Emmanuel Lutheran Church

Sermon for Trinity 26

Isaiah 40:9-11  +  2 Thessalonians 1:3-10  +  Matthew 25:31-46

It was Judgment Day. There was the King on His throne. He was surrounded by sinners who looked exactly the same on the outside; you couldn’t distinguish between them by sight. But on one side of the King was a believer, and on the other side, an unbeliever. The unbeliever went to his eternal destruction, but the believer was granted a pardon by the King and was taken to Paradise.

The day, of course, was Good Friday. The King was Jesus. His throne was a cross of shame. The thieves on each side of Him were both sinners, both equally guilty before the Law. They looked the same to the world, but to Jesus, there was a world of difference between them. One died in impenitence, and the other in faith. One’s soul was sent to hell, while the soul of the other met Jesus that very same day in His heavenly kingdom.

It strikes me just how much Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats was mimicked in that Good Friday judgment, which took place only a few days after Jesus told the parable. That same Holy Week the Son of Man would hang from a cross of shame, and even there He would rule as a King on His throne, pronouncing judgment, distinguishing between the righteous and the unrighteous. How much more when He comes again in glory!

Jesus looks beyond Good Friday in our Gospel, far beyond it to the end of the age. He speaks of His second coming, when He will no longer hang on a cross of shame but will sit on the throne of His glory. But from His throne of judgment, He will make a similar distinction to the one He made on Good Friday—one that He sees even now, but we don’t see it, not clearly at least. A distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous, the sheep and the goats, the believers and the unbelievers.

To the sheep He will say, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And then He lists all these good deeds they did for Him by doing them for His brethren, even the least of His brethren.

Understand who the brethren of Jesus are. Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t a reference to all human beings. These are the ones to whom Jesus “gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name,” as John wrote in his Gospel. These are the ones who are “all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” as Paul wrote to the Galatians. These are the little ones who receive a drink of cold water “in the name of a disciple,” as Jesus said, that is, because this little one is a disciple of Jesus. Every little deed of kindness shown to every little Christian is recorded by the King and will be praised by the King on the Last Day. See how Jesus values His people and how He spurs us on to even greater service to our fellow Christians! Because the King claims all that service as being done directly to Him.

Now, it’s true, the works of Christians also extend beyond the pale of the Church to benefit all men. But there is a special bond of love among believers. There must be. As Jesus said on Maundy Thursday evening, Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another. “One another.” Not one another as human beings. But one another as brothers and sisters who have been adopted into God’s eternal family through Holy Baptism and through faith in Christ Jesus.

The sheep look like such good people as Jesus describes them, but they aren’t aware of it. That is to say, they don’t focus on it. They don’t serve one another so that they can be rewarded in the end. They show true, genuine love, which doesn’t look for repayment or even for thanks.

They look like such good people, but the truth is, they were essentially no different from the thief on the cross. They haven’t all been robbers or thieves. But they all deserved God’s wrath. They all deserved death. But they recognized it before they died and looked to Jesus to have mercy on them and to remember them when He came into His kingdom. And, unlike the thief on the cross, many of them had opportunities to live a life of love after they were brought to faith. They were like branches growing on a vine, grafted into Christ by faith. The thief was, too, but he died before he had a chance to produce any visible fruit. No matter. He was in the vine. That’s what saved him. So also the branches that had time to grow and produce fruit. What will save them all on the Last Day is not their fruit itself, but their connection to Christ.

But that doesn’t mean God will ignore their fruit. No, Jesus foretells how He will praise His blood-bought people for the fruit they produced while connected to Him, the true Vine. And in the end, the righteous will go into eternal life.

Then there are the goats, the rest of humanity, like the thief on Jesus’ other side. Depart from Me, says the King, you who are cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels! What is it that has earned them everlasting fire? The King doesn’t list anything that sounds so terrible. In fact, He doesn’t mention a single sin of commission on their part, no wicked deed against anyone. That doesn’t mean they haven’t done wicked things. It means that it isn’t only their wicked actions that will condemn them on the Last Day. What will condemn them is their every failure to do a deed of kindness to Jesus’ brothers and sisters, their failure to help Christians—that will be held against them on the Last Day. Jesus takes it very personally when the unbeliever sees a Christian in need and fails to come to his or her aid. And that is a severe warning. Because if these goats are to go to everlasting fire for their sins of omission, then how much hotter will flames be for all their sins of commission, for all the hatred and lies they have spewed, for all the blood they have shed.

It looks at the moment like the unbelievers of the world are doing just fine, even prospering, even thriving. And it looks at the moment like Jesus doesn’t care all that much about the mistreatment of His people. But nothing could be further from the truth. He tells us ahead of time that He is keeping track, and that there will come a day of reckoning, a day of distinction between the righteous and the wicked. And even as the righteous will go into eternal life, so the wicked will go to eternal punishment.

For now, we still live in the age of Jesus’ shame, and we must bear His reproach here if we would be glorified with Him there. But the Day is surely drawing near. It will surely come. We’re instructed in the Gospel to look past the present tribulations of the world, to long for that day. Let the unbeliever take warning before it’s too late! Let him repent and flee to Christ for refuge now, as the one thief on the cross did, even at his very last hour, and found in Christ a gracious and forgiving Lord. Let the believer live in daily repentance, conscious of the coming destruction and careful not to stray from the refuge that is Christ. Let the believer take comfort in Jesus’ promise to come and make things right, to come and make a distinction on the day of distinction between the righteous and the wicked, with zeal to avenge His people against all those who do us harm in this world and even against those who fail to do us good! Take comfort in His assurance that there will come a day when liars will no longer be able to get away with their lies, when the madness of this world will no longer be allowed even a semblance of power. And let Jesus’ words spur you on to love one another and to spend your life serving one another in love, without neglecting any opportunity to serve the little brothers and sisters of Jesus. Your deeds may go unnoticed here. And that’s all the better. Let them go unnoticed, even by yourselves. Don’t love for the sake of reward. Love for the sake of love. Love for the sake of Him who loved you and gave Himself for you as an offering, that you may spend eternity with Him in His eternal inheritance. And on the Last Day, the day of distinction, the God who is love and who brought you into His love by grace alone will see to it in the presence of men and angels that your love is acknowledged, too. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Sermon for Third-to-Last Sunday (Trinity 25)

Isaiah 49:12-17  +  1 Thessalonians 4:13-18  +  Matthew 24:15-28

Our Lord urgently warned His disciples in today’s Gospel about future events—scary events—that His Christians would face in this world. His disciples, earlier in the day, had pointed out to Him the beautiful craftsmanship of the temple in Jerusalem, and Jesus had prophesied that destruction was coming to that city and to that temple. In the verses before our Gospel, the disciples asked Jesus this question: “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” It’s really two questions. When will Jerusalem be destroyed, and what will things be like before You come at the end of the age? Jesus’ answer addresses both questions, even though they are separate events—separated by at least 1948 years. The literal tribulation leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. mimics the spiritual tribulation leading up to the second coming of Christ. In both cases, the words of Christ to His dear Christians are the same: Flee to the mountains!

Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Idolatry is that great abomination, the thing that God hates and that brings with it desolation and destruction, as the Old Testament makes clear. Idolatry is the worship of a false god, elevating someone or something above God. Idolatry is man’s attempt to worship God apart from His Word, apart from Jesus Christ, apart from faith in His death on the cross for our sins.

Idolatry is what had firmly taken root in the city of Jerusalem over the forty years following Christ’s death and resurrection. Yes, it was bad that the Jews crucified Jesus. But they could have been forgiven for that. The unforgiveable sin, as Jesus also talked about it in the Gospels, was their sin against the Holy Spirit who preached repentance to them through the apostles and held out the promise of forgiveness through faith in Christ. For a time after the Day of Pentecost, the Gospel was received by some in Jerusalem. But over the years it became increasingly apparent that the people of Jerusalem would continue to trust in their own merits and reject the Holy Spirit’s ministry. They would continue to offer up their own sacrifices to God in the Temple. And those sacrifices, since they were separated from faith in the one true sacrifice of Christ, were pure idolatry in the sight of God. And so Jerusalem would be destroyed by God’s own decree—wiped out by the Roman armies in AD 70 after several years of some of the worst tribulation and horror any nation has ever seen.

So Jesus warned His Christians ahead of time to “flee to the mountains,” without hesitation, without delay, and without looking back. And they did flee. The Christians listened, and were saved.

Ever since that time, the city of Jerusalem has ceased to be “the holy place.” Even Christians through the ages have failed to acknowledge that. There’s nothing holy about that city anymore, nothing special about it, no prophecies that deal with it. Don’t let anyone deceive you with lies about some special place Jerusalem has in the prophecies leading up to the end of the world. All of God’s prophecies about the earthly city of Jerusalem were fulfilled when the city was destroyed in AD 70.

The true “holy place” now is not a single geographic location. The “holy place” is the Christian Church on earth, where the “holy ones” are, the saints, the believers in Christ, and where the holy Word of Christ is preached and the holy Sacraments of Christ are administered. The Church on earth, in its broad sense, is made up of all baptized Christians, all who claim to believe in Jesus Christ. But there will always be weeds among the wheat, as Jesus’ parable says, people within the Christian Church who do not actually trust in Christ or honor His Word. In fact, Scripture declares that within the Church, within this “temple” of Christianity, a man of lawlessness will set himself up over everything that is called “God.” This is the Antichrist, the “one who replaces Christ,” the spiritual “abomination of desolation.”

But the Antichrist is not a single person. It can’t be, because, as Paul describes in 2 Thessalonians, it lasts from shortly after the time of the Apostles until the Second Coming of Christ. The Antichrist—that institution within the temple of the Christian Church that sets itself up as a “replacement-Christ” has been revealed over time as the Roman papacy. Now, we’re careful to make the distinction: Not all Roman Catholics are the Antichrist, nor are they all unbelievers going to hell. That’s just the thing: the abomination of desolation sets itself up right there in the holy place, in the temple of God, where Christians are. It’s represented in the line of popes who, for over a thousand years, have been contradicting Christ and setting up their own papal authority and human traditions over the authority of Christ’s Word. The idolatry that has been set up in “the holy place” is truly an abomination of desolation—the sanctioned idolatry of trusting in saints and their merits, the sacrifice of the Mass, the justification-not-by-faith-alone theology, the trust that is placed in the glorious human institution, not to mention the more recent idolatry of science that Rome has embraced, denying the six-day creation and embracing the doctrine of evolution. All of these are idolatries, setting up manmade doctrines over the Word of Christ. And all of it takes place within the pale and in the name of Christianity.

Lutherans have recognized this abomination of desolation in Rome for some 500 years, and so we are as those who are fleeing to the mountains. We couldn’t stay in communion with Rome, nor can we go back to Rome. We can’t stay and share in her prestige or her glory, because destruction is coming upon her. I think everyone here is well aware of that.

But while the papacy may best represent the Antichrist, its idolatries are not restricted to the Roman Church. Protestants, who have no outward allegiance to the pope, have set up plenty of idolatries in the Christian Church, too. Women pretending to serve as pastors. Homosexuality endorsed and approved as acceptable and God-pleasing. Denying the Real Presence of the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion. The worship of man, the worship of personal preference, the rejection of the holy ministry, and the elevation of church bodies and synods to the place of God in people’s hearts. These are just a few of the abominations that have been set up in the Christian Church. You don’t have to be Roman Catholic to be in league with Antichrist. All of these share the spirit of Antichrist. To remain in communion with those who promote any of these idolatries is to remain in Jerusalem after the abomination of desolation has been set up.

And so we must always be as those who are fleeing to the mountains. That doesn’t mean we stop going to church. On the contrary, it is still God’s will to create faith and to forgive sins only through the ministry of the Word, through preaching and through the Holy Sacraments. It is still God’s will to save sinners by proclaiming Christ crucified for their sins and by sustaining faith through His Means of Grace. And it’s still God’s will that Christians gather together to encourage one another, and all the more as we see the Day of Judgment drawing nearer. God will most certainly keep us safe from death and the devil as we flee from the idolatry of the Antichrist.

But fleeing to the mountains means we have to give up all our idolatries, too, and keep giving them up, because idolatry is like the mole in the whack-a-mole game. Smack it down in one place, and it pops up in another. We’ve given up the prestige and the comforts and the conveniences of a larger church in order to remain faithful to the Word of Christ. But we could easily start to cling desperately to the external things we still have. We could easily grow more attached to the things of this world than to the Word of Christ, which would mean forfeiting all the benefit of fleeing the abomination of desolation in the first place.

But to guard us against that, God continues to provide for us here in our flight. The Gospel is still being proclaimed in our midst, where the Holy Spirit calls us daily to repentance through His Law, comforts us and forgives us through His Gospel, hedges us in with His warnings to beware of all those false christs and false prophets who will seek to distract us along the way. “Here is Christ! Over here! Over here!” You know how confusing the religious scene is in our world. So confusing, so lonely, and so disheartening that even the elect are close to being deceived, as Jesus said we would be.

That would be more disheartening if we were truly alone. But we aren’t. Not only does the Lord Jesus accompany us always, to the very end of the age, but there are countless others around the world who have also fled Jerusalem and are living as spiritual refugees. Some of them we know, some of them we don’t. But we give thanks for them all, for the entire Holy Christian Church.

And all of this would be scarier, too, if Jesus hadn’t told us it would be this way beforehand. But He did. Right here in our Gospel. And He promises that it will be all right, and better than all right for those who cling in faith to Him above all things. We may be living as those who are fleeing, but God is with us as we flee, our Captain, our Defender, our Savior. He hasn’t sent us out of the city empty-handed, but has poured His love into our hearts by His Holy Spirit, and has given us His Word and His body and blood for food, and His righteousness for a cloak.

And at just the right time, the carcass will appear—the body of Him who was dead, but now lives again forevermore. And when He appears, the eagles will gather around Him, all those who have longed for His appearing. Paul described that in today’s Epistle: The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

The words of Jesus today paint a frightening picture, but not so frightening when He promises His help and a blessed ending for His Church, for His believers, for His saints. Cling to that promise! And wait patiently here in the mountains for the Lord’s return! Amen.

Sermon for Trinity 23

Isaiah 32:1-8  +  Philippians 3:17-21  +  Matthew 22:15-22

I’m sure I’m not the only one here who’s eager for Tuesday to get here and then to go away. It’s been another year of constant bombardment with political ads, campaigning, half-truths, lies, propaganda, and empty promises on the part of politicians. And, to be honest, it’s been two years of a lot of people in this country working, not just to choose new leaders in a new election, which is legitimate, but wickedly trying to overturn the decision made by the American voters in 2016.

What is the Christian’s responsibility in the face of so much ugliness in the political realm? What is the Christian’s role as citizen of both the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdom? Jesus gives us some guidance in today’s Gospel for the 23^rd Sunday after Trinity, which strangely falls just two days before election day in the United States this year. Very simply, Jesus would have you render under Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

He said that in response to the trap-question posed to Him by the Pharisees in the Gospel. As many trap-questions do, theirs started out with bald-faced flattery: Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. Slimy, isn’t it? They didn’t believe those things about Jesus. But they thought they could goad Him into being just a little too direct for His own good, to say more than He should. Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?

Understand the political climate at that time. Israel still existed as a nation, but it had fallen under the umbrella control of the Roman empire, whose emperors were still using the title of “Caesar” at that time, after Julius Caesar, whose military and political exploits greatly expanded the power of Rome. Rome had divided the land of the Jews into four territories and placed four tetrarchs or governors over them who were to serve Rome by keeping the Jews in their territories under control. As a result, the Jews were living under the general belief that to be pro-Caesar was to be anti-God and anti-Israel, and to be pro-God and pro-Israel was to be anti-Caesar.

So the Pharisees put this yes/no question to Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar, and they made sure the Herodians were there as witnesses (Herod was one of those four tetrarchs who served Rome). If Jesus answered, No, it isn’t lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, then Herod’s men would have arrested Him for inciting rebellion against Rome. If He said, Yes, it’s lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, then the fanatical Jews, who hated Rome and were constantly trying to start another revolt, would have cut Him down themselves. Either way, the Pharisees would have won.

But Jesus is wiser than all His enemies. He doesn’t give them a yes or no answer to their question. Instead, He defeats their trap by reframing the argument. Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the tax money.” So they brought Him a denarius. And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

The fact that Caesar had conquered God’s people, the nation of Israel, didn’t mean that God’s people should rebel against Caesar. It wasn’t “God vs. Caesar.” Caesar—who represents all secular rulers—has his place in the world, a place given to him by God, with a specific scope of authority given to Him by God, even though Caesar and his entire government were not believers in the true God or citizens of the kingdom of heaven. And the Christian, as a permanent citizen of heaven, who has also been made a temporary citizen under Caesar, is to be neither anti-God nor anti-Caesar. But we are taught to recognize the place of each, and to fulfill our responsibilities toward them both. Certain things belong to Caesar, Jesus says. But all things belong to God.

So you should pay taxes to Caesar. And you should render earthly obedience to him. You should even honor Caesar in your heart and with your speech. As Paul writes in Romans 13, Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves… Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

Paying taxes to Caesar, obeying Caesar, honoring Caesar, doesn’t mean that you’re in favor of everything Caesar does. It simply means that you recognize that God, for His own reasons, in His own counsel, has chosen to give certain tasks to sinful (and many times godless, unbelieving) earthly rulers, and He has chosen to place you in the nation in which you were born. As Paul preached to the Athenians, God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord. If you were born in America, it wasn’t luck, it wasn’t fate, it wasn’t without purpose. You were born here because God appointed it for you. If you were born in another country, you were born there because God appointed it for you.

Why? So that you might seek Him. You see, God appointed sinful secular authorities so that they might keep a measure of peace among their sinful citizens in this dying world where everything marches toward chaos, toward selfishness, toward violence, and toward destruction. In order to seek God, you have to know Him, and in order to know Him, you have to hear about Him, and in order to hear about Him, you have to be able to live in this world, to have some measure of peace and safety in this world, and preachers have to have some measure of freedom to preach.

Ultimately, God has put Caesar in place so that His Gospel might be proclaimed and heard. This is why Paul writes to Timothy as a matter of such importance, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

So render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, even as you render unto God the things that are God’s. All of which is easy enough for our modern ears to hear. Until we replace the name “Caesar” with the name of the authorities whom God has placed over us. For example, how many of you would have been glad to hear two years ago, “Render unto Obama the things that are Obama’s”? How many Christians in this country are glad to hear, “Render unto Trump the things that are Trump’s”?

Our sinful nature, truthfully, doesn’t like to render anything to anyone if it conflicts with what the self wants, what the self thinks. The very idea of someone having authority over us is repulsive to the sinful flesh, and all the more when that person says or does things that we don’t like. The flesh lives in rebellion against God, which often means living in rebellion against the governing authorities, whether openly or just in your heart and in your speech.

Repent of that rebelliousness and turn in faith to Christ for forgiveness. Recognize that He has freely given you a citizenship in a far better kingdom than the United States will ever be. But until God changes your permanent residence to the heavenly kingdom, render unto God the things that are God’s here below by rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s: taxes, obedience, and honor. Be content with your citizenship here on earth, which is relatively easy for us in America, and perhaps harder for those who live in other countries, but the same command applies to all. (The mass exodus of those caravans of people from their own Caesars and their apparent insistence that our Caesar take them under his protection, even as they carry the flags of their own Caesars is nothing but rebellion against God.)

So be content with your citizenship. Be content with your Caesar. Render unto him the things that God has given him, whether he’s good or evil, godly or wicked. Vote in the elections as part of that rendering. Only be careful that you don’t give your vote to any candidate who promises to do the opposite of what God commands the authorities to do: to protect the innocent within their kingdom and to punish the evildoers. There are candidates in New Mexico who openly defy God’s commandments, especially when it comes to unborn children. Make sure you don’t become complicit in their wickedness by giving them the power to carry out their even plans.

Still, regardless of how you vote or who gets into office, God knows how to rule His universe, even through wicked rulers, and He will build His Church, in spite of every obstacle. Remain focused on the better kingdom that awaits, as Paul encouraged us in today’s Epistle: Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Amen.