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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.
As we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel Reading (Luke 6:17-26), Jesus began His so-called “Sermon on the Plain” arguably preaching repentance and faith with four “beatitudes” and their opposite “woes” or curses. Then, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus continued His “Sermon” by describing the God-pleasing life of those who repent and believe with a series of commands in various forms: for example, some plural (“all y’all do good”) and others singular (“you give”), some enjoining certain actions (“love your enemies”) and others prohibiting certain actions (“do not withhold your tunic”). In some ways, the series of commands leads up to and climaxes with Jesus’s telling those who heard Him to “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” Reflecting on today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we realize that “Our Father’s mercy leads to our mercy”.
You may have thought that Ten Commandments were enough, but in today’s Gospel Reading Jesus can be counted as giving seventeen commands (in twelve verses)! With the repetition of at least one, if not a couple more, we might say He gives at least more than one dozen different commands. Many that He gives may be included under the headings of one or more of the individual Ten Commandments, and others that He gives may be regarded as summaries of some of the Ten Commandments, but no reducing their number or otherwise categorizing them lessens their force as Jesus’s commands, not only for those who heard Him that day, but also for us who hear Him today.
How well do Jesus’s commands describe us? Do we love our enemies? Do we do good to those who hate us? Do we bless those who curse us? Do we pray for those who abuse us? To the one who strikes us on one cheek, do we offer the other cheek also? From the one who takes away our over-garments do we not withhold our under-garments? Do we give to everyone who begs from us? From one who takes away our goods, do we not demand them back? As we wish that others would do to us, do we do so to them? Do we lend expecting nothing in return? Are we merciful as our Father is merciful? Do we not set ourselves up to judge outside of our vocations? Do we not pass sentences of condemnation outside of our vocations? Do we forgive all those who sin against us?
Now, some commentators on today’s Gospel Reading are quick to point out that Jesus’s commands should not be taken in an over‑literal way, but Jesus’s commands also should not be figurative-ized away! As we properly consider Jesus’s commands, we realize that without a doubt we fail to keep them in thought, word, and deed. Too frequently we are vengeful and short-tempered, asserting our “rights” when God would have us patiently suffer injustice, at least for a time. Sometimes, we do not even love those who love us, do good to those who do good to us, and lend to those from whom we might expect to receive, and so we show ourselves to be worse than unrepentant and unbelieving “sinners”. In ways that we should not, we set ourselves up to judge and condemn others, and, preferring not to confront someone who has offended us and to hold a grudge, we fail to truly forgive all those who sin against us.
Apart from repentance and faith, on account of such sins, we deserve temporal and eternal death. By nature, we are ungrateful and evil, but, in sharp contrast, God is kind to us. God is merciful to us. God calls and so enables us both to turn from our sinful nature and all our sin and to trust Him to forgive our sin. And, when we so repent and believe, then God forgives us. God forgives us for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ.
In today’s Gospel Reading, the word that Jesus uses to describe God that gets translated as “kind” is used almost-exclusively of God and not only describes God’s nature as “kind” but also describes His nature as “helpful”, in that God acts to seek and to save us (TDNT 6:559 n.83; 9:487). That kindness is especially associated with God’s Christ, the Messiah, the one anointed as our Prophet, Priest, and King. That Christ, God Himself in the human flesh of the man Jesus, is the embodiment of God’s mercy, His sympathy and pity with us who are unfortunate and needy, who are suffering in our sin (Marshall, ad loc Luke 6:36, p.265; Arndt, ad loc Luke 6:36, p.195). While we were still sinners (Romans 5:8), God loved us, His enemies on account of our sin, by giving His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). In going to the cross, Jesus arguably did good to those who hated Him, blessed those who cursed Him, and prayed for those who abused Him. More than an example, however, Jesus not only fulfilled His own commandments that we fail to fulfill, but also, for our failure to fulfill them, He died on the cross in our place. When we turn from our sinful nature and all our sin and trust God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake, then God does just that: God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 103:1-13; antiphon: v.8), as a father shows compassion for his children, so the Lord shows compassion for those who fear Him; the Lord is merciful and gracious; He does not deal with us according to our iniquity or repay us according to our iniquity, but He forgives all our iniquity; He redeems our life from the pit, and He removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west.
In fact, the Lord kindly and mercifully makes us His children. We can miss it in the English translation of today’s Gospel Reading, but Jesus says for us to “become” merciful, and the only way for us to become merciful is by God’s making us merciful as we let Him. With the water and His Word of Holy Baptism, the Most High makes us His children at the Baptismal Font in forgiving our sin, rescuing us from death and the devil, and giving eternal salvation to all who believe His Words and promises. He sustains us as His children through the reading and preaching of His Word. He sustains as His children through our, as we need it, receiving individual Holy Absolution, and He sustains as His children through the bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body and Blood of Christ, given and shed for us, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. And yet, as important and great of a gift as the Sacrament of the Altar is, people dare not receive it (or really, even pray the Lord’s Prayer) if they are unwilling to be reconciled with and so forgive those who have sinned against them.
“Our Father’s mercy leads to our mercy.” Our Father makes us His children, and, as His children, we at least try, if not actually begin, to show mercy to others, like Joseph did to his brothers in today’s Old Testament Reading (Genesis 45:3-15). We also try, if not actually begin, to keep the commands that Jesus gave in today’s Gospel Reading and the Ten Commandments to which they relate. Our doing so is the evidence of our being children of the Most High! When we fail so to show our relationship, as we will fail, with repentance and faith we live in God’s forgiveness of sins, and we extend His forgiveness and our own forgiveness to one another. Not because we earn anything as a reward but out of God’s grace He gives to us good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, both now and for eternity. Then His vengeance and justice will be perfectly carried out. Then, as we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 15:21‑26, 30‑42), we will experience the resurrection of the body and know firsthand the answers to our foolish questions about the resurrected body. All glory, thanks, and praise be to our Father, Whose mercy leads to our mercy!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +