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.
Philadelphia Eagles wide‑receiver DeSean Jackson scored two touchdowns last week in his first game back with the Eagles, the team’s 32‑27 win over the Washington Redskins, but in one post-game interview Jackson said that during the game he lost a diamond-earring out on the field (FOXSports). It is not quite a needle in a haystack, but imagine trying to find a diamond earring lost on a 57,600 square‑foot National Football League field (Wikipedia)! Not an earring but a sheep and a coin are the objects lost in today’s Gospel Reading, but the Gospel Reading is not ultimately about such objects; the Gospel Reading is ultimately about sinful people who are lost, found, and then both rejoiced over and rejoiced with. Notably, the Gospel Reading uses forms of “lost”, “found”, and “joy” at least five times each! So, this morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under the theme, “Lost, found, and rejoiced over and with”.
At the end of last week’s Gospel Reading (Luke 14:25-35), Jesus said for the one who has ears to hear to hear, and this week’s immediately following Gospel Reading begins with the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke telling us that tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near Jesus in order to hear Him, but Jewish leaders were grumbling that Jesus received sinners and ate with them. So, as St. Luke uniquely reports, Jesus told the two parables we heard and a third parable that we did not hear today, that included a son who had been lost and then was found (Luke 15:11‑32). Jesus told the parables primarily in order both to show the Jewish leaders their sin that made them among those lost and to call them to also be among those found and rejoiced over and with.
All of the tax collectors and sinners who were drawing near to hear Jesus, sinners who were being received by Him and were eating with Him, in a sense had been lost and then were found and rejoiced over and with, although they were not rejoiced over and with by the Jewish leaders. The Jewish leaders grumbled about Jesus; they continued to judge negatively those who had repented of their sin; and they themselves did not repent. Whatever might have been worth rejoicing about the Jewish leaders, Jesus in the Gospel Reading is likely speaking ironically about them as those who think of themselves as righteous, those who feel no need of repenting.
Certainly you and I should see ourselves in today’s Gospel Reading as those lost: sheep, coin, and sinners. Our lives are by nature and in thought, word, and deed, as one writer put it, “fundamentally and perpetually in contradiction to God’s demand” (Michel, TDNT 8:104). Apart from faith, whatever might be worth rejoicing about us does not hold up before God. On our own, we are unrighteous, and so we have a great need of repenting. On account of our sin, as we sang in the Hymn of the Day, we “deserve grief and shame” (Lutheran Service Book 609:2), unless we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin. For away from the fold, we face eventual destruction. So, in today’s Psalm (Psalm 119:169-176; antiphon: v.176), we confessed that we had gone astray like a lost sheep, and we asked the Lord to seek us His servants.
And, the Lord does just that: He seeks us out, calling and thereby enabling us to repent. Every single soul is precious to Him, even one out of 100, or one out of 100-thousand, or one out of 100-million! The Father does not will that anyone perish (Matthew 18:14). In today’s Old Testament Reading (Ezekiel 34:11-24) we heard the Lord say how He Himself would search for His sheep, seek them out, and rescue them, how He Himself would gather them and bring them into their own land, feed them and make them lie down, all under one Shepherd, great David’s greatest Son, the God-man Jesus Christ.
In today’s Epistle Reading (1 Timothy 1:5-17) we heard St. Paul write so clearly, to Timothy and the churches under his care, the true saying deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Jesus Himself said that He did not come to call the righteous but that He came to call sinners to repentance (Matthew 9:13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32). Jesus’s going after us who are lost included His laying down His life for us (John 10:11). On the cross Jesus died in our place the death that we otherwise would have deserved. Jesus’s death for us shows God’s great love for us! And, Jesus also took His life back up again (John 10:17-18), rising from the dead. Jesus seeks us out and receives us sinners. As one commentator put it with reference to our Hymn of the Day, “The mocking and derisive words of the Pharisees have now become the song of praise in the mouth of believing Christians: ‘Jesus sinners doth receive!’” (Kretzmann, ad loc Luke 15:1-2, p.348). And, there is likewise praise and joy in heaven before the angels of God over even one sinner who repents.
Repentance leads sinners to God’s means of grace, His Word and Sacraments. For example, the Jewish leaders rejected God’s purpose and baptism (Luke 7:29), while St. Paul received mercy in such ways and then himself dispensed mercy through the same Word and Sacraments (confer Nordling, CPR 29:3, p.47). Jesus’s eating with sinners especially points us to the table fellowship we have with Him in the Sacrament of the Altar, where bread and wine are His Body and Blood, given and shed for you and for me, for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. At this Altar and its rail, He seeks the lost, brings back the strayed, binds up the injured, and strengthens the weak. Here, He tends His flock like a shepherd, gathers the lambs in His arms, carries them in His bosom, and gently leads those that are with young (Isaiah 40:11). Here, as heaven and earth come together (confer Trench, Parables, 388), we also rejoice together with Him that we are saved by Him.
And, we want to rejoice together with Him not only that we are saved by Him, but we also want to rejoice together with Him that others also are saved by Him. As part of our turning from our own sin and unrighteousness, we are concerned about others who are lost, and so we call together our friends and neighbors both in order for them to rejoice over and with us and in order for us to rejoice over and with them. We do what we can to be God’s instruments of reaching out to them in order for them to come to Him Who creates faith when and where He pleases in those who hear the Gospel (Augsburg Confession V:2). Yet, neither that change in us that results in our trying to sin less and reach out more, nor any other change, will be perfect and complete in this lifetime, so, with daily repentance and faith, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins, and we likewise forgive those who sin against us, though even that forgiving and its associated forgetting also will be imperfect and incomplete in this lifetime.
I could not find any news report that Eagles wide‑receiver DeSean Jackson was even looking for his lost diamond earring, much less that he found it this past week, though we can easily imagine that he would have rejoiced over and with it if he had found it. Far more important than his diamond earring, of course, are we who are “Lost, found, and rejoiced over and with”. By God’s mercy and grace, we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, so we draw near to Jesus Christ and are received by Him and eat with Him. The meal is one of joyous celebration both with all the company of heaven and with the whole Church on earth. We who repent and believe have a foretaste of it now, and, God being willing, we will partake of it fully for all eternity.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +