Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Many of you know that I used to teach an Engineering Communication class to undergraduate civil and mechanical engineering students at The University of Texas at Austin. For a number of semesters, the students’ major project included both technical analysis of a past engineering failure and a policy proposal to prevent such failures in the future. The students considered such things as levee overtopping in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and the collapse of the I‑35 West bridge in Minneapolis. One of those former undergraduate students of mine and another friend I met when he was a graduate student are now what are called forensic engineers, who investigate materials, products, structures, or components that fail or do not operate as they were intended. Maybe I have been hanging around those kind of engineers too much, as this past week when I started studying today’s Gospel Reading in preparation for this morning’s sermon, the first thing I really wondered about was why the tower in Siloam fell: was it a failure of the design, the materials, or the construction! In the Gospel Reading, our Lord Jesus is hardly interested in the why of either the tower’s collapsing or Pilate’s mingling the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices. Rather, our Lord Jesus uses His discussion of those events and a parable He tells as an opportunity to present His original hearers and us with two timely scenarios: “Repent or Perish”. Thus the theme for this sermon: “Repent or Perish”.
We previously talked about the first part of today’s Gospel Reading both last July after the deadly shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, theatre and last December after the deadly shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut, school. And, we previously talked about the second part of today’s Gospel Reading last July in our “Parables in Light of Law and Gospel” Midweek Bible Study. Yet, we do well to consider further the whole Reading today as it is appointed for this Third Sunday in Lent. (You might be interested to know that our three-year series of readings—not surprisingly, given our use of it—also appoints this Reading for use in special services after a National or Local Tragedy.) The whole Reading speaks of the universal need for repentance in the limited time available for repentance. People either “Repent or Perish”.
Completely unique to St. Luke’s divinely‑inspired account, the Gospel Reading comes after Jesus had been talking to crowds of thousands about their correctly interpreting the appearance of earth and sky but not correctly interpreting the present time with judgment looming (Luke 12:54-59). Some people present at that very time then told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. We do not know anything else about that event other than what St. Luke records, but Jesus knew that the people who told Him about it were thinking that the Galileans who suffered in that way were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, so Jesus said, no, but that, unless His hearers would repent, they would all perish. Then, Jesus brought up the fall of the tower in Siloam, probably a tower inside the southeast section of Jerusalem’s wall near the pool of Siloam, and He said the eighteen killed by the tower’s fall were not worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem, saying again that, unless His hearers would repent, they would all perish. Jesus used both events to show the universal need for repentance, and Jesus also told a parable with a rich Old Testament background to illustrate the limited time available for repentance. People either “Repent or Perish”.
Apparently some present at that very time understood that Jesus had been speaking of judgment people would bring upon themselves, but they only thought of others as coming under such judgment. They thought of themselves as better than others and so imagined themselves secure in their own sense of self-righteousness. As Jesus knew what they were thinking, so Jesus knows what we are thinking. If we are honest, do we not have to admit that often we are like them? Do we not also sometimes only think of others as coming under judgment? Do we not also sometimes think of ourselves as better than others and so imagine ourselves secure in our own self-righteousness? In fact, by nature there is no worse sinner than you are or I am as an individual. One sin, even what we might think of as the slightest sin, warrants death now and eternally.
The two events mentioned in today’s Gospel Reading were warnings of the looming judgment before which all needed to repent or otherwise perish. For those present at that very time, the Roman armies years later would shed more blood than Pilate did, and the collapsing walls of besieged Jerusalem would fall on thousands, not just eighteen. Jesus did not necessarily say that the Galileans or people in Jerusalem mentioned all perished eternally, just as we may not all die violent deaths as they did, but Jesus did say that all who fail to repent will necessarily perish eternally. Everything God allows to afflict us—depressions, droughts, earthquakes, famines, floods, and wars—they do not deny God’s goodness as some think, but, in anticipating the last judgment, they all serve God’s call for all people, including us, to repent or perish. As today’s Appointed Verse emphasized, the Lord is patient toward us, not wishing that any should perish, but wishing that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9b, c). That God has not already brought destruction upon us is a sign of His mercy—His mercy, so beautifully illustrated in the parable of today’s Gospel Reading. When we bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance, then we are not cut down, because by faith we receive the benefits of the One Who perished for us (Luke 13:33).
We do not suffer what we deserve, but, for us, Jesus suffered what He did not deserve. Because Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate and died on the cross for us, God can justly judge us righteous. As today’s Introit put it: through the abundance of God’s steadfast love (that is, His mercy), we enter His house; we bow down toward His holy temple in the fear of Him (that is, with faith in Jesus). Because of what Jesus did for us, we could pray in the Collect for God, Whose glory it is always to have mercy, to be gracious to all who have gone astray from His ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of His Word. On account of Jesus, His Word through Ezekiel in today’s Old Testament Reading is true of believers: none of the sins that we commit are remembered against us. None of our sins—thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, or whatever our sin might be, even our sinful natures—none are remembered because they are forgiven in the very ways that God brings about our repentance and faith: they are forgiven in His Word and Sacraments.
In the Gospel Reading’s parable, the vinedresser’s digging around the tree and putting manure on it are intended to bring forth fruit. Likewise, through the preaching of His Word and the administration of His Sacraments, God calls all to repentance and creates faith. Just as Jesus had a man born blind wash in the pool of Siloam and come back seeing (John 9:7, 11), Holy Baptism especially is associated with repentance and faith (Luke 3:3). Just as the vinedresser asked the owner of the vineyard to “forgive” the tree one more year, so sins that are confessed privately to pastors are forgiven in individual Holy Absolution. And, just as St. Luke goes on in his account to tell of sinners’ eating and drinking in Jesus’s presence, so here on this altar and at this rail Jesus is really, physically present in bread and wine for us sinners to receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. God’s Word and Sacraments bring about our repentance and faith.
God’s Word and Sacraments bring about our repentance as fruit of faith in Him, but there are also other fruits of faith. Uniquely in St. Luke’s account, John the Baptizer makes clear how each individual produces fruit of faith in keeping with his or her vocation. Such fruit of faith is evidence to the world of the inner change that God’s forgiveness brings about in us. In this lifetime we will still suffer afflictions, but we can view them as divine discipline now so that we are spared eternally. We know our sins deserve far greater and more severe punishment than what we receive. The worst suffering we could experience here and now is nothing compared to what we by nature deserve, what God has forgiven us by grace through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. He perished for us so that we do not perish. In His suffering, we find our redemption, and so we find our comfort, peace, and ultimately our release from every pain and sorrow in this world. Even as we continue to sin daily, we daily live in the forgiveness of sin and find God’s grace enabling us, as today’s Epistle Reading described, to endure the temptations God lets us experience.
Just as I initially wanted to know why the tower in Siloam collapsed, so we may want to know more about why God permits events like those of our Gospel Reading, Aurora, and Newtown and why we experience afflictions in our own lives. But, in today’s Gospel Reading we heard Jesus skip that question and instead teach that all things, even the time that we have, serve God’s call to “Repent or Perish”. So, we repent, we repent not only now in Lent as we prepare to celebrate Easter, but we live every day with repentance and faith. Pastor and hymn-writer John Ellerton knew well the afflictions of this life, and, in his hymn with which we close today’s service, he expresses how the peace of the service goes with us into every other aspect of our lives. We close here by praying the final stanza of that hymn:
Grant us Your peace throughout our earthly life,
Our balm in sorrow and our stay in strife;
Then, when Your voice shall bid our conflict cease,
Call us, O Lord, to Your eternal peace. (Lutheran Worship, 221:4)
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen. + + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +