Exercising Good Judgement

Text:  Luke 12:54-13:9

WE ALL FACE DEADLINES IN life.  In school or at work, the time comes when the project or assignment is due and it's time for it to be assessed.  Someone's going to come and judge your work, and will you pass the test?

But what if you don't know when the deadline is?  Or maybe, what if you claim you don't know when the deadline is?  Is that any excuse?  Or will the judge come and tell you you had all the information you needed; you should have been ready, you should have known?

Most Christians know that Jesus Christ is returning at the end of time to judge the living and the dead and to inaugurate His heavenly kingdom.  But we may not know that one of His most important roles during His time on earth was that of Old Covenant judge.  He came to wind up the old way of relating to God, based on works, and to bring in the new way, based on faith in Him.

The sayings of Christ in our Luke reading today are primarily addressed to the Jews of Jesus' time.  But we, too, can take warning from what He says, and be ready.

Our Lord is teaching the crowd.  He draws an analogy with the weather.  "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It's going to rain,' and it does."  The people of the day are really good at interpreting the appearance of the earth and sky.  So why don't they know how to interpret the present time?

What is Jesus referring to?   It goes back to the days of Moses.  God called His people Israel out of the land of Egypt and chose them as His own nation.  At Mount Sinai God gave the Law.  The Law, beginning with the Ten Commandments, was more than just a list of dos and don'ts; it was the Covenant between God and His people.  It drew a picture of what they were to be like in order to please Him and to be worthy to call Him their God.

We know what happened, don't we?  The Covenant of Sinai was broken more than it was kept.  God's people frequently behaved worse that the pagan nations around them.  But the prophets of God always foretold the time when a new and more perfect covenant would be made between God and Israel.  A time was coming when the Promised One would appear, the Messiah, and He would perfectly keep the Covenant.  He would be the perfect Israel, and would embody the obedience that God demanded.  But this would be a time of cataclysm and change.  When He came He would put to judgement the disobedience of the people, and prove who was worthy to enter into the kingdom of God and who was not.  John the Baptist said what this one would be like.    He predicted, "One more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.  He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

We know that when Jesus came He did not carry the program of God's covenant judgement as far as John the Baptist expected.  This was due to God's mercy, to give the full number of God's elect among the Gentiles the chance to come in.  But Jesus by His coming did exercise covenant judgement upon Israel.  And as He speaks to the crowd, He judges their tendency to fool themselves about God's times and seasons.  They knew the prophets, they knew what was to happen when Messiah came.  It was as clear and certain as the rain clouds rising in the west and the wind blowing from the south.  But they wanted to deceive themselves about the implications of what was happening.

They should stop deceiving themselves and exercise right judgement.  For the time was coming when the sin of the people would be judged.  Jesus gives the analogy of someone going before a magistrate.  The scenario is that of a civil lawsuit, and the idea is that you, whom Jesus is addressing, really are guilty of harming your adversary.  The point is clear-- Israel has broken God's covenant and He has the right to satisfaction.  So don't deceive yourself and think that when judgement comes it'll be all right.  No, repent now, be reconciled now, for when the day of judgement comes it will be too late and there will be no help for you.

Jesus wants His fellow-Jews to understand that judgement is coming, it's imminent, and they deserve it.  But there are always people who want to concern themselves with other people's sins and other people's judgement, in an attempt to make themselves feel better about their own situation. So we hear that at that time, as Jesus was teaching these things, there were some who mentioned to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.  This was a famous incident involving a power play ruthlessly executed by Pontius Pilate.  You have to wonder if this situation was brought up so the people present with Jesus could comfort themselves with the idea that  well, at least they hadn't done whatever those men did!  Jesus knows this is exactly where they're coming from, which is why He asks then if they thought those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because this horror had come upon them.  Yes, of course they thought that.  At least, they hoped so?  But no!  They were no worse!  "But unless you repent, you too will all perish."  Not necessarily by the hand of the Romans, but in whatever way God will in His judgement ordain.

And if people are going to bring up cases, what, Jesus says, about those eighteen people who died when the tower in the Siloam district of Jerusalem fell on them?  Was their guilt greater than that of anyone else in Jerusalem?  Absolutely not!  "But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

Why?  Because the time of judgement is at hand.  The time is coming soon when God will settle His scores with disobedient Israel, and the only escape will be to repent of their sins and throw themselves on the mercy of God.

To drive home the point, Jesus tells a parable regarding a fig tree planted in a vineyard.  Both the vineyard and the fig tree were well-known Scriptural images for Israel, and the expectation of fruit was a standard analogy for God's expectation of righteousness and good works from His people.

And now the One who has the right to look for those good works has come, but doesn't find any fruit.  For three years He's been coming and hasn't found any.

It's tempting to think the three years mentioned in the parable might refer to the fact that it's now towards the end of His three-year ministry.  But God had been looking for good fruit from Israel; that is, covenant faithfulness, for a whole lot longer than that.  The crowd listening to Jesus knew that if a fig tree was going to bear fruit, it'd do it in three years.  The owner of the vineyard has the right to expect fruit from this tree, but where is it?  All it's doing is taking up room in the vineyard.  Why not cut it down?  But the gardener asks for more time for the failing fig tree.  Jesus doesn't want us to go overboard with identifying the people in the parable with particular members of the Holy Trinity.  The point is that the fig tree, that is, God's Old Covenant people, are being given another chance to bring forth righteousness before God.  It's one more year in the parable; in real life the time may be even shorter.  Jesus' hearers had better not take any chances when it comes to themselves.

We know from history that judgement came upon the Jewish nation in A.D. 70, when the Roman legions under Titus marched in and destroyed Jerusalem, including the temple and its walls.  Judgement was complete and terrible.

But what about us?  Is it good judgement on our part to ignore the will of God and behave however we want, because we're covered by the grace of Christ?  Not at all!  It's true that our new covenant in Him is sealed by His blood and righteousness and not by sacrifices we might offer or deeds we might do.  But we, too, are called upon to repent, to exercise good judgement and depends on Jesus utterly.  For as the writer to the Hebrews says,

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.  For if the message spoken by angels was binding [that is, the covenant of the Law given on Mount Sinai], and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

The cross of Christ brings us mercy that covers the sins of all who believe.  But we cannot expect our Lord to overlook the sins of anyone who takes His mercy for granted and presumes upon His righteous judgement.

Not only in this season of Lent but all year round, let us flee to Christ for forgiveness and safety in the day of reckoning.  For the day is coming when Christ surely will return.  Can we stand with confidence in that day?  Let us do the deeds that belong to repentance, not because we think we can put God in our debt, but because we are humbly grateful for what Jesus our Savior has done for us.  For He is the righteous Judge who surely will come, but He is also the Lamb of God on whom judgement fell that we might escape the judgement we deserved.  He has paid the uttermost penny for us; He is the fruitful fig tree that national Israel could never be.  So exercise good judgement and trust in Him and Him alone.  For then, when He, the Good Judge, comes to judge the living and the dead, you will be able to stand before God in confidence and joy, trusting in Chris and His merits, and giving Him praise and thanksgiving throughout all eternity.

The Word of the Shepherd King

 Texts:    Acts 9:1-6; Galatians 6:7-10; Matthew 25:31-46

     IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A lot like Christmas!  At least, the merchants have had the decorations up for the past three weeks or more.  And up where I live in B--, some people already have their wreaths up in their windows.  However you feel about rushing things like this, in five weeks Christmas will be here.

        But there may be signs something else is coming soon, too.  A lot of people are asking, "Could we be getting closer to the end of the world?"  It's not just false prophets like Harold Camping and chatter about the Mayan calendar and December 2012.  We've got natural disasters coming so thick and heavy.  Civil unrest all over the world, especially in our own streets.  Our whole economic system seems to be headed for collapse, with greed and selfishness championed all the way up and down the economic ladder.  Our moral standards are getting worse and worse, faith is growing cold in many hearts, and even those who call themselves Christians proudly follow their own devices and desires instead of clinging to Jesus their Lord.

    Could these all be signs of the end?

    Maybe, maybe not.  As Christians, we need to be ready for our Lord's return as King and Judge no matter when it occurs.  In Matthew chapter 24 Jesus' disciples asked Him what will be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age.  He told them, and us, that no one knows that day or hour, and that He, the Son of Man, would come as a thief in the night.  Therefore, we must be prepared.  But prepared for what?  Beginning in the 31st verse of Matthew 25, Jesus our coming King tells us what will happen when He returns.

    First of all, Jesus will come as King, King of kings and Lord of lords.  And He will come as the Son of Man.  He will sit on the throne of the universe as a glorified Human Being, in the same flesh He brought with Him resurrected from the tomb.  In Christ, for our sakes, God has become Man forever!  He will sit on His throne as King in heavenly glory, and all the nations will be gathered before Him.  All the nations.  Not just the so-called Christian nations, but all of them, regardless of what religions they professed here on earth.  All people will learn that Christ is King, and Christ alone.

    But what does Jesus mean by "the nations"?  Remember, God ordained that Jesus should be born a Jew.  Jesus was speaking to Jewish disciples in a Jewish context.  For a Jew, the word "nations" (ethne in Greek and goyim in Hebrew) meant the Gentiles.  That is, everyone who wasn't a part of God's chosen people Israel.  The disciples would assume-- and assume rightly-- that God's faithful remnant would find blessedness when Israel's Messiah and King came as Judge.  But what was going to happen to all those other people Out There?

    Something the disciples would not have suspected.  Jesus says He will take the people of the nations and separate them from one another, and some He will put on the right as sheep, and some on His left as goats.  That tells us first that all mankind are under His staff as the universal Shepherd, whether they ever confess faith in Him or not.  In verses 37 and 44 we see that all the dead acknowledge that, they all call Him "Lord."  When Christ sits on His glorious throne, all nations will bow the knee and every tongue will confess that He is King and Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  But on that day He will sort out some who did not visibly belong to His chosen Israel, and He will put them with His chosen ones, with the sheep He loves. 

    These days, we often assume that almost anyone can be saved, if only they're nice enough.  For good 1st century Jews like Jesus' disciples, it would have shocked them to think any Gentiles who didn't convert to Judaism could get into the kingdom at all!

    To these unexpected sheep Jesus the King will say, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world."  Who could have thought it?  Ever since the world began God had included these sheep from the nations in His glorious kingdom, along with His chosen people Israel!

    But why?  On what basis?  Because He was hungry and they fed Him; He was thirsty and they gave Him something to drink; He was a stranger and they invited Him in; He needed clothes and they clothed Him; He was sick and they tended to Him; He was in prison and they came to visit Him.

    These righteous from the nations are amazed.  They don't understand how they could have rendered all these good services to Him, the Lord of glory.  And the King will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

    We think we understand this.  But again, Jesus is out to undermine our modern understanding of how things will be at the Judgement, just as much as much as His word subverted the ideas of the typical 1st century Jew.  Here's the question: Who are Jesus' brothers?  Who are His sisters?  Who are this family with whom He identifies so closely?

    Two thousand years ago, the assumption would be that since He was the Jewish Messiah, His brothers and sisters would be the nation of Israel, people who were born Jews by blood.  But over and over again in His teaching Jesus kept letting everyone know that the true Israel was not those who attempted to keep the law in their own righteousness; rather, His brothers and sisters are those who do the will of His Father in heaven, as we read in Matthew 12.  And what is the will of the Father?  St. John tells us that the Father's will is that we believe in the One He has sent, the Man Jesus Christ.

    The consistent teaching of the New Testament is this:  that Christ's brothers and sisters are His believers, the Church.  They-- or rather, we-- are His Body, the New Israel made up of ethnic Jews and ethnic Gentiles alike, formed by the new covenant in His blood, shed on the cross.

    So in Acts 9 the risen Christ casts Saul of Tarsus down on the road to Damascus and demands, "Why are you persecuting Me?"  Like the righteous from the nations at the Judgement, Saul can't understand.  He'd been attacking a rabble of Nazarene heretics, not this heavenly Being he now had to call Lord!  But Jesus identifies with His Church and says, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."  To do evil to His disciples is to do evil to Him; to do good to His disciples is to do good to Him.

    And who are "the least of these"?  Please note that this doesn't mean "only the least of these."  No, Jesus is saying that the surprised  righteous have done good to Christians even when those believers were so humble no earthly credit could possibly come from it.  Jesus taught us in Matthew 18 that the greatest in the kingdom of heaven are those who humbly repent and become like little children and follow Him.  In Luke 12 Jesus calls His disciples His "little flock" and says that the Father has been pleased to give them the kingdom.  Jesus exalts the humble in His kingdom, and at the judgement the nations will share in their exaltation.

    I realize that this goes against much popular thought on what this passage in Matthew means.  The usual interpretation is that some people will enter the kingdom by believing in Christ, while others can get in by doing good to the financially poor.  But nowhere does the Scripture hold out any possibility of any man or woman entering eternal life on the strength of his or her own good works.  It is only through the blood of Christ shed for us that we can inherit blessedness forever with Him.

    Yes, you might say, but if "the nations" in this passage are those who didn't identify with Christ's Church in their lifetimes, doesn't it sound like they can earn their way in by good deeds done to those who belong to Him?

    Well, think of it this way: When are Jesus' disciples most likely to be hungry, thirsty, refugees, naked, sick, or in prison?  In times of persecution for the faith.  Today, particularly in Muslim and Hindu countries, Christians are being harried, arrested, burned out of their homes, put to death-- all because they dare to confess Jesus Christ as Lord.  Now think of yourself as a Muslim neighbor of one of these despised Christians.  Everyone else is pouring on the violence.  But something moves you to step out and help the followers of Christ.  Even though your friends will shun you for it; even though you could be arrested yourself as a Christian sympathizer, you go ahead and open your home to the refugees.  You visit the tortured pastor in prison and work for his release.  You make sure those orphan Christian children are fed and clothed, and you don't pressure them to convert to Islam. Whether you realize it or not, you're identifying with the believers and identifying with Christ.

    In Matthew 10 Jesus sends His disciples out with the good news of the kingdom, warning them they'll face danger and hardship for His sake.  But in all this, He says, "He who receives you receives me," and "anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward," and "if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

    At the Judgement there will be many who never considered themselves to be part of Christ's flock the Church, but they sympathized so strongly and actively with Christians because they were Christians that Jesus will recognise them as His sheep themselves.  To their surprise they will receive eternal life, the righteous man's reward.

    But what about those on the left, the "goats" who did not minister to Christ's faithful in their need?   To say they didn't identify Christians with Christ will be no excuse.  When they see the King enthroned in glory it's too late to say, "Oh, my Lord, I'd do anything for you!"  What about that insignificant Christian they saw beaten, tortured, starving, or simply slandered out of a job, and they did nothing to intervene?  The King will reply, "If you did it not for the least of these my brothers, you didn't do it for Me."

    So.  Here we are, and we belong to Christ's church on earth. Can we sit satisfied and sure we'll go to the King's right hand in the Judgement?  Not necessarily.  This passage is a warning to us, too.  A lot of people are members of Jesus' New Israel on paper, but actually they belong to the unbelieving nations.
    We have to examine ourselves!  How do we treat our fellow members in the Church?  The truly committed disciple will feed and clothe and help and heal their fellow Christian precisely because he or she is a fellow Christian.  A true believer in our Shepherd King will strive in the Spirit to see and serve Christ in everyone in the congregation, no matter how humble or struggling that other believer may be. 

    In the course of my life I've seen too many churches and church people focus all their ministry on those outside the church.  And yes, like Christ Himself we do extend the love and grace of God to all.  But sitting all around you are brothers and sisters who are hurting.  They're struggling with troubles of body, mind, and spirit.  They need someone to help them repair their house, to watch their kids for an afternoon, to sit for awhile and just listen.  But there's this assumption in the Church today that as soon as someone becomes a believer, they're set up for life and have all they need.  No!  Jesus calls us into His little flock because we do need each other, and He expects us to minister to one another for His sake.  As St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers."

    Remember, Paul puts the command for Christians to do good in the context of judgement.  If we take one another for granted, if we live to please our sinful natures, we will reap destruction.  Goats all along we will show ourselves to be, and as Jesus says, we'll go into eternal punishment.  But if we follow the Spirit of Christ who has saved us and do good to one another, we will show that we are His sheep. We will reap eternal life and enter into the blessed inheritance prepared for us by our heavenly Father before the creation of the world.

    As baptised believers, we no longer belong to the nations; we are citizens of Christ's new chosen people and sheep of His little flock.  Since this is true, let us strive in the Spirit to do the things that belong to Christ.  Do good to all, but especially to your brothers and sisters in the faith, from the greatest to the least.  Care for, help, and build up one another because you belong to Christ.  And so by His grace, His judgment at the end of the age will bring no fear for you, but only exultation, blessedness, and joy as together with all the saints you enter the realm of your Shepherd King.

The Master's Property

Texts:    2 Timothy 4:1-5; Matthew 25:14-30

    HAVE YOU EVER DONE RENOVATIONS to your house?  Or maybe you watch DIY programs like Holmes Inspection on TV.  If you do, you know how it goes.  You start out to do some improvement, to put in a new bathroom or whatever, but when you do the tear-out you discover there's rot in the walls or the foundation is weak or the plumbing is about to burst.  And instead of getting straight to the fun things like tiling and painting, you have to go back and redo the basic structure.

        We're in that position this morning as we look at Jesus' parable of the talents as it comes to us in Matthew chapter 25, verses 14-30. We've got to do some tearing out before we can begin to build.  The problem is this word "talent."  In ancient times, it had nothing to do with someone's personal endowments or abilities, it was simply a unit of weight, used especially for mass quantities of precious metals.  Over the centuries, however, the English language has taken this word, from this very parable, and changed its meaning to connote our God-given natural abilities, or, as we say, our talents.  So we build on that to conclude that Jesus will hold us accountable for how we put our natural gifts like singing or reasoning or entrepreneurship into service for Him.

    And this is true. He will hold us accountable for that.  But in this parable the word "talents" is referring to something different from our abilities.  Look at verse 15.  It says there that the master gave talents of money to each of his servants, "each according to his ability."  The servants' abilities or natural gifts were something different from the property their master entrusted to them. What profit they would make from it would go along with the abilities-- or, as we would say, the talents-- they already had.

    The talents in this parable do not naturally belong to the servants themselves.  They are, as it says in verse 14, the master's property.  Very valuable property, too.  The weight of a talent varied across the ancient world, but in 1st century occupied Israel it came to 2,080 ounces.  To get an idea of its value, let's reckon it up as gold.  At yesterday's price, one of those talents would have been worth $3,718,728.00.  Just one.  This property is the master's, and it is very, very precious.

    As we heard last week, in these parables our Lord is answering the disciples' question in Matthew 24:3, " . . . what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"  In the parable of the talents, a master goes away, and after a long time, the master returns.  The Master is Christ, and He warns us to be prepared for His coming at the end of the age. 

    Jesus begins the parable by saying, "Again, it will be like . . . " What will what be like?  Look back at verse 1 of chapter 25: "At that time"-- the time of His coming and the end of the age-- "the kingdom of heaven will be like . . . "  He is speaking of the time of His return.  So when Christ returns as Judge, it will be like a master who has entrusted his great and precious property to his servants and gone away, expecting to find they've turned a profit with it when he returns to settle his accounts. 

    Brothers and sisters, the kingdom of God will not begin with the moment of Christ's return.  We who believe in Him live under Jesus' rulership right now, and it affects how we His servants work with His property in the long weeks and months and years until He comes.

    So what is this property He puts into the hands of His servants?  If it isn't our natural abilities, if it isn't even the spiritual gifts He gives us for ministry, what could it be?

    We can find a clue in Matthew 13, in the parable of the sower.  There, various kinds of soil receive the same seed and yield different amounts of increase, depending on the nature of the soil.  In the parable of the talents, different kinds of servants receive the same kind of money in different amounts and yield different amounts of increase, depending on the nature of their abilities and attitudes.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 13:19 that the seed sown is the message about the kingdom of heaven.  The Master's property in Matthew 25 are the same thing: It is the good news about Jesus Christ the Son of God, come to earth to establish the kingdom of God as its divine Lord and King.  As St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15,

    [This is] the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. . . .  that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures [and appeared to many faithful witnesses].

Christ's servants the apostles were good and faithful.  By their labors we have received the trust of this good news, too.  His glorious gospel is the currency of the kingdom, and in this parable Jesus our Master charges us to put it to work for Him until He comes.

    So again, if we're talking gold, one servant receives five talents, worth around $18,600,000 at today's prices; one is entrusted with two, about $7,400,000; and the last servant is handed one talent at about $3,700,000.  Verse 16 says the first man immediately put his five talents to work. This man exerted himself to do business with his master's property so it might be increased, and the second servant did the same.

    So how do we exert ourselves in the business of the Gospel?  What is the Gospel's business, anyway?  The Word of Christ on earth has three primary purposes: For grace-- that is, to bring salvation and redemption to the sinner; for growth-- to build up the Church and each individual member in it so we achieve the full likeness of Jesus our Saviour; and for glory-- for the greater glory of God, and for the ultimate glorification of all His saints in Him.

    Each of us is given the Good News of Christ crucified and risen for us and for the sins of the world.  Our depth of understanding may be greater or lesser, but each of us in the Church have heard-- or should be hearing-- what Jesus has done for us.  According to the abilities we have from God, we minister this Word to one another and to the pagan at our door, so that grace, growth, and glory may increase and abound.

    Five-talent people might be those like St. Paul, or, more recently, someone like C. S. Lewis.  When the Holy Spirit brought him out of the darkness of modern paganism, Lewis took the wonderful riches of Christ's gift of salvation and multiplied it in his speaking and writing, and his profit to his Master increases to this day all around the world.

    We can't all be five-talent servants of our Lord.  But we can be good and faithful in our sphere and according to our abilities.  We can be like that wise Sunday School teacher who influenced the children in the church for grace, growth, and God's glory up to the time of her death.  We can be godly parents who lead our children in the way of the Lord, and never take it for granted that they know that Jesus died for them.  We can exert ourselves to increase in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ as we study His word and participate in His sacraments.  We can be good capitalists of the Word-- if I dare use the term in these protesting times-- and follow Paul's charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4, being prepared in season and out of season to communicate the Word of Christ.  For all Scripture-- all of which speaks of Christ, as He Himself reminds us-- is God-breathed and is useful-- profitable-- for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.  So, put it to work, beginning in your own life and the life of your household.  Paul's charge applies especially to us pastors and elders, but all of us who have been entrusted with the good news of Jesus Christ should be prepared at all times to give anyone who asks a reason for the kingdom hope that is within us, so our Master's property might increase.

    What about the third servant?  The other two each increase their master's property 100% and the master commends them, entrusts them even more responsibility, and invites them to share in his great happiness.  But this man buries his $3,700,000 in the ground and very disrespectfully hands it back to his master on his return.  In our understanding of the parable, did he ever truly belong to Jesus Christ at all?

    As any human being belongs to God, yes.  Physically, he was a resident worker in the master's household.  But in his heart and mind, he was not the master's man.  He's like those who sit in church for decades letting the preaching wash over them, but they're never actually converted.  They think they know all about God and what He's really like, and they think they're smarter than He is.  And kinder and more loving, too.  The Jews in Jesus' day knew that God for centuries had made a practice of only saving a remnant of His chosen people. But then He'd go and have mercy on Gentiles.  How was that fair?  "Hey, God, don't You have enough to do taking care of us Jews?  Why meddle with people who pledge allegiance to other gods?  They don't belong to You!"  And so in the parable, "Master, I knew you were a hard man, harvesting where you had not sown and gathering where you had not scattered seed."  A man like that today might reason, "God's going to save whoever He's going to save, whether I say anything to anybody about Jesus or not.  And He'll send to hell anybody He feels like, even if they're really good people.  So why should I get myself in trouble in this world by going around talking about Jesus?  Let God get back what He gave, and keep me out of it."

    This is a terrible distortion of the truth.  But many church members use it so they don't have to exert themselves to increase their Master's property in the kingdom of heaven.  The master in verse 26 in effect says, "So that was your opinion of me?  In that case, you should truly have been afraid to return my money to me profitless.  You should've at least put the money to the bankers so I'd get some interest out of it."

    Now, I humbly admit that I am not certain how our Lord wants us to understand and apply this.  Most Bible commentators I've read skip right over it!  Jews weren't allowed to charge interest, so perhaps the master is saying, "All right, you've called me a cruel man and a thief; why didn't you put my money out at interest so you could call me a usurer, too?"  In that case, it would be a warning against speaking ill of our Lord and God.  But Jesus often used the unrighteous practices and people of this world to illustrate truths about the good of the kingdom of heaven. So Jesus could be saying to so-called followers like that, "You were afraid to speak the Gospel yourself?  Very well, you should at least have opened your home to My apostles who were speaking it.  You should have supported My missionaries and evangelists, even if you never said a word about Me yourself.  Then you would have received for Me some of what they earned."  (This is just a possibility, and if the Holy Spirit commends it to you, good; if not, let it alone.)

    But Jesus' conclusion is clear: As Paul says, when Christ, the righteous Judge, returns on the last day, He will reward His good and faithful servants with a crown of righteousness-- a crown that will signify their responsibility over much more than He entrusted to them on this earth.  But those who take the Gospel for granted, those who think the message of Christ crucified is a word of intolerance and exclusion, those who play it safe in church and bury their Master's property, they will be cast away from His presence into outer darkness forever.  They will find that what they thought they had of Christianity and Jesus will be taken away, but those who truly have laid hold on the truth of the gospel and increased grace, growth, and God's glory in this world, they'll find their share in Jesus Christ and His work wonderfully increased in the world to come.

    Which kind of servant will you and I be?  Our Master Jesus has entrusted His property to us, the infinitely valuable good news of sins forgiven in His blood.  He has also given us abilities, natural and spiritual, so we can put the Gospel to work.  May we be those receive His trust and immediately set to work for the increase of His kingdom.  And when Christ comes again in glory, may He gladly say to us,

    "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!"

    Amen.

The Christ We Follow

Texts:   Exodus 3:1-15; Matthew 16:13-28

    IN THE FIFTEENTH VERSE OF THE sixteenth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Jesus asks His disciples a simple but life-changing question.  He says to them, "Who do you say I am?"

    Who is this Jesus of Nazareth we follow?  Get that question right, and it means comfort and peace here on earth and joy, power, and everlasting honor in heaven.  Get it wrong, and we doom ourselves to the outer darkness for all eternity. 

    From the first, our reading from Matthew makes it clear who Jesus is not.  Our Lord asks His disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"  And they reply, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."  Today, many people say much the same thing, that Jesus was a great Teacher or a wonderful Prophet. Does Jesus accept such answers?  Clearly, He doesn't.   He was a Teacher, the greatest of teachers, and a Prophet, the most wonderful of prophets.  But that's not all He was, and He certainly wasn't one of the honored prophets of old, brought back from the dead.  As great as those men were, no disciple of Jesus should use them to identify the Christ we follow.

    So, disciples in all times and places, what about you?  Who do you say Jesus is?

    Simon Peter gets it in one.  He exclaims, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!"  We know it's the right answer, because Jesus replies, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven."

    But wait a minute.  Didn't the disciples all say Jesus was the Son of God, back in chapter 14 when Jesus walked on water?  True.  But on a fear-filled, stormy night, men can blurt out things they'd never dream of saying in the calm sunshine of day.  Matthew tells us that Jesus and His disciples were in the region of Caesarea Philippi, in Gentile territory north of Galilee.  He was teaching them privately, away from the crowds, and in that setting a man could be composed and think clearly.  And it's now that Peter gives his earth-shattering answer, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

    Jesus of Nazareth, the One we follow, is the Christ.  The Greeks said "Christos," the Jews said "Messiah," but they both meant "the Anointed One."  Jesus is the anointed Prophet, Priest, and King that God had spoken of through the prophets all through Old Testament history.  Through Him and Him alone all God's covenant promises are fulfilled.  We don't need to look for anyone later or better.  No one who came after Him-- not Mohammed, not any church or cult leader-- can ever improve on Jesus.  He is God's Anointed, His Christ, and in Him we find salvation, life, and peace with God.

    And Peter confesses that this Christ is the Son of the living God.  Think how radical it was for a Jew like Peter even to think something like that.  The Jews were expecting a human Messiah, a biological Son of David.  He'd be their deliverer, a man especially endowed with the Holy Spirit, but still, only a man.  The Jews had it drilled into their heads ever since they'd been freed from Babylonian exile 400 years before that there was only one God.  But here comes Jesus of Nazareth, preaching and teaching and doing miracles in the power and authority of God, and more than that, He talks as if God in heaven was His Father; He claims blessings and honors that only a divine Son and Heir had the right to inherit.  And Peter is moved to the heaven-inspired conclusion that it's right to identify Jesus somehow with the one true and living God, Maker of heaven and earth.

    Jesus says that only His Father in heaven could have brought Peter to this conclusion, and it's only God's Holy Spirit that we, too, understand just who and what Jesus is.  It's not that God somehow has begun to contradict Himself, as if He'd said to the Jews in the Old Testament, "I'm alone in my godhood," and then when Jesus came suddenly was saying, "No, wait a minute, I'm really Two, or Three."  No.  We see the eternal Son of God even in our reading from Exodus.  He is the angel of the Lord who spoke to Moses from the burning bush.  He is the God who receives the worship of Moses, the great I Am who commands and empowers him to deliver God's people Israel from slavery in Egypt.  The Holy Spirit of the Father enabled Peter to make this connection.  God was always One in Three, and this eternal Son, the angel of the Lord, the Lord, is now forever incarnate in the Man Jesus Christ.  This is the Christ we follow, and if your Christ isn't all that, you're following the wrong one.  Only the Man who is God in human flesh can free you from your sins; only He can give you eternal life.
 
    The Christ we follow is the builder and the head of His church. In verse 18, Jesus says, " . . . on this rock I will build my church."  The Greek word translated "church" is the same as the Hebrew word meaning "congregation" or "assembly."  It harks back to the congregation of the children of Israel that God brought out of Egypt under Moses.  But notice, Jesus doesn't say "I will build up God's church."  He says He will build His.  People of God, you are the people of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He's the head of this congregation and of every other congregation in every time and place who faithfully confess His name as their only Savior and Lord.  If any pastor should tell you to follow him instead of the Jesus you see revealed in His holy word, if any so-called Christian teacher should say that the church is irrelevant and we should stop attending, he is a false shepherd and not to be followed by God's sheep.  Jesus alone is our Shepherd and Guide, and He is the one that will see that His church not only survives, but triumphs.  For, as He says in the second part of verse 18, the gates of Hades-- of hell-- will not overcome it.  The "gates of Hell" is a metaphor for Death, and in this word of Jesus we have His faithful promise that His chosen congregation will never be defeated and never die.

    Who is this Jesus we follow?  He is the long-awaited Anointed One, He is the Son of God--God in human flesh-- and He is the Founder and Preserver of His church.  That sounds like a Christ worth following!  These days, people who are interested in Republican Party politics are waiting to see which contender emerges from the primaries.  If Jesus of Nazareth were running and we knew all these glorious things about Him, He'd be a candidate we could all get behind, full of excitement, optimism, and hope.  But there's more we need to learn about who the Son of Man really is. As Jesus tells His disciples in verse 21, He is also the Christ who was born to die.  He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and  He must be killed.

    But that won't be the end, for He is the Christ who was foreordained to be raised to life again.  But Peter and the other disciples don't hear that part.  They only take in what Jesus has said about suffering and death.  Peter speaks for them all: "Never, Lord!  This shall never happen to you!"

    But it must.  The Christ we follow was destined for the cross since the foundation of the world.  He was always the Lamb of God prepared as a blood sacrifice for our sins.   Just as Moses was appointed to lead God's Israel out of physical bondage in Egypt through the wilderness into the promised land, it was and is Jesus' purpose to liberate His new Israel the church from slavery to sin and death, through the cross, to the glory of everlasting life. 

    Satan aimed to sidetrack Him from that purpose, and any man who tried to prevent Jesus from fulfilling His destiny was doing Satan's dirty work.  Even blessed Peter.  A Christ without the cross is a Christ who cannot save.  The cross makes no sense to mortal man, but God in His wisdom has appointed it as the only way that you and I can stand before Him cleansed of our sins and clothed in His righteousness.  Jesus calls us to keep the things of God in mind, which is to keep the Cross and what Jesus did for us on it always before us.  For it is only by the Cross that He is our Savior and Hope in this world and the next.

    Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the Head of the church, is our crucified and risen Savior and Lord.  He is something else.  He is our Master and Example.  Now, when most people speak of Jesus as their Example, they mean they try to follow Jesus in  being kind to others and doing nice things.  And Jesus does want us to be kind to one another and do nice things.  But when He tells us to follow His example and take up our crosses and follow Him, He means far more than that.  The cross in Jesus' day meant certain death, death that was demeaning, disreputable, and hideously painful.  Jesus went to the cross in faithful obedience to His Father God.  He calls us his followers to bear any inconvenience, any shame, any pain, even death itself to be loyal to who He is and what He has done for us.  The Christ we follow has the right to demand that, for He bore the cross for us first, and His cross paid not only for our sins but for the sins of the whole world.  God calls us to see Christ, His sufferings, His coming glory, in every situation of life, whether good or bad, and follow His footsteps up the hill of Calvary. 

    In effect, Jesus calls us to renounce our right to life on this earth.  For He tells us plainly in verse 25, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it."  Our lives here on earth are a big messy ball of our desires, our ambitions, our possessions, our sense of self, all the rest of it.  That life is doomed to die anyway, when we breathe our last breath.  But there's a better life promised to those who belong to Jesus Christ.  As He says in the second part of verse 25, "whoever loses his life for me will find it."  Jesus braved the cross because He knew that resurrection life lay before Him.  In the same way, He promises that His faithful disciples will gain the deathless life in God that He alone can give, and in that life we will find our true selves.

    Jesus of Nazareth can keep this promise.  He is our Master and Example, our Savior who died and rose again, the Head and Preserver of the Church, the Christ, the Son of the living God.  And He is our everlasting King and Judge.  In verse 27 Jesus says, "The Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person for what he has done."  By now we should understand that outside of the grace He gives us in His death and resurrection, we can do nothing.  But with Him and in Him and through Him, we will triumph to the glory of God the Father.  Before His incarnation, speaking from the burning bush, God the Son of God told Moses, "I will be with you."  And in the power of the eternal Christ we also can do all that God requires of us and receive the reward He has promised.

    The promise to Moses came with a sign: God said that when His people were freed, they would worship Him on His holy mountain.  And they did.  People of God, Jesus Christ has freed us from sin and death.  We worship Him in our assemblies on earth, but a time will come when the Son of Man comes in His Father's glory, and we will worship Him on His holy mountain, the Mount Zion that is above.  Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Founder and Preserver of the Church, the Savior who died and rose again, and the Judge of all the world.  He is our Lord and our God, He is worthy of our worship, obedience, and praise, so with hope and joy let us take up our crosses and follow Him.

How Long, O Lord?

Texts: Revelation 6:9-17; Luke 18:1-8

IF YOU WATCH VIDEOS on YouTube, or if you read online news reports, you've probably noticed a pattern in the comments. Say it's a news story about a pilot who's successfully landed a plane in the worst of conditions. Or maybe it's a video of the old Rescue 911 show, and a family has safely escaped a fire in their house. Some commenters will give God the glory. They'll say, "It was a miracle they escaped! Praise God!" And just as inevitably, ten other people will jump in with "What? How can you praise God for that? If God was good, he wouldn't've let that house catch on fire! And what about all the other houses that catch fire and all the people inside burn to death? Your god is evil! Or he doesn't exist! I don't think he exists and I hate him!!"

But you know what? It's not just atheists and scoffers who wonder how a good God can put up with evil. People who know God and love Him also struggle with the fact that justice seems to be in short supply in this world.

What is Justice, anyway? It's rendering each person what he or she has the right to and what he or she deserves. Sometimes individuals deserve bad things, sometimes they deserve good. Sometimes we forfeit our rights by our bad behavior, and we deserve to lose the benefit of them. However it is, Justice balances out the scales so good is paired with good and evil is matched with evil.

But we don't see it that way on this earth, do we? We see people whom we consider to be good receiving bad things all the time. Often the evil comes from other people, and it seems like our human justice system never gets around to punishing the guilty. Sometimes, the evil comes from nature or even seems to come from God Himself. As when someone we love gets incurable cancer. Or a child struggles with a terrible learning disability. Or a family member loses his home in a flood. And meanwhile, those we consider to be wicked seem to have no troubles at all. Where's the Justice in that? This world has a saying, "Justice deferred is justice denied." Is God unjust? Why doesn't He even everything out now?

But the Bible teaches that a day of Justice is coming in God's good time, a Day when Christ will return as Judge and lay down the verdict on Evil and mete out rewards and punishments according to what each person deserves. Both of our readings look forward to that Day, and they teach us to pray for its coming and to have faith in God, that He will indeed make Justice prevail in heaven and on earth.

In our passage from St. Luke, Jesus tells a parable illustrating how we, His disciples, should always pray and never give up. Yes, let us pray for healing for ourselves and our loved ones. Let's intercede for new jobs for the unemployed and petition God for solutions to our worries. Let us cast our cares on the Lord, for He cares for us. Let us do all we can in this world to live justly and see justice done to our neighbor. But first and foremost, as it says in verses 7 and 8, let us pray persistently for God to bring about ultimate divine justice for His chosen ones-- which is to say, let us pray without ceasing for the glorious return of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. For it is only when He returns that true Justice will have its day.

But how long, O Lord, how long? The widow in the parable knew she was in the right in her case. The unjust judge knew it, too. But he was so selfish, he couldn't be bothered to render the verdict she deserved. Or maybe he'd already ruled in her favor, but he'd done nothing to enforce the decision. This judge had no conscience before God, he didn't care what other people said about him, and he couldn't be bothered to do what he should. But the widow was going to bother him and bother him and bother him until he did his duty. He was a judge; it was his job to make sure that justice prevailed. For some time he ignored her. Maybe she'd go away. But she didn't. She kept bothering him: "Grant me justice against my adversary!" And finally, finally, out of his own selfishness, he finally does what he should have done all along: The unjust judge makes sure this widow gets justice.

Jesus says, listen to what the unjust judge says. The unjust judge finally does right by the widow because she's kept on bothering him with her petitions. So--- if a wicked man can be prevailed upon to do what is right because he's been hammered by a widow's pleas, how much more will the good and gracious God of heaven bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night? How much more will He defeat their adversaries and bring them into the good they deserve, at just the right time?

Who are these chosen ones? They are Christ's elect, whom the Father foreknew before the creation of the world, to be adopted as His children through the shed blood of Christ. Brothers and sisters, we are Christ's chosen, and though all the forces of earth and Hell should come against us because we belong to Christ, all the more should we cry out to Him for justice against our adversaries.

Our passage from Revelation chapter 6 shows this from another point of view. St. John in his vision of the End watches as the seven seals of the book of judgement are opened one by one by Christ the Lamb. When He opens the fifth seal, John sees under a great altar in heaven "the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained." These martyrs cry out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" How long, O Lord, until we get justice? Our voices cry out to you day and night! They are each given a white robe-- which stands for the righteousness of Christ-- and are told to wait a little longer, for just the right time. For when? For when the number of their fellow servants who were also to be killed for the name of Christ was competed.

I have to admit that there's been something about this Revelation passage that has bothered me. It's just that, these martyrs are under the altar, and the altar represents the place of atonement, and our atonement is Christ. Moreover, St. John sees this altar as being in heaven. So, if these martyrs have found their refuge in the atonement of Christ, and they're in heaven, why are they so vindictive? Why are they so eager that their blood be avenged? Isn't it time they forgave and forgot?

Aren't Christian martyrs just ordinary human beings whom Jesus redeemed from their sins? Wasn't it the Holy Spirit who made sure they stayed faithful to Christ even to death? How could they claim anything for themselves?

And all the chosen ones of God: We didn't chose ourselves, did we? No. How can we claim to be more righteous or deserving than any other human being? It wasn't our works that got us into God's favor! Without the blood of Christ covering us, we would be just as lost and unholy as anybody else! How can we justify praying for Christ to come and judge the earth?

The answer lies every place the Bible speaks of God's love for His saints and His hatred of evil. It leaps out at us whenever we read that the Church is Christ's body on earth. We are His representatives here on earth, and the Word of salvation we carry into the world is the message of the living Word, Jesus Christ. Whoever persecutes His saints-- that's us, brothers and sisters-- persecutes Him. God has chosen us for Himself in Jesus Christ, and identified Himself with us and us with Him. So it is just and right that the souls of the martyrs should call out for vengeance on the earth. It is right that we His chosen ones should cry out day and night for Jesus to return and sit as Judge over this present evil age. Because ultimately, the One who deserves to have His right upheld is God. God is the ultimate object of justice. It is God Himself who must receive all the blessing, honor, praise, and glory He is due. As St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, the time will come when Christ will hand over the kingdom to God the Father, after He has destroyed all (rebellious) dominion, authority, and power. All His enemies will be put under His feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed will be death. That will be ultimate divine justice.

So how can we not pray earnestly and persistently for that day to come? Should we not call out for the justice that will once and for all defeat evil and Satan and all who belong to him will get the punishment they deserve?

But how long, O Lord? Why can't God reach down and deal the evil of this world right now?

That's what some of these scoffing Internet commenters ask. They don't realize that if God were to make an end of evil in this world right away, He'd also have to make an end of them. We humans deceive ourselves when we think we ourselves are good and evil is Out There someplace. Evil resides in each of our souls, and none of us can begin to be free of it until Jesus clothes us with His righteousness and brings us from death to life. Strict justice would mean every last one of us should be separated from God forever, but Jesus paid the full price for our sin, so as it says in Romans 3, God is shown to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Through His blood we are not only justified, we are made holy before God and finally will be presented to Him glorified on the Day when Christ returns.

This is God's will for all His elect. And He is biding His time until all the company of His chosen is complete. There are some who are elect who are still dead in their sins, and one day the Holy Spirit will call them into life. There are some of the elect who have not yet been born. Every last soul whom the Father has given to the Son will come to Him, and every last soul who will have the honor of being killed for His sake will make their testimony in their blood, before the end will come and ultimate justice will prevail.

But how do you know if you are among God's chosen who know their cause is just and right? It's not my place to pry into the secret counsels of God. But if you want to be among Christ's chosen, that's a good sign. If you have a passion for justice and you look to God instead of away from Him to find it, that's a good sign. Jesus asks in Luke, "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" Faith is a sign of those who belong to Him, of those who trust Him to make things right in His good time. Faith is a sign of those who love His appearing and who earnestly pray that it will be very soon. Faith is a sign of those who preach and testify to the Gospel of Jesus Christ died and risen again for the salvation of the lost, so that the full number of the elect will be speedily completed.

The sign of those who are not chosen? They are the ones described in verses 15 through 17 of our Revelation reading, the ones for whom the second coming of Christ is hateful, the ones who know they deserve His wrath and have rejected the blood that could have saved them from it. They beg the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the justice of God! Heaven forbid that anyone we love should be in that number! This is the tragic fate of all those who ally themselves with Satan and death and who turn away from the Lamb who was slain.

But you, people of God: Do you love Christ's appearing? Are you looking forward to the day when He will return and all evil, sadness, and death will be wiped away? Let us pray earnestly and persistently that Christ our righteous Judge will come quickly and bring justice to us, His chosen ones. For we belong to Him; and in Him, His cause is ours, and our cause is His own.

Redemption Drawing Near

Texts: Jeremiah 33:14-22; Luke 21:5-36

A FEW YEARS AGO I WAS at a pastors’ conference where we were doing an in-depth study of the Book of Psalms. During one of the question and answer periods, one pastor gave his opinion that the psalms where God’s people complain of hardship, trouble, grief, oppression and so on simply shouldn’t be used in white middle-class American churches. Middle-class American Christians don’t have troubles like that, he said. Such psalms are irrelevant to our lives and we shouldn’t say them.

I wondered if he really knew what went on in his parish. True, we don’t tend to undergo suffering to the extent our brothers and sisters in Somalia or India or Saudi Arabia do. But we know what it’s like to have trouble. Especially with the economy as bad as it is and the future of our country as uncertain as it is, we find ourselves subject to worry, care, and for some of us, real hardship. The Psalms are given to us for our comfort, as is our passage from the Gospel of St. Luke.

. . . Comfort? Where’s the comfort in Luke chapter 21? It begins all right in verse 5, with the disciples pointing out the marvellous beauty of the Lord’s Temple in Jerusalem. Life was hard and uncertain when you were a poor Galilean peasant, and being a follower of Rabbi Jesus could make things even harder. The Temple, at least, was something solid and permanent. An ordinary Jew could rely on it and feel sure about things, even when life wasn’t so good. That’s because it was a sign of God’s covenant with His people Israel. The disciples and all the Jews could look at the temple and know that in spite of the Roman occupation and everything else they were going through, God was still with them.

So does our Lord Jesus confirm their confidence? No. He says, "As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down."

What a knife in the gut! Good on the original disciples--they didn’t contradict Jesus (for once) or say, "But Lord! That’s impossible!" Instead, they asked, "Teacher, when will these things happen?" By now they’d learned to trust Jesus to know what He was talking about.

Jesus doesn’t answer their "When?" question. It wasn’t His will to give them an exact year and day and hour. Instead, He revealed to them and to us the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem with it. And at the same time, Jesus let us know how we can recognise the end of the age and the time of His coming as Judge and King.

We’re looking forward to that, right? His coming will be the end of all our trouble and the beginning of our eternal bliss. But before that Day comes, things on this earth will not get better, they will get much, much worse. Wars. Natural disasters. Pandemics. Terror. Cataclysms in the heavens and on the earth. Jesus said so, and He can be trusted to know what He’s talking about.

A lot of Bible commentators and ordinary Christians, too, get confused over this prophecy. Some say the whole thing applies to the time in A.D. 70 when the Romans marched in and destroyed Jerusalem and dispersed the Jews to the four corners of the world. While others say it all has to do with events that will happen sometime in the future, and the destruction of Jerusalem long ago has nothing to do with it.

But Bible prophecy again and again is fulfilled in a layered way. God revealed His will in pictures and mirrors. One event in the short term would serve as a symbol for something to happen thereafter. For instance, God’s great salvation in freeing His people from Egypt is a picture of what God would do in freeing us His people from slavery to sin by Christ’s death on the cross.

And here in Luke 21, the terrible events Jesus prophesied for Jerusalem were a picture of what will take place someday in the future when God’s judgement descends on all humanity when the Son of Man returns as King. We know from the text itself that the two events have been put together in one prophecy, for the Holy Spirit has Luke write very clearly in verse 24 that "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles are fulfilled." These events couldn’t all happen at once, in the past or in the future. When Jesus talked about the destruction of Jerusalem and about the end of the age, He wasn’t talking about the same time. Rather, He was talking about the same thing. And that thing is the process by which our sovereign God will judge unfaithfulness and evil in this world, install Jesus the Righteous Branch of David as King on the throne of the universe, and bring relief and redemption to His faithful people.

Advent’s a lot like that. It also has two parts. We look for the coming of Christ, the King. We prepare ourselves to receive Him in memory as the human Child born over two thousand years ago. But we also must make ourselves ready for His coming again in glory. We don’t know when that will happen; our Lord didn’t give us the year or day or hour. But it’s all part of God’s sovereign act of judging unrighteousness, making Jesus King, and bringing us redemption that He started long, long ago.

Let this passage be a warning to us, not to load God’s symbols with our own meanings. The Jews thought the Temple would stand forever as a sign of God’s favor to them. We humans see the Christ Child in the manger and think it’s all right to make God out to be weak and manageable and subject to our wants and desires. We sinners can cope with Jesus as a helpless baby. We can even take the grown-up Rabbi preaching woe to the Pharisees-- as long as we think "the Pharisees" are always Those Other People. But in our rebellion and idolatry we cannot take the Son of God hanging on a cross; much less are we ready to welcome the Son of Man come to judge us and rule over us forever.

None of us can accept Christ as He really is-- until God by His own unfettered will and sovereign initiative moves in our hearts by the power of His Holy Spirit and converts us into His own people. But when He does, we become a whole new people! People of redemption, people of righteousness, people of hope! In our Jeremiah passage, verse 16 says, "In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord our Righteousness." But if you go to Jeremiah 23, it speaks there as well of the Righteous Branch raised up from David, and says "This is the name by which He will be called: The Lord our Righteousness." The Jerusalem Jeremiah foretells is not the city destroyed in his day. It’s not the rebuilt city overthrown by General Titus in A.D. 70. It is God’s new Jerusalem, His new Israel, His Church, and we can bear the name "The Lord our Righteousness" because it’s the name of our Redeemer Jesus, the righteous Son of David. We now belong to Him and live in Him, and because we do, we will escape the eternal judgement that will come on the God-hating generation of this world.

In verse 28 Jesus says, "Stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." Interestingly, this word "redemption" doesn’t mean "ransom"-- for the payment that bought us out of slavery to sin was the blood He shed long ago on His cross. Rather, the word means "release" or "deliverance." When all the world is melting in terror and hiding from the wrath of almighty God, His people can stand on their feet like free men and women liberated by Jesus’ blood and expect to be freed from the persecutions and hardships of those last days. Be of good hope, Christian people! No matter how terrible things may get, God is in control and will bring you through. You may give your physical body as a witness to Christ and His gospel, but as to your soul, not a hair of your head will perish.

However, this is no time for complacency, Christian friends. As our Lord says in verse 34, both pleasure and hardship can weigh down our hearts so we lose faith in the goodness and saving power of God. At this season of the year, it’s doubly heart-breaking to hear someone say, "I’ve lost my job; at our house we won’t have any Christmas." Oh, no, no! You’ve lost your livelihood; does that mean you’ve lost Jesus the living Lord as well? You say you can’t give your children any Christmas this year? But my sad friend, God has already given Christmas to your children and to you as well! Tell them the story of the Son of God who became flesh, who died and rose for their salvation, and you’ve given your children more of a rich and blessed Christmas than most of the richest households will get around this fallen world!

Or there are hearts touched by tragedy, who say Christmas has been destroyed for them because of the grief that has torn apart their lives. If that is you, I beg you to see that this is the time for you to lift up your head, for your redemption is drawing near! Sorrow may have invaded your life, but the Son of God has invaded this world of sin and pain and death; His arm is stronger than the worse that can happen to any of us, and by His cross the victory is already yours.

The Devil wants us to be distracted and not be watching for the second coming of our Lord. He wants us to stop being faithful to Jesus in our everyday lives. For what is it for us to be on the watch? In every other place in Scripture where the return of Christ is described, keeping watch means to keep doing the work He has given you to do, cheerfully, in His name and to His glory. To watch means to endure the ordinary hardships of human life gracefully, drawing always on the power of your Lord Jesus Christ, so that when the greater trials come we’re used to depending on Him. And always, always, to watch means for us to seek and enjoy the means of grace-- reading His word, hearing it preached, praying in Jesus’ name, celebrating and sharing the sacraments He has given us, assembling and serving with His people, the church. In this way Christ Himself will prepare you to be a witness to Him, both in times of peace and in times of persecution and hardship.

After our sermon hymn, we will administer the sacrament of holy baptism to D---, daughter of S--- and L--- and granddaughter of C--- and J---. Do not be deceived: You may see only something being done to an adorable baby. But baptism is a sign of the great conflict between heaven and hell that Jesus describes in the Gospels. War is waged over the souls of little ones such as this, and by baptism we signify that we claim her for Jesus Christ. Greater than that, in baptism God claims her for His own, that she might not be in terror on the Day when Christ comes as Judge, but lovingly look up and hail Him as Her Redeemer and King.

This is God’s promise to us in all our baptisms. If King Jesus comes soon, we will undergo a baptism of fire we never could endure on our own. But our God is strong. He is in control. And just as He brought us through the waters of baptism to new life in His Son, He will also bring us through the deathly fire of that Day to eternal life and peace with Him.

Be of good hope. Your sin was judged and destroyed on the cross of your Lord Jesus Christ. In this Advent season, prepare yourselves to relive the coming of your King as the Babe of Bethlehem. And at the same time, keep watch and live prepared to welcome Jesus your King when He comes to receive you into His glory. In His name and by His power, you can stand and look up, for your redemption is drawing near.