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Will you pray with me? My Savior paid the debt I owe, and for my sin was smitten. Within the book of life I know my name has now been written. I will not doubt, for I am free, and Satan cannot threaten me. There is no condemnation. In his holy name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you. From God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Brothers and sisters, the text for this morning comes from the Old Testament, the Gospel, and the Epistle, but primarily the Gospel reading.
If it hasn’t happened to you, it will happen to you at some point in your life. It happened to me when I was 13. I came face to face with the reality that as a little 13-year-old boy, life is short. One of my buddies that I chummed around with, it’s a Lutheran Christian sermon. And impotent to stop anything that God wishes in our lives. So truly the only thing we can say to God is what we continually say: into your hands, O Lord, we commend ourselves. Because we know the hands to be pierced for us. That’s why.
Now these events that God allows in your lives, in my life, in your family’s lives, and in my family’s life. These events that God allows to happen to our nation and to the world, they’re all by God’s will to bring you and I into continual repentance so that we see ourselves not as invincible, but vulnerable and in great need of the loving Savior. Because whenever these events happen, there is a sermon that’s preached to us, and it’s not preached to us by the Holy Spirit.
When these events happen, and we’re made aware of our own lack of invincibility, Satan preaches sermons to you and to me. And he preaches exactly what you and I do not need to hear, but he knows we’re vulnerable to it. He’ll either preach this sermon to you: Come on, it’ll never happen to you. Don’t worry about it. Just keep living your life. No need to repent. You’re overreacting. That leads to apathy, and that finally leads to a hardened heart.
The other sermon that he preaches is that the reason this is happening to you is because you are condemned by God, damned, and going to hell, and there is nothing that can save you, which leads to despair and a hardened heart. And he fills hell with people who pay heed to such a sermon. But let’s be honest, it appeals to our flesh, such sermons as these. And he is more than willing to preach them as you and I encounter our lack of invincibility and our very impotence in this world.
Jesus proclaims to us the last days. And it’s these kind of events that have been happening since Jesus’ ascension into heaven that Satan has been using as a springboard for all of his sermons to you and to me on these two matters: either completely overconfident and self-righteous or completely despairing. It’s how he preached to you when things happened to you that you weren’t ready to deal with. It’s what he preached to you when you had things happen to your family, the things you did not understand. It’s the sermon he preached to you when you see things in the world and in our own nation that make you shake your head and think… It’s only going to get worse. That’s exactly the kind of things he preaches.
You see, the signs that Jesus speaks about in the gospel reading about false Christs and false prophets, it’s disconcerting to say the least. The signs he talks about, wars and chaos and destruction. Wow. And we’re seeing it, aren’t we? It’s very disconcerting. Not only the destruction by weather and earthquakes, but the one that really bites—betrayal of family members. That bites, doesn’t it? That’s in our own backyard.
Last week, the confidence that God gave us through the scripture readings was all about the resurrection. This week, it’s all about his holy word. The holy word that never, ever fades away. In the prophet Malachi, this morning’s Old Testament reading, Malachi talks about this great and awesome day. Awesome does not mean, as you and I use the term so often.
Malachi says, for behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, and it will leave them neither root nor branch. That’s meant to cause us to repent. It’s not meant to bring us into heaven. Too often, law like that has been used by Christians to scare people into heaven. It doesn’t work. It will never work because it’s not gospel.
It’s the next verse that’s sweet gospel: but for you, you who fear the Lord, meaning have a relationship in faith, you who fear my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. Healing the very things that weigh you and me down. You will go out leaping like calves from the stall. Well, if you’ve never seen a calf come out of a stall, didn’t grow up on a farm, you’ve all experienced this. I can tell you for sure. That same thing is like a small primary grade schooler heading out on the playground for recess, with screaming, with shouting of joy, with the exclamation of, “recess time!”
That is how you will receive judgment day. Kind of like a little kid who can’t read the time yet. You know, that age when they’re not really sure of what time it is. And they look at the clock and they don’t quite know how to read it or understand its passing. But they know at a certain time in the morning, they’re to cut loose to go play outside. And they know it’s coming; they just don’t know when. And when it comes, they don’t greet it with, “Oh no, we got to go outside.” That’s how you will greet that day: Judgment day. Judgment day. Because it is your release from this world.
You see, in the Gospel reading, Jesus says, “Watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life.” You know what it’s like to have a heart weighed down with those things, the worries of this world, your money and finances, what the future holds, things that are going on in your own personal life, let alone your family life. Satan loves to use those to weigh us down and bend us over as if we’re overly burdened.
Jesus in the gospel says, when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads. Your redemption is drawing near. Now, I don’t know about you, but I heard the term straighten up a lot when I was a little boy. Straighten up was not an encouraging term. Straighten up meant, you’re not doing something you ought to be doing, so straighten up and do what you need to be doing.
When God says straighten up here, it is not that kind of straighten up. It is lift up those burdened hearts and souls of yours because you are victorious. Recess is coming. Your complete vindication is at hand. You’ve seen your kid, and you yourselves have done it as well. When they’re sorrow-filled and saddened, do they look you in the eye? No. Most of the time, not. They’re looking at the ground, crying and in tears. And what do you do?
What was done to you that encouraged you? Somebody took your head and your face in their hands and lifted your face to look into their eyes and said to you, “It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.” That’s what he means when he says, “raise your heads.” I’m wanting to look at you in the eye because I look at you as my child, not as my condemned damn sinner. I am your savior. I was smitten for you, as we prayed. I’m the one who was completely abandoned by God so that you will never be. I faced the wrath of God so that you will only face his joy and his benevolence.
So when Jesus says, “Straighten up and raise your heads, your redemption is drawing near,” he’s saying, let not the dissipation and the worries weigh down your heart so that you look and act and feel like you really are listening to Satan’s sermons and believe him. Throw him to the side. Look Satan in the eye and say, “No, my God is my vindicator. He is my redeemer.” And I fear not that day, as we sang and as I prayed at the beginning, there is no condemnation for him who is in Christ Jesus.
Paul knew the same kind of thing would come upon congregations, and he preached and proclaimed in his letter to the Thessalonians, this morning’s epistle reading. He said, the Lord is faithful, not like you, faithless, and like me, faithless, who are weighed down by the cares of the world and by our own sins. We walk around gloomy and doomy because we’re not confident. God be praised that the Lord is faithful and He, not you, will establish you. He will guard you against the evil one.
So you don’t have to fear and be weighed down and bent over and not look at Him in the eye. Why? He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. So if last week it was all about the resurrection, this week it’s all about God’s promises that are in his word. In the very last part of the gospel reading, Jesus says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” My promises will never be null and void. My commitment to you, my commitment to you will not yield to anyone or anything.
His words of comfort and his words of peace speak to you, and they are your hope. It’s God’s effective word which says what it will do, and it does what it says to you. This word was given to you in your baptism, and every time you see that thought, it needs to strengthen you. Lift up your head and say, “You are mine.”
That word, as it’s read and preached, is planted in your ears. And each time you hear it, it is God strengthening you and establishing you and guarding you from the evil one, as Paul said. Each time you eat this feast, it is the feast of victory. Your victory here and now. Your vindication here and now as you await the final victory and the final vindication. It is yours. It is yours. To relish and cherish. And God gives it to you to strengthen you, to establish you, and guard you, as Paul said.
So that day doesn’t come to you with foreboding fear, but with the same exact effect as the words “recess time” has to a six-year-old. So what do we do in the meantime? We will do just as we have been doing, and just as the church has been doing for nearly 2,000 years or more.
One, we will gather on the first day of the week, the day of resurrection, just like we’re doing. Two, we will hear and receive that word of promise and be strengthened, established, and guarded by that word. Three, we will join in the prayers of the church, for the church, with the church, by the church. Four, that we may continually keep before us the things that matter, and that we may be strengthened and established and guarded.
And finally, we will with joy continue to eat and drink the sacrifice for us. That we may not be fearful but confident. That we may not be dealing with that day with foreboding but with excitement. Because it is our day of vindication and victory. That is what we do. Nothing really out of what you’ve been doing. This is the pattern of our lives, this weekly pattern. This is the habitus, or the way of life for us who are judged those who fear the Lord.
And this is what will guard, sustain, and keep us in the midst of so much that wishes to weigh us down and crush us. It will be why we greet that day with joy, not sorrow and sadness, with confidence, not fear and shame. It is why we will look our Lord in the eye and say, “To you be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” Just as we say now, “To you be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” In the name of Jesus, amen.
