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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.)
“This man receives sinners and eats with them.” So the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling, as the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near in order to hear Jesus. So the im‑penitent and un‑believing Jewish leaders disdainfully rejected Jesus—Who He is, what He was doing, and how He gives the benefits of what He was doing—while the penitent and believing people joyfully received Jesus—Who He is, what He was doing, and how He gives the benefits of what He was doing (confer Luke 19:6‑7). Joy is a central theme on the Fourth Sunday in Lent. Traditionally the Sunday was called Laetare from one of the Latin words that mean “Rejoice” that began the Introit of the Day, or sometimes this Sunday was called “Refreshment Sunday” or “Bread Sunday” from its lessening of the Lenten penitential discipline and its historic Gospel Reading about Jesus’s feeding about five‑thousand men. And now, in this Church Year of our current series of appointed Readings, the Sunday reflects the characteristic joy both in its Old Testament Reading’s mentioning drawing water from the wells of salvation with joy and shouting and singing for joy (Isaiah 12:1‑6) and in the Gospel Reading about celebrating and being glad when a lost sinner is found. Today at Pilgrim we also reflect the lessening of the Lenten penitential discipline with the “rose”‑colored bulletin covers, which we also use on the third Sunday of Advent, along with the “rose”‑colored candle on the Advent wreath, reflecting that day’s lessening of the Advent penitential discipline.
Largely unique to St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, today’s Gospel Reading of the parable of the lost son is essentially the third of three parables that Jesus told on that same occasion—our series of appointed Readings skips over the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin today but has us hear them later in this Church Year. Together the parables emphasize joy over even one sinner who repents—more joy, Jesus says after the parable of the lost sheep, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance, as if such righteous persons who need no repentance actually exist. In the parable of the lost son, the younger son, who leaves his father’s house and goes hungry but returns home and confesses his sin, corresponds to the tax collectors and sinners whom Jesus received and was eating with, rejoicing, while the grumbling Pharisees and scribes are represented in the parable by the older son, who refused to go into his father’s house and was even angry, claiming never to have disobeyed his father’s commands and complaining that his father had never given him a young goat to celebrate with his friends.
Which son corresponds to you and to me (confer Matthew 21:28-32)? God’s being willing, we see ourselves in the younger son. While both sons sinned against their father and so also against God, the younger son confessed his sin and was forgiven by his father, received into the house, and was rejoicing, while the parable ends with the father outside pleading with the older son to come inside and rejoice. We sin against our neighbors and so also against God. So much do we sin against God, that we sang in today’s Introit that we have sinned only against God (Psalm 51:2-6; antiphon: v.1). In the Introit we also confessed that we were conceived and born sinful. You probably know, that the consequences of such sin are temporal and eternal death. You probably know, as St. John writes, that if, like the Jewish leaders and the elder son, we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but, if, like the tax collectors and sinners and the younger son, we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:8-9).
In the parable, God is represented by the man who had two sons. When the father saw his younger son coming home, Jesus said, he felt compassion; more literally, he was moved as to his bowels, thought to be the seat of love and pity. The New Testament uses that particular Greek word translated “compassion” only of God the Father, Jesus His Son, and, as in today’s Gospel Reading, of characters representing God in parables. That compassion is said to be “gracious love beyond [human love], understanding and reaching into the life of another” (TLSB, ad loc Luke 15:20, p.1748). God loved the fallen world, including you and me, to the point of death. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, God through Christ reconciled us to Himself; for our sake, God made Jesus, Who knew no sin, to be sin, so that, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). As we sang in the Gradual, for the joy set before Jesus, He endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2). When we are sorry for our sin and trust God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature, our previously not rejoicing over those who repent, our denying that we are as sinful as we are, or whatever our sin might be. God forgives us through His Means of Grace, His Word and Sacraments.
In the parable of the Gospel Reading, the father’s kissing his returned younger son is sometimes understood as an outward sign of the father’s forgiveness. In our case, the water of Holy Baptism, the ritual of Holy Absolution, and the bread and wine of the Holy Supper are outward signs of God’s forgiving us. As Jesus did with the tax collectors and sinners, God in Jesus receives us sinners and eats with us. We are made children of God and are received into the Church at the Baptismal Font; there, as we sang in the Introit, we are washed thoroughly from our iniquity and cleansed from our sin; there, in the words of the Old Testament Reading, we with joy draw water from the well of salvation; there, in the words of the Epistle Reading, we are incorporated into Christ and are made new creations. The ministry of reconciliation, also mentioned in that Epistle Reading, has to excommunicate as a warning those who are not penitent and do not return to the Church, such as the West Family, as was announced before this service, but, when we privately confess our sins, then that same ministry absolves us and admits us to the Holy Supper. We are worthy for that feast not because of anything that we have done but because our God-given faith trusts Jesus’s words: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” There, we feast not on pods that pigs eat, nor on goat or even fatted calf, but we feast on the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us. Partaking of the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ, we are united in the ecclesial Body of Christ, that is, in the Church. We are united with those of all times and places who repent and believe. We were so united with our sister Jeanette, even when I communed her on Thursday afternoons for the last eighteen months or so at her home, and we are so united with our sister Jeanette still now that she is part of all the company of heaven.
As we prayed in the Hymn of the Day, God bears His loved ones safely home (Lutheran Service Book 972:3). God answered Jeanette’s and our prayers for Him to deliver her from her afflictions in His time and way. God will also answer our prayers for Him to deliver our other loved ones from their afflictions in His time and way, and God will finally answer our prayers for Him to deliver us from our afflictions in His time and way. Yet, already now we can and do rejoice, as we will rejoice for eternity. In Jesus Christ our relationship to our Heavenly Father is restored. With great joy we say, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” Indeed, the God-man Jesus Christ receives us and eats with us. Thanks be to God.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +