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+ + + 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.
I know that at least some of you have been watching the 20‑16 Summer Olympics in Rio. For more than two weeks now more than 11‑hundred athletes from more than 200 nations have been competing in 28 sports for some 306 sets of medals (Wikipedia). The idea of engaging in athletic contests is present in today’s Epistle (Hebrews 12:4-24) and Gospel Readings through the Greek word, which gives us our English word “agony”, that is translated, respectively, as “struggle” and “strive”. Originally the root word meant a “place of assembly”, then a “place of contest” or “stadium”, and eventually the “contest” itself. The author of Hebrews and our Lord Jesus relate “the exertions and self‑denials” of athletic contests to the “struggle” and “striving” of our Christian lives. (Stuaffer, TDNT 1:135-137) This morning we reflect primarily on today’s Gospel Reading under the theme, “Striving to enter the Kingdom’s narrow door”.
For today’s Gospel Reading, we again have jumped forward in St. Luke’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account from the end of last week’s Gospel Reading (Luke 12:49-53). And this time, Jesus, in keeping with His mission (Luke 4:43-44), apparently has moved on from where He was, most likely now on His way through the towns and villages of Herod Antipas’s territory of Perea (Luke 13:31), teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. Someone, we do not know who, asked if those who are saved will be few, and Jesus, continuing an earlier theme of the need for repentance and faith (Luke 13:1-9), responded by telling all of those listening not to explore what God has not revealed (Solid Declaration XI:33) but instead themselves to strive to enter through the Kingdom’s narrow door, now while the door is open, before it is too late.
Obviously none of us is an Olympic athlete, but we certainly do our share of striving. Going back to school, we may strive to make friends and earn good grades. At work, we may strive for financial and other success, or, if we are retired, we may strive to have a purpose for our daily lives. At church, we should strive to be God’s Kingdom in this place. At home, we should strive for love and peace in our families. And, in our personal lives we should strive to be more godly. We certainly do our share of striving, and, probably more than experiencing the thrill of victory in all of those areas, we know the agony of defeat. Such defeats can be constant reminders of our sinful natures and the actual sins that they bring about. Sins that, apart from faith in Jesus Christ, cause us to be separated from God and merit our being outside of His Kingdom, where we would not be annihilated (Stephenson, CLD XIII:122) but would weep and gnash our teeth in eternal torment.
Probably all of us have seen business hours posted on outside windows or doors of stores around town; we even have my study hours posted on the outside door to the Office Area downstairs. At one of the places I sometimes enter, the sign says something to the effect of when the door is unlocked the place is open and when the door is locked the place is closed. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus speaks of only one door, which at first is open and then later is closed, either when God’s patience has run out for an individual, or when the individual dies, or when our Lord returns in glory for judgment of everyone (J.Jeremias, TDNT 3:173‑174). At such a time of judgment, Jesus makes clear in today’s Gospel Reading, some who think they are connected to Jesus in fact will find themselves outside of His Kingdom and try to get in it, but it will be too late. They may have heard Jesus’s teaching in their streets, but maybe they never welcomed Him into their homes or followed after Him. They even may have had, or at least thought they had, table fellowship with Jesus. But, they are judged to be “workers of evil”, those who rejected Jesus’s righteousness by failing to repent and believe and so are cut off from Him and His community forever (Hauck, TDNT 1:527-528).
Today’s Gospel Reading asks each one of us to consider whether we now are striving to enter the Kingdom’s narrow door or whether we in the end will find ourselves outside the Kingdom. That the door is open at all is itself the result of God’s grace for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ (J.Jeremias, TDNT 3:173-174), grace that calls and enables us to repent and believe. Those who fail to do so while the door is open later will seek to enter on their own power but not be able to enter (Gundmann, TDNT 3:397). Now, Jesus says “Strive to enter”, and His words lead us to turn in sorrow from our sin; Jesus says “Believe”, and His words lead us to trust God to forgive our sin for His sake (Lenski, ad loc Lk 13:24, 748). Having completed His journey to Jerusalem, Jesus strove for us and completed all that needed to be done. As we sang in today’s Psalm (50:1‑15; antiphon v.23), we call upon God in the day of trouble, and He delivers us. Our Lord Jesus helps us by the mystery of His holy incarnation; by His holy nativity; by His baptism, fasting and temptation; by His agony and bloody sweat; by His cross and passion; by His precious death and burial; by His glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter (Litany, LSB 288). Those of us who are saved are saved by His doing, not by our own doing; He offers us and all people His righteousness, and, with repentance and faith, we receive it from Him through His means of grace, His Word and Sacraments.
In today’s Gospel Reading, we cannot miss the eating and drinking in the presence of the Lord, both now and for eternity. Those who are made God’s children in Holy Baptism and who privately confess the sins that they know and feel in their hearts for the sake of individual Holy Absolution (the turning of the Christ’s Keys entrusted to His called and ordained ministers [Isaiah 22:22; Revelation 3:7-8; Matthew 16:19]) are admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar. Here and now we eat bread and drink wine and Christ, His Body and Blood, are really, physically present with us for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Truly this meal is a foretaste of the eternal feast to come in the Kingdom of God, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all their descendants by faith, gathered from the four corners of the earth (confer Genesis 13:14-15; 28:14; Psalm 107:3; Isaiah 43:5; 49:12; 59:19).
Baptized, absolved, and fed by the Sacrament of the Altar, we are strengthened to strive to enter the Kingdom’s narrow door. That the now‑open door is narrow does seem to suggest that there is some God‑enabled struggle on our part to get in—a continual, lifelong struggle that characterizes our lives as those baptized into Christ (Romans 6:1-11; confer Just, ad loc Lk 13:22-30, 551). In our struggle against sin, we may or may not, as the Epistle Reading described, resist to the point of shedding our blood as persecuted martyrs for the faith, but we do endure the Lord’s discipline, recognizing that what the Lord permits us to face as preparation for God’s glory. Repentant, we leave behind our sins and other baggage (Arndt, ad loc Lk 13:24, 332). Forgiven, we enter the Kingdom’s narrow door with Christ’s righteousness and not our own medals for good works (see Just, ad loc Lk 13:22-30, 552 n.9) or even our own participation trophies.
The Games of the 31st Olympiad will conclude in Rio tonight, and I imagine that their Closing Ceremonies as usual will be among the most‑watched portions of their television coverage, with all the athletes who have finished their striving entering the stadium together, no longer divided by nation. A similar picture of people from all nations gathered together around the sign of the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus was given in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 66:18-23), as it were the “closing ceremony” for those “Striving to enter the Kingdom’s narrow door”, who at last enter the rest of the eternal worship of the Lord, under the new heavens and on the new earth. By God’s mercy and grace, we who daily repent and believe are forgiven of all our sin, and we fight the good fight of the faith, and, in the end, with the full number of those being saved, we take hold of His eternal life (1 Timothy 6:12).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +