07 August 2010

Homily for Trinity 10

[Jeremiah 8:4-12 / Romans 9:30-10:4 / St. Luke 19:41-48]


Dr. Luther spoke of God’s proper work and his alien work – it’s a distinction he learned from Isaiah 28.  God has a “strange” work that He sometimes does.  A work that is not the fulfillment of His heart’s desire.  A work that He does only with tears in His eyes.  That is His work of punishment, of judgment and destruction of the rebellious who simply will not repent.  You can get a handle on that nowhere so clearly as in today’s Gospel reading.

We read it about this time each year, because it was in August of 70 A.D. that what our Lord foretold was fulfilled.  The piteous destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman legions; His city had rebelled for the last time. 

The setting though is actually Palm Sunday some nearly 40 years before the terrible end.  Our Lord is riding into His city.  The cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David!” and “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” fill the air.  The palm branches wave and clothes line the path before Him.  From atop the borrowed burro, He looks upon this City, this City that He loves with a love that is deep beyond our understanding, and tears well up.  His heart is breaking. 

Not for what awaits Him there.  No.  He knows that the Cross is His destiny and that through it He will secure forgiveness for that city and for the whole world, pouring out His precious blood to blot out the sin of every last human being.  That death will never hold Him, that He will rise again in triumph.  That as He will die to secure redemption for the human race, so He will live to apply that redemption, raised and exalted, taking His flesh and blood to the right hand of the Father!  His tears are not for that; how could they be?

No, His tears are for His city and how she will reject the Good News sent to her, and thus seal her fate.  His tears are for Jerusalem insisting that she didn’t NEED Him or His righteousness.  That she could go it alone, thank you very much, and be just fine.  He weeps that His city, His people, will by and large persist in being “ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God and seek to establish their own; not submitting to God’s righteousness.”  He weeps because His city, His people will not see that HE is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (epistle)

If you say “no” to Jesus as your sin-bearer; if you insist to God “I don’t need bleeding mercy from the likes of HIM;” if you insist on dealing with God on the basis of your own life, work, and deeds – well, then finally you shall.  You will discover only too late that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” – as the author of Hebrews said, “for our God is a consuming fire!”  The end of that way is like the fate of earthly Jerusalem.  It’s just destruction and burning, unending sorrow, regret, and death. 

And it is so utterly, utterly needless.  That’s the sorrow in the heart of Jesus.  Not only that His city would suffer this fate, but that it didn’t need to happen.  In Him, in His holy sacrifice, which He was riding into Jerusalem to offer, there would be a way open wide enough for every single sinner in the whole world to find pardon, to know peace, to have a life that never ends. 

But the way of God is that all this comes as gift.  Always as gift.  And gifts cannot be forced.  They are offered freely.  But they can be rejected.  They can be returned to sender with a “no thank you” note attached.  And that is exactly what He saw Jerusalem would do to Him, the gift riding into town on the donkey, the Sacrifice to end all sacrifices, the Gift of divine pardon, full amnesty for all rebellions and sins and betrayals.  His city would spurn the gift.  Rather than shelter under the saving blood, she would trample on it as worthless and go to meet her fate.  And so He cries.  “If only you, even you, had known the things that make for peace; if you, only you, had known the day of your visitation.”

And the phrase “day of your visitation” should grab you.  Not all times are the same.  God’s grace does not flow in the same way endlessly through this world.  It comes to a person, a city, a nation – it comes freely offering peace with God through the blood of Jesus, the hope of eternal life, the joys of being members of God’s family and of His household – all unasked, unsought, unearned.  Just gift.  Just there.  Just yours for the receiving.  It comes.  But just because it is here today, do not imagine for a second that it or you will be here tomorrow.

Should you say:  No.  Not now.  Maybe later. Now I’ve got other things to do; my own life to live; places to go; people to see; sins to enjoy.  Later maybe.  Should you speak like that in these days of grace, wake up!  Learn from Jerusalem’s example.  The Lord’s patience is greater than anything we sinful human beings could imagine, but it is not finally endless.  There comes a time when the gift has been refused, and He moves on.  He stops standing and knocking at the door.  With tears in His eyes, He turns away, and the gift is offered in another place, to another person, to a different people.

This has been the course and path of Christ’s Church on earth.  When those called to be His own people will not hear, when they will not repent, when they “turn everyone to his own course” and when they “do not know how to blush” despite committing one abomination after another, when they turn away “in a perpetual backsliding,” and trust that it will all turn out okay because they belong to the Lord, after all.  Then we have what Jeremiah decried:  “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”  For then the gift giving Lord is spurned, and He turns away.  From His proper work – salvation – to His alien work – wrath. 

Are you still playing the delaying game with Him?  Are you banking on His mercy being there when you’ve had your fill of sin and the wicked ways of this world?  Do you believe that every day will be the same as today for you?  Wake up and stop deceiving yourself!  That’s not how it is.  Jerusalem found that out.  So will all who presume upon His mercy.

The Lord’s proper work, His gift-giving, life-restoring, pardon-bestowing work is how He wishes you to experience Him.  He comes to you in the body and blood that did indeed blot out the sins of the entire world and He gives Himself to you completely, His perfect obedience credited to you as your very own, His flawless “yes” to the will of the Father rendered yours. To you He reaches the gift of repentance.  To you He imparts the gift of faith.  And as He does He cries out:  “Now is the acceptable time.  Now is the day of salvation.”  Gift received or gift rejected?  May it be for each of you the stance of faith, of gift received, by the Spirit’s power, through the Son’s sacrifice, and to the Father’s glory, now and to the ages of ages!  Amen.

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