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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.
Unless you all repent, you all will perish. As the Divinely-inspired St. Luke uniquely reports in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus made that statement quite plainly, twice. Unless you all repent, you all will perish.
With each statement, Jesus not only says that He speaks to a plural “you”, like we down here in Texas might say “y’all”, and like our friends up in Michigan might say “yous guys”, but Jesus also uses two “you-plural” verbs, and, on top of that, Jesus adds an “all”: Jesus clearly means “all y’all” and “all yous guys”. Not only the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, and not only the Jerusalemites on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed, but also all those listening to Jesus, wherever He was, and, on top of that, likely all of the Jews and also all other people. Not only the Ukranian and other victims of Russian President Vladimir Putin, not only the victims of the latest virus variant, vaccine, volcanic eruption, earthquake, fire, extreme weather, or other natural disaster, but also you all. Unless you all repent, you all will perish.
There are no exceptions, certainly no exceptions based on someone’s being better or worse than someone else. Who is a worse sinner or offender than you are? Do not rest on your own self-righteousness or try to justify yourself, either based on what you do think, say, or do, or based on what you do not think, say, or do. No one is a worse sinner or offender than another sinner or offender. On account of your sinful nature and actual sins, you all deserve to perish. Those Galileans and those Jerusalemites deserved what they got. The Ukranian and other victims of Putin and the virus, vaccine, and natural disaster victims deserved what they got. And, so do you deserve whatever you get (confer, for example, Luther, Fourteen Consolations, AE 42:133‑134). You should not wonder what you have done to deserve any “misfortune”, or think of “misfortune” as a trial, but recognize that your sins merit more-severe sanction (Kretzmann, ad loc Luke 13:1-5, p.339). As I recall Dr. James Dobson saying in his 19-84 book When God Doesn’t Make Sense, the question is not why bad things happen to good people, but rather the question is why good things happen to bad people, for that is what you are by nature.
In fact, we might wonder why something worse has not happened to you already. The Lord God warned our first-forefather that, in the day that our first‑forefather disobeyed the Lord God, our first-forefather would surely die (Genesis 2:17). Well, before he died, our first‑forefather lived 930 years (Genesis 5:5)! As Jesus teaches in today’s Gospel Reading with the so‑called “Parable of the Barren Fig Tree”, any time that you have between your failing to bear fruits in keeping with repentance and your being cut down and thrown into the fire is time in order for you, enabled by God, to bear fruit in keeping with repentance (confer Luke 3:7). You may want those who sin against you to have their sentence carried out immediately, but God graciously delays carrying out your sentence in order to give you time to repent. But, that God patiently and hopefully waits for you now to repent, does not mean that you have forever to repent. The matter is urgent! Those Galileans and those Jerusalemites apparently died unrepentant and so perished eternally. Unless you all repent while you can, you all likewise will perish eternally. People sometimes wrongly think that great catastrophes, such as wars and natural disasters that God allows, deny God’s goodness, when, in fact, they serve His goodness, for God uses such things in order to call people to repent (Pieper I:453, 462).
In a sense, repenting is the exception to perishing. When you repent, you do not perish. You do not perish not because you repent, but you do not perish because Jesus perished, as it were, for you (Just, ad loc Luke 13:1-5, p.534). The translators of the English Standard Version of the Gospel Reading that was read supply “well and good” as the otherwise-ellipsed-out outcome of the fig tree in the parable’s bearing fruit the next year and on into the future. Your future is “well and good” because, out of God’s great love and mercy, His Son took on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Then, God and Mary’s grown-up Son Jesus lived perfectly for you the life that you fail to live, and then, as the worst of sinners, He took your sin to the cross and there suffered in your place the punishment that you deserved. For those who are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1). You can look to Jesus not as your judge but as your Savior (Luther, ad loc Galatians 1:5, AE 26:39), for, when you turn in sorrow from your sin and trust God to forgive you for Jesus’s sake, then God does just that: He forgives you for Jesus’s sake.
When you repent, God forgives you through His Word and Sacraments. Probably most of you would point to your baptism as the first time and place that you know that you were forgiven. Indeed, as John the Baptizer proclaimed, for the repentant, baptism works the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:4; confer Just, ad loc Luke 13:1-5, p.534). Exercising the authority of the Office of the Keys, pastors retain the sins of and excommunicate those who do not repent but absolve the sins of and admit to the Sacrament of the Altar those who do repent. And, in the Sacrament of the Altar, bread that is the Body of Christ given for you and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for you thereby forgive you and so also give you life and salvation. As the Divinely-inspired St. Paul describes in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 10:1-13), as with our at least spiritual forefathers in the wilderness, so with us: we are all baptized and eat and drink of the same food and drink, namely Christ.
When you repent and so are forgiven by God through His Word and Sacraments, you do not perish eternally, but you still will perish temporally, if the Lord does not first come the final time in glory to order to judge the living and the dead. Contrary to the title of Joel Osteen’s popular book, your best life is not now. You who repent and so are forgiven will at least try, according to your various callings in life, to bear fruit in keeping with repentance, for such fruit is the outward evidence of the inward change. Yet, you will fail to bear such fruit perfectly, and so you will keep repenting, daily drowning your sinful nature by contrition and repentance and letting your redeemed nature rise daily (Small Catechism, IV:12). Repentance is not just a one‑time thing. Repentance is not just a Lent thing. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther wrote in the first of his Ninety-Five Theses, the entire life of believers is to be one of repentance (AE 31:25). As faithful Lutherans believe, teach, and confess, faith exists in such repentance (Apology of the Augsburg Confression, IV:142, 350). Even though you repent and so are forgiven, some of your sins still may have specific consequences in this lifetime, sins such as your failing to take care of the body that God has entrusted to your use with a healthy diet and good exercise, not drinking too much alcohol, and not making use of any harmful substances. And, you may even die in some great catastrophe, such as a war or a natural disaster. But, such or any other temporal death is a good thing when it happens to a repentant and so redeemed person, for temporal death begins the eternal life that already now comforts and cheers you.
When you repent, you do not perish. That inference is quite clear from what Jesus says twice in today’s Gospel Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. When you repent, you do not perish.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +