Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Pastor Galler is recovering from a medical procedure, but, for our reflection this morning on today’s Third Reading, Pastor Galler edited a sermon written by The Rev. James A. Douthwaite, pastor of St. Athanasius Lutheran Church, Vienna, Virginia. Rev. Douthwaite’s sermon was published in the current volume of Concordia Pulpit Resources (29:4, pp.6, 39-41), to which publication Pilgrim subscribes primarily in order to supply sermons on occasions such as this, when our pastor is away and the congregation has not otherwise supplied the pulpit. The edited sermon reads as follows:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Somebody, it would seem, messed up. The Third Reading we heard today seems better suited for Good Friday than today, the Last Sunday of the Church Year. Perhaps this reading was selected for the Last Sunday of the Church Year because Good Friday is the beginning of the end. Good Friday is arguably a lens through which we, as Christians, see everything. Everything before that day was leading up to it. Everything after that day is flowing from it. That was the day that changed the world. That day is the center of history. So, today on this Last Sunday of the Church Year, we consider the end through the lens of the cross—and our life leading up to the end through the lens of the cross. For Jesus’ death and life has something to say about our life and death.
And so today in order to do that, we focus our attention on one sentence from the Third Reading, one sentence Jesus spoke from the cross. You have heard the sentence before, many times, I am sure. But, maybe today you can hear the sentence a bit differently than when we hear it on Good Friday. The sentence is “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. Usually when we hear that sentence, we focus on what great love Jesus has that He could pray such words! And, that focus is not wrong. We hear Jesus’s praying for the forgiveness of those who put Him on the cross: those who drove the nails through His hands and feet; those who mocked Him even as he prayed for them; those whose appetites would not be satisfied until they had taken His life. “Father, forgive them. Make this forgiveness that I am here winning available for them.” No small thing, that. For you know how hard forgiveness is, and for much lesser things than that. So, how great and wondrous are these words! And, how precious are they for us sinners still today!
But, the second part of the sentence is also worth our focus: “for they know not what they do.” In context, as Jesus spoke those words, certainly the people who put Him on the cross did not know what they were doing. They did not know that the hands they were driving nails through were the hands that had created all things and had even knit them together in their mother’s wombs. They did not know that the feet they had fastened to the cross were the feet that had walked in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day and would soon make the earth their footstool. They didn’t know that the head into which they pressed that crown of thorns was the head of the One Who knows all things. They did not know. They did not know that in this death was their life. They did not know.
But, we think that we know. That is the problem, you see. From Adam and Eve down to you and me today, we think that we know. We think that we know what we are doing. And, therefore, we think that we know what God should be doing. Those who put Jesus on the cross thought they knew what they were doing: getting rid of a troublemaker and a blasphemer and someone who was going to bring the wrath of Rome down on their nation. And, they thought that they knew what God should be doing: that, if Jesus really was God, then He should jump down from the cross and save Himself. And then those who believed in Him, who believed that Jesus was Who He said that He was, the very Son of God in human flesh, probably were wondering: What in the world? Does God know what He is doing?
That question, whether God knows what He is doing, has often crossed the minds of God’s people, because often it seems to us as if he does not know what He is doing! We heard it again from the prophet Malachi today in the First Reading. The people were saying: We are doing what we are supposed to be doing, what God told us to do, mourning our sins and repenting and sacrificing, but what is it getting us? The arrogant are the ones who are blessed. Evildoers are the ones who are prospering. They are putting God to the test with their sins and evil and perversion and getting away with it—nothing happens to them! Does God know what He is doing? Because, after all, we know what God should be doing, right? He should be prospering us, blessing us, giving to us, helping us, making our life easy and punishing them! Does God know what He is doing? For evil keeps advancing. Does God know what He is doing? For I keep struggling. Does God know what He is doing? Because things do not seem to be getting any better.
But, maybe Jesus was right. Maybe it is we who do not know what we are doing. For how often do things turn out differently than we expected? When what we thought would be good turned out bad? When what we thought would help actually hurt? When we thought we had everything planned out and then everything changed? And the other way too: when what we dreaded actually turned out well. The truth is that there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. God tells His people through the prophet Malachi: The day is coming. Then you will see what you do not now see. But, we want to see it all now. We want God to punish evildoers now. The problem is, if He did so, what would happen to us? We who hurt, we who lie, we who lust, we who doubt and disbelieve, we who covet and take, we who rebel, we who do not love God with all our heart and with all our mind and with all our soul and with all our strength all the time.
There is a lot more going on than meets the eye. In the Second Reading Paul told the Colossians that Jesus is the creator of all things visible and invisible, as we also confess in the Nicene Creed. And, there is a lot more invisible than we know. We might think of all that God is doing as an iceberg. The part of the iceberg we see floating on the water is only a small percentage, maybe ten percent, of all that is there; most of it is hidden beneath the surface. So we, too, do not know all that God is doing, how He is working, what He is doing in the world, in our neighbors, and in us. There is more going on than meets the eye. And that is especially true of the cross. For, yes, contrary to what the eye can see, this is no criminal! This man is the very Son of God, the Lamb of God, the atonement for your sins, my sins, and the sin of the whole world. Though it does not look like it. Though it looks about as far from that as you can imagine. For, in fact, God does know what He’s doing.
And the Day is coming when God’s knowing what He’s doing will be seen by all. Malachi’s then. The disciples saw it three days after the cross when Jesus rose from the dead. The before looked bleak. The after revealed the truth and the joy. And so also for us on the Last Day it will be seen, and not before. Now, in this before time, we have words, we have promises, we have faith. Then it will be seen. But now, we say with the criminal hanging next to Jesus: Remember me! Remember me in my sad state. Remember me when you come into your kingdom. And He does, for We Know the Tree of the Cross That Looked like Defeat Restores Paradise.
For now, ascended and in his kingdom, ruling all things for us and for our salvation, Jesus is remembering us and forgiving us and acting for us. And, as He did to the thief next to Him, He is telling us, too, “You will be with me in Paradise”. When a child or an adult is baptized, Jesus is saying: “You will be with me in Paradise.” When you believe the Gospel and are absolved, Jesus is saying: “You will be with me in Paradise.” When you come to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, He is saying: “You will be with me in Paradise.” Just as I came to be with you in your misery, so “you will be with me in Paradise.” And, just as I died your death, so you, too, will awaken and arise with Me into Paradise.
To the thief on the cross, Jesus said, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.” When that today will be for us, when our souls will enter the nearer presence of God in Christ and our bodies will continue awaiting Christ’s coming, we do not know. And, how it will be for us, we do not know. Maybe it will come for us in a peaceful way, maybe in a hard and gruesome way, like that thief on the cross. But, however it is for us, it will be a day of joy, when, as Paul said in the Second Reading, we are “delivered . . . from the domain of darkness and transferred . . . into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins”.
And, as we have Him now, so we have His forgiveness now, and so we have that Kingdom now, even if we cannot see all that now. For, in fact, God knows what He is doing. Always. Always working for our good. Always working that we hear those precious words: “Father, forgive them.” Those were the words Jesus spoke from first to last, and the words He wants you to hear and to have, from the beginning of your life to the end. That on that Day, the Last Day, that Great and Final Day, the One Who would not come down from the cross would pull you up from the grave and say: “Welcome home, my child! Welcome to Paradise.”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +