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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.)
Forgiving one another can be difficult! Forgiving one another can be difficult, especially when the sin to be forgiven is particularly heinous, such as adultery (Matthew 18:15-19:15). The last few weeks have had two examples of apparent forgiveness of another particularly heinous sin, namely, murder. Two Sundays ago, Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika said that she forgave the young man accused of killing her husband, and, last Sunday, the daughter of a man killed in the attack on a Mormon meetinghouse in Michigan said that she forgave the man accused of killing her father. Truly, as the Lord Jesus says in today’s Gospel Reading, Christians always will forgive those who sin against them of the sin that they commit against them. As we heard, such forgiveness is important for the sake of the young or new believers, and such forgiveness can seem to take a great deal of faith. Yet, as we also heard, even if we could forgive everyone as we should forgive them, we do not earn God’s forgiveness by such forgiveness but remain unworthy servants. However, considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, with the help of the Holy Spirit, this morning we realize that, ultimately, “By faith, we are forgiven and forgiving servants”.
Some of Jesus’s teaching in today’s Gospel Reading is found also elsewhere, in other Divinely-inspired Gospel accounts (for example, Matthew 17:19-21; 18:6-7, 15, 21-22; Mark 9:42), although the last portion of today’s Gospel Reading (vv.7‑10) is found only in St. Luke’s Gospel account. Even in the context of St. Luke’s account, Bible commentators disagree on how connected, if at all, the various parts of today’s Gospel Reading are, although as I suggested a moment ago, they can be linked to some extent satisfactorily. And, Bible commentators, who otherwise might usually agree, also widely diverge in their interpretations of parts of today’s Gospel Reading, such as what to do with Jesus’s statement about telling a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea.
Perfectly clear is Jesus’s teaching that Christians always will forgive those who sin against them of the sin that they commit against them. As the Lord Jesus commands, we should rebuke sinning brothers and sisters in Christ, both for the sake of their repenting, and with our being willing to forgive them. Our sinful nature may not want to confront brothers and sisters in Christ over their sin, and we might even fool ourselves by wrongly thinking that we are being “loving” by not rebuking them. We might wrongly think that we can wait for them to come to us and admit that they wronged us, or we might wrongly think that, if they do not repent, then we do not have to forgive them (Colossians 3:13). Or, we may want to confront people over their sin against us but for wrong reasons. Even if we do rebuke them, and they do repent, our sinful nature does not want to forgive them, and we might prefer to hold a grudge and so wrongly think that we have an excuse wrongly to speak ill of them. Jesus’s apostles seem to rightly understand at least that faith is needed in order to forgive brothers and sisters in Christ as Jesus commands, but Jesus’s apostles arguably also seem to think wrongly that, by such forgiveness, they earn something, perhaps forgiveness before God.
Of course, by nature we have no faith in God, and we deserve punishment far worse than our having a millstone hung around our necks and our being cast into the sea! All of our sins against one another are also sins against God, and that is not even to mention our sins only against God. On account of our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, we deserve both death here in time and torment in hell for eternity, unless, as God, out of His love and mercy, enables us, we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives us our sinful nature and all our actual sin against Him. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
To be sure, we do not earn forgiveness before God, neither by our forgiving others nor by any of our other seemingly good works. Like all other people, we are, as Jesus says, unworthy servants, so no so‑called “saint” has done enough good works in order to have an abundance of “merits” to share with anyone else for salvation, as if they even could. On the basis of passages such as today’s Gospel Reading, we believe, teach, and confess that “we receive forgiveness of sins and righteousness through faith in Christ” (Augsburg Confession VI:2, Tappert, 32; confer Apology IV:334). Christ took on human flesh for us; Christ died on the cross in our place, and then He rose from the dead. This past Thursday Jews observed Yom Kippur, the Old Testament Day of Atonement; how sad that still today Jews fail to recognize that on the cross Jesus Christ paid for sins once and for all (Hebrews 7:27), reconciling all people to God, so that we are forgiven when we repent! As the Lord told Habakkuk in today’s Old Testament Reading (Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1‑4), “the righteous shall live by his faith”. Such faith is created and sustained by God through the ministry of His Word and Sacraments.
That ministry is in view in all three of today’s appointed Readings. In the Old Testament Reading, we heard of the prophet Habakkuk standing at his watch‑post. In the Epistle Reading (2 Timothy 1:1-14), we heard of Paul’s appointment as a preacher and apostle and teacher, as well as of Timothy, who was ordained by Paul. And, in the Gospel Reading, Jesus mentions servants’ doing such things as plowing, shepherding sheep, and preparing and serving supper—all metaphors of ministry. While we might not serve our hired help, if we have any hired help, the Lord Jesus elsewhere in St. Luke’s Gospel account, as we heard eight weeks ago, describes Himself doing just that, serving His servants (Luke 12:35‑38; confer John 13:1‑20). Especially in the Holy Supper, through His ministers, Jesus, in, with, and under bread, serves us His Body given for us, and Jesus, in, with, and under wine, serves us His Blood shed for us, and so we who repent receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. For the reading and preaching of His Word, for Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the Holy Supper, the Church is always in need of men such as Habakkuk, Paul, Timothy, and the apostles who give their lives to God’s ministry.
In the antiphon to today’s Introit (Psalm 119:162, 164-165, 167; antiphon: v.166), we sang about our hoping for God’s salvation and our doing His commandments. The Lord Jesus never commands that we, with any amount of faith, tell a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea, or a mountain to move from here to there (Matthew 17:20; confer Matthew 21:21; Mark 9:28-29; 11:22-23), and there is no example of anyone ever doing so, so we do not put God to the test by trying to do so. Our God-given faith does result in God’s, for Jesus’s sake, forgiving us the sins that we commit against Him, however, and God’s forgiving us our sins against Him in turn leads us to forgive those who sin against us of the sin that they commit against us. We can and do pray with the apostles for the Lord to increase our faith, which is a petition that we know God is always willing to grant us through His Means of Grace. Yet, we may still struggle to forgive others or, as an affliction, we may struggle in other ways from little faith, but we should not despair, for we recognize that, at the same time, we each can in some sense both disbelieve and believe (confer Mark 9:24; Luther, Sacrament of Penance [1519], AE 35:18‑19).
In time, Charlie Kirk’s accused assassin will experience both earthly justice and heavenly justice, which heavenly justice the Michigan Mormon meetinghouse shooter and arsonist is already experiencing. For their sins against us, we forgive them, as God has forgiven us freely for Jesus’s sake of our sins against Him. For, “By faith, we are forgiven and forgiving servants”. So, we have peace and joy already now. And, as we wait for our own heavenly justice, including the resurrection and glorification of our bodies, we remember God’s words to Habakkuk in today’s Old Testament Reading: “If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +