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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.
Midweek services, especially midweek Advent services, present the service planner and preacher a challenge or opportunity both for Scripture readings and a corresponding series of sermons on a distinct theme. Pilgrim’s theme for midweek services and sermons this Advent of 2020 was in-part prompted by Rev. R. Lee Hagan’s Advent-Christmas sermon series offered in this year’s Concordia Pulpit Resources (31:1 [2020-2021], pp.51-60), but it really goes back to a question asked by our Lord Jesus Himself: “Whose Son is the Christ?” (see Matthew 22:41-45; Mark 12:35-47; and Luke 20:31-44). Although our answers are somewhat different from those that Rev. Hagan gives, nevertheless, as we this Advent prepare in-part to celebrate the birth of the Christ in human flesh, we do well to ask “whose Son” He is—He Who came once, comes now, and will come a final time.
In order to answer the question “Whose Son is the Christ?”, a logical place to turn is to Jesus’s genealogy, such as that given by the Divinely-inspired St. Luke in tonight’s First Reading, which genealogy ultimately makes Jesus out to be a son or descendant of God. Similar is tonight’s Second Reading, from the Divinely-inspired St. Mark, in which the Roman centurion facing Jesus on the cross saw how Jesus died said “Truly this man was the Son of God”. Yet, the two Readings may not mean precisely the same thing by “Son of God”, since St. Luke lists quite a number of other “sons of God”, although the centurion’s statement recorded by St. Mark may also be calling Jesus simply “a son of God” or even less, “a son of a god” (confer, for example, Voelz, ad loc Mark 15:39, pp.1171‑1175).
To be sure, tonight’s two Readings are not contradictory, for in a broader sense certainly all people are sons (or, “children”) of God, and Jesus is in a narrower sense uniquely the Son of God. St. Luke’s account can be taken as speaking of Jesus’s human nature descending from God, and the centurion in St. Mark’s account can be taken as speaking of Jesus’s divine nature “descending” from God. And, if not the centurion, Holy Scripture certainly records others calling Jesus the Son of God, including Gabriel (Luke 1:32, 35), Nathanael (John 1:49), Peter (Matthew 16:16), John (John 20:31), the other nine disciples (Matthew 14:33), Martha (John 11:27), and even unclean spirits (for examples, Mark 3:11; 5:7). Viewing the Messiah as a uniquely-begotten Son of God is surely in keeping with tonight’s additional Psalm (confer 2 Samuel 7:14), especially as that psalm is understood by the Divinely‑inspired author of the book of Hebrews (Hebrews 1:5; 5:5), though some Bible scholars say the psalm does not refer to descent but only to God’s acceptance and validation of the ruler “and his institution into the office of the anointed one[,] which [office] he is to discharge by divine authority” (Lohse, TDNT 8:360‑362).
Bible scholars also debate whether Jesus Himself claimed to be the Son of God, but you do not have to be a Bible scholar to doubt Jesus’s identity as the Son of God, of His being true God in some other way. Religious sects such as the Mormons reject Jesus’s being Divine, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses hold Him to be a god. Even religious traditions we might think of as Christian do not all think of Jesus as fully God, capable of exercising all of His Divine powers through His human nature. And, too often even we ourselves have doubts about Jesus’s divinity. The devil tempted Jesus by saying “If you are the Son of God” then command these stones to become bread or throw Yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple (Matthew 4:3, 6; Luke 4:3), and we might similarly “tempt” Jesus by saying “If you are the Son of God” then change this situation in my life, heal a loved one or us ourselves, or do whatever else we might think that He should do. We sin in these ways and countless others, for we are sinful by nature. And, on account of our sinful nature and all of our actual sins, we deserve nothing but death here in time and torment in hell for eternity, unless we repent of our sin and believe in the Son of God.
God certainly desires that we repent and believe, and so He calls and thereby enables us to repent and believe. Out of His great love for us, even in our lost and condemned condition, God sent His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life, for God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:16-17). That Son was true God and existed already in the beginning but became flesh in time for us (John 1:1, 14; confer 1 John 4:9). When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (or, “children”) (Galatians 4:4-5; confer Romans 8:3-4). Jesus the Son of God lived the perfect life that we as God’s children fail to live, and Jesus the Son of God on the cross died the death that we deserve, for us, in our place. Those sending Jesus to the cross asked Him if He was the Son of God, and, using the Name of God, Jesus said that He was the Son of God, which claim they considered blasphemy and for which claim they sentenced Him to death (for example, Matthew 26:63-67; confer Scaer, CLD VI:46). Those mocking Jesus as He hung on the cross knew that He had claimed to be the Son of God (Matthew 27:43), but they did not understand His true Sonship. Apparently the centurion did understand Jesus’s true Sonship, confirming what St. Mark by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit said at the beginning of his Gospel account about Jesus’s being the Son of God (Mark 1:1). That identity was further declared by Jesus’s resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4). When we repent and believe in Jesus as the Son of God, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sin through His means of grace.
The Father Himself declared Jesus’s identity as His unique Son both at Jesus’s Baptism (for example, Mark 1:11) and His Transfiguration (for example, Mark 9:7). Likewise, at our Baptisms, God declares our identity as His children, and He transforms us. God makes us His own in Baptism through the pastor’s applying water and the Word, as in Absolution God forgives our sin through the pastor’s touch and the Word, and as in the Sacrament of the Altar bread and wine with the Word are Christ’s Body and Blood given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Tonight’s Office Hymn says well that the Son of God now feeds us precious food from heaven, manna that will nourish souls that they may flourish (Lutheran Service Book 333:2).
So made children of God and given new, redeemed natures, we at least want to live as children of God should live. We believe and confess Jesus’s divinity, His identity as the unique Son of God, born to live, die, and rise again for us. We trust Him to do what He knows to be best with and for us, not doubting Who He is simply because we do not get what we might think would be best for us. We try to keep all of God’s Commandments, loving God and our neighbors, doing good works for them in keeping with our vocations in relationship to them. And, for all the times that we fail to live as children of God should live with daily repentance and faith, we seek and receive God’s forgiveness for the sake of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, through His means of grace.
“Whose Son is the Christ?” As we have considered tonight, the Christ is the Son of God. The Man on the cross, descended from many sons of God, including Adam, the son of God, created in God’s likeness and image, and Adam’s son Seth, fathered in Adam’s own likeness, after his image (Genesis 1:26-27; 5:1, 3)—that Man, that Man hanging on the cross, is also God’s unique only-begotten Son. In weeks to come we will consider how the Christ is also the Son of Man, the Son of Mary, and the Son of Joseph, but already we know, as tonight’s additional Psalm said, that blessed are all who take refuge in Him.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +