lived a perfect life, and then He gave His one life as a ransom for many, that is, for all (Matthew 20:28; confer Scaer, Discourses, 313314). When we repent, then we receive His righteousness, and we receive that righteousness through the ministry of His Word and Sacraments.
In the Gospel Reading, as Jesus brought to a close both His teaching parables publicly to the crowds and then His explaining the parables privately to His disciples, Jesus asked if the disciples understood all the things that Jesus had taught; they told Him that they did understand them; and then, if not in another parable, then in parabolic language, Jesus likened His disciples, as scribes trained for the Kingdom of Heaven, to a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old—like fresh fruit and aged wine or cheese. Like scribes such as Ezra before them (Nehemiah 8:9; 12:26), who were versed in the Word of God, Jesus’s disciples and their successors, pastors today, proclaim the New Testament as the fulfillment and revelation of the Old Testament. And, using God’s Word in all of its forms—including Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper—such ministers catch people in the net that is the Church (confer Matthew 4:19; Jeremiah 16:16), daily and richly forgiving all our sins and the sins of all believers (Small Catechism II:6).
God’s Word in all of its forms does its work, but, as Jesus teaches elsewhere, the Kingdom of God comes without our necessarily observing it (Luke 17:20). In God’s time, the net that is the outward Church on earth is full, and, at the end of the age, the angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous. All things will have worked together for good for those who love God; their sufferings will have conformed them to the image of God’s Son, so that God’s Son might be the firstborn of many brothers and sisters. Even in such suffering there is the peace and joy of the forgiveness of sins. In the Gospel Reading, the man who found the treasure hidden in a field went in His joy and sold all that He had, and, in one of the Old Testament passages that arguably is behind the Parable of the Net, the One Who gathers up humankind in His net rejoices and is glad (Habakkuk 1:14-15). We rejoice with Him, both over His gathering us into His Kingdom and also over His gathering others into His Kingdom.
God has considered that “You were ‘to die for’”, not because of anything in you—for you deserve the figurative if not literal heat of hell—but God has considered that “You were ‘to die for’” because of God’s love and choice. As you repent, God forgives you through His Word and Sacraments. And, as St. Paul writes to the Corinthians and to us, you glorify God in your body, for you were bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20). We also answer the call of the antiphon of today’s Introit (Psalm 105:2-6; antiphon: v.1): We “give thanks to the Lord; call upon His Name; [and] make known His deeds among the peoples.”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +