"He Loves Us To The End" (John 13:1-17, 31b-35)

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come 
to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

 

Jesus utterly loved His apostles. Jesus utterly loves you. He loves His whole creation.

 

Tonight is Maundy Thursday, or also called, Holy Thursday. The word “maundy” is derived from the Latin word mandatum, which means command. For it was on this night that Jesus gave the command to His disciples saying, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

 

“God is love” (1 John 4:16). John 3:16-17 sum up God’s love for us: “For God so loved the world, that He gave 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.”

 

It was out of God’s love that caused Him to create the world in the first place. And His love endures forever. Jesus is the embodiment of this love. He is love in human flesh.

 

But we are the opposite of what God intended us to be. Instead of truly loving God and loving our neighbor, we are curved in on ourselves. We love ourselves. We would rather be served by others than to serve. We daily sin against the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods,” since we want to be God. We grasp equality with God as Adam and Eve did. We follow right in line with the original sin. We all want to be almighty God. This is supreme idolatry.

 

We so often fail at love. But what are we best at? We are best at being selfish. We are best at putting ourselves as the center of the universe and that everyone else should love and serve you. We use people. We manipulate people for our own benefit. A holy and just God would have every reason to give us what we truly deserve: eternal death apart from God. May we repent of our selfishness.

Because of our sinful condition, we cannot change ourselves into holy and righteous people. All we can do is possibly turn us poor, miserable sinners into sinners. Maybe, we could sin less, but we will continue to sin. And all sin separates us from God. It’s our sin that pulls us away from God’s love, while God is reaching out to us in His love. Our sinful nature wants nothing to do with God and His unconditional forgiveness.

 

For us to change, we must die and be born again as new people, with new minds, new thinking, and a new disposition. Clearly, we cannot do that. We can’t kill ourselves and make ourselves alive as holy people.

 

But God is love and as a loving God, He “desires all people to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4a). So, how does God show this love so that people would be saved?

 

We see this love in the Son of God who came down from heaven to serve, give everything, even Himself. He was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin and placed in a feeder’s trough. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head”(Matthew 8:20). Jesus was willing to leave everything behind and empty Himself of all the glory of heaven and the treasures of the entire universe to live among us and one of us.

 

What man covets; God laid aside. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).

 

We all try to serve. We attempt to lose ourselves in service to our fellow man, but ultimately, self-righteousness and a self-serving attitude win the day.

 

But Jesus loves us to the end. On that first Maundy Thursday, Jesus used that occasion to demonstrate His complete, unwavering love for them and for us, a love He bore to the very end. The Passover dinner was underway, and this would be His last. On this night, He would institute the Lord’s Supper for the forgiveness of our sins and to strengthen our weak faith. On this night, He knew that He would be betrayed. Yet, Jesus was still in control. Heaven’s plan was coming together. It was now up to the Son of God to see it through.

 

So, Jesus, gives His disciples an old commandment, to which He renews. He speaks the words of Leviticus 19: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), to which He had previously renewed elsewhere in the Gospels. But Jesus uses this occasion to not just speak of this commandment, but to show this commandment in action.

 

So, Jesus rose from dinner and served His disciples as a slave would serve his master and his master’s guests. He washes their feet.

 

Now, is Jesus instituting a new sacrament? No. For He says, “I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done for you” (John 13:15). What Jesus is doing serves as an object lesson, a pattern of humility for Christians to follow, that still applies to us. You see, a true leader, a true friend, a true neighbor, is one who serves others. This act of washing His disciples’ feet tells us that a follower of Jesus will act in humble service as Jesus did.

 

This new commandment is not being spoken about, but shown. And by showing His love in action, He is giving this commandment a fresh and new quality. So, Jesus’ command was to love one another as He had loved them by lowing Himself to a servant. And from that night on, Jesus’ disciples were to practice that love in the light of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

 

This love is called “agape.” This love sacrifices for others. Jesus is the embodiment of this love. He gives and He gives, and He gives. He gives of Himself tonight in His very body and blood under bread and wine to forgive your sins.

 

Later that night, Jesus would “give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28) as He would “give for the life of the world [His] flesh” (John 6:51). 

 

As Jesus hung on the cross one day later, He took upon Himself all our wickedness, all our iniquity, all our brokenness, all our pain. He reconciled you and me back to God the Father. He changed us. He took all our selfishness upon Himself. He made a way to reconciliation. He made peace by the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:20).

 

God loved you so much that He died for you. And God did not remain dead. He rose, so that you would also rise. In Christ alone, you are a new creation. In Christ alone, you are born again. This is what happened at your Baptism. It was through the water and Word that the Holy Spirit gave you a new mind with new thinking and a new disposition. 

Now, through Christ’s love, you are able to look outside yourself. You are now able to serve your neighbor in agape love – sacrificial love. You don’t ask for anything in return. You just serve out of love. You serve in loving service to God.

 

God’s heart is one of eternal love, of sacrificial love. He loved you even before you loved Him. For “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

 

God loves us to the end. He loves by serving. Serving is what defines the one true God. He serves us sinners with His forgiveness in Word and Sacrament. He serves us life and salvation. May we all repent of our selfishness and receive Christ’s love through the forgiveness of sins. And may He continually empower us to “be imitators of God, as beloved Children” walking in love as Christ loved us (Ephesians 5:1-2) by giving and serving our neighbor in sacrificial love. Amen.

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

 keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.  

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

"Numbered with the Transgressors" (Luke 22:35-38)

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

Jesus said: “For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in Me: ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about Me has its fulfillment” (Luke 22:37).

 

This is Jesus’ final passion prediction before He would be handed over by Judas Iscariot to the Jewish authorities. This is also a direct quote from Isaiah 53:12, which describes the necessity of the death of Jesus. So why did Jesus have to die? Couldn’t there have been another way?

 

Before man’s Fall into sin, God brought the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. Adam personally named each creature he met. He was naked and unashamed. But when Adam and Eve fell into sin as they ate of the forbidden fruit, they noticed their nakedness. They were ashamed. So, God in His love clothed them with garments of skins. These skins were to remind Adam and Eve of the result of sin, which is death. 

 

As time went on, the offerings of animals to God became the way of cleansing man of their sins. We see this in Genesis 4 as Abel offered the firstborn of his flock to God. But the sacrificial system did not officially become doctrine until God rescued His chosen people from slavery in Egypt. It was through a complex sacrificial system that an animal’s life was offered as atonement before God through the blood. The Lord said to Moses, “The life of the flesh is the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls” (Leviticus 17:11).

 

So, what is atonement? Atonement is when an innocent life is offered as a substitute for a guilty life. Atonement brings cleansing. Atonement brings redemption.

 

Our God is just. He is perfect. He demands perfection. So, in perfect justice, atonement for sin demands a blood covering. The animal’s blood was a substitute for the life of the person – as a blood covering for the people’s sins. 

 

With His words to His disciples, Jesus is saying that He must be the blood covering for the whole world’s sins. 

Those animal sacrifices all foreshadowed the sacrifice of the perfect High Priest, Jesus Christ, who would not offer the blood of animals, but His own precious blood and carry it into the heavenly Most Holy Place as a blood covering for our sin.

 

All those Old Testament sacrifices pointed to the one all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God and the perfect High Priest. As fully God and fully man with His ordinary human frame, Jesus lived a perfect life under the Law and then died the death that we all deserve, because of our sins. Through the shedding of His own blood, He would offer His life as the Great Exchange for the life of the world.

 

You see, Jesus became man so that He could take our sin, our guilt, and our punishment. In return, He gives us His righteousness, His perfection. It could only be this way. Sins must be atoned for. Blood must be spilled from the perfect Lamb.

 

Through Christ’s death on a cross as He hung between two transgressors, God puts the righteousness of Christ upon us. There, God reconciled the world to Himself. “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In this Great Exchange, our filthy rags of guilt and shame, iniquity and transgression, our bondage to death and the devil is all taken off us and put on Christ. And Jesus gives us His righteousness, His perfection, His life. He gives us everything!

 

So just as the high priest took the animal’s blood into God’s presence in the Most Holy Place and brought the most holy blood out to cleanse the altar, Jesus offered His own blood, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and entered into the heavenly sanctuary with His blood and flesh. Now, in Holy Baptism, Jesus sprinkles us with His most holy blood. He sprinkles us on the outside to cleanse us and to pardon our sin, to set us apart as His Holy people to serve God in our holy callings. Then in the Lord’s Supper, Jesus sprinkles us internally to set us apart to serve in the heavenly sanctuary with the angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven, praising God for our Blood Covering.

 

It had to be this way. There was no other way. Jesus had to die a shameful death between two criminals. He had to identify Himself with sinful humanity, place Himself in solidarity with sinners, and die on behalf of all, so that He would make atonement for all people. So, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32:1). Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

 keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.  

"The Tenants of the Vineyard" (Luke 20:9-20)

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

“One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to Him, ‘Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who is it that gave you this authority.”

 

“And [Jesus] began to tell the people this parable: ‘A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants.’ …” (Luke 20:1-2, 9a).

 

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants. So, what led Jesus to tell this parable? Well, today we are marching forward to the Tuesday of Holy Week where we find Jesus teaching at the temple. And like always, Jesus’ teaching is challenged by the Jewish authorities. And knowing that His betrayal and death is near, Jesus directs the sharpest and sternest rebuke and warning against the Jewish authorities.

 

Though the Jewish authorities were the original target of today’s parable, we must not conclude that this parable has nothing for us to learn. You see, every parable of Jesus is timeless as they speak to people in every age. So, what are we to think about the Parable of the Wicked Tenants?

 

Jesus said, “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while” (Luke 20:9). Here, we hear that a man planted the vineyard. In Mark’s Gospel, he gives us a few more details on what this Owner did as he also “put a fence around it,” “dug a winepress,”and “built a tower” (Mark 12:1).

 

From this other information, we hear that the Owner of the vineyard did everything to make His vineyard a good productive one. He put a wall around it to protect it. He dug a winepress so His tenants could produce wine easily. He built a tower so His tenants could see from a distance if any intruders were coming. The Owner of the vineyard did literally everything to make the work of His tenants an easy one. The Owner of the vineyard left nothing undone that was necessary for the welfare of His tenants.

 

However, the Owner was away for very long while. Eventually, the tenants, the renters of the vineyard, began to truly believe that they were no longer renters, but owners. They were patting each other on the back saying, “Very well done!”

“When the time came, [the Owner] sent a servant to the tenants, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty handed” (Luke 20:10). Now, you’d think that the Owner would be a bit perturbed about this incident. You’d think, He would come back and evict the tenants. But He doesn’t. He sends a second servant. And the tenants treat him worse than the first. So, what does the Owner do? He sends a third servant. And he’s treated worse than the first and second. Now what? What does this Owner do? He sends His beloved Son, saying, “Perhaps they will respect Him” (Luke 20:13).

 

So, what happens next? The tenants saw the Son and they say to themselves, “This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours” (Luke 20:14). So, they threw the Son out of the vineyard and killed him. 

 

What will the Owner do now? Well, He had been patient before. So, will He continue to be patient in receiving his fruit? No, the Owner’s patience has ended. He will now destroy the wicked tenants and give the vineyard to others who would tend His vineyard.

 

To this, the chief priests, scribes and elders say, “Surely not!” (Luke 20:16).

 

In this parable, we have the Owner of the vineyard, who is God the Father. The wicked tenants are forefathers of the chief priests, scribes, and elders. And the servants are the prophets, who have been rejected time and again by the forefathers of the Jewish authorities.

 

For all intents and purposes, the Parable of the Wicked Tenants is historical. This is what has portrayed in Israel from one generation to the next. A few weeks ago, we heard Jesus’ lament over this very fact: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” (Luke 13:34a).

 

But in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, Jesus gives His parable a prophetic turn: “This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours” (Luke 20:14). Here, Jesus is telling them and the crowd around them what exactly they would do to Him in just a few days. Here, Jesus is exposing their murderous intent. To put another way, He told them that they would show themselves as apt pupils of their forefathers. 

In fact, they would top the wickedness of their forefathers by killing, not just a human prophet commissioned by God, but Him, the Father’s Son, the fully divine and human Messiah.

 

So, just as their forefathers did, these Jewish authorities would ensure that the Jewish nation remained their people, under their control, under their sway. “So they threw [Jesus] out of the vineyard and killed Him” (Luke 20:15).

 

So, what about us? What is your response as you reflected on the Parable of the Wicked Tenants? Who are we to be in this parable? What is our role? 

 

For those of us who have rented or are currently renting a home or apartment, what would happen at the beginning of each month? Rent is due. Now, who really enjoys paying rent, or even a mortgage? But we have to! If not, you are evicted, or the bank takes your home. That is life in the fallen world. But what about our spiritual life?

 

When the beloved Son comes to pick up the rent owed to His Father, what will you do? Will you see yourself as the lord of the vineyard? Or as a caretaker of the vineyard? Will you be renters who will give the Owner His due?

 

And what fruit is the Owner looking to receive of His? Well, those fruits of faith, those fruits of repentance, those stewardship acts of time, talent, and treasure.

 

Now, it is certainly easy for us to shift from being tenants under the Lord to thinking and acting like we are the owners. And why is that? Well, we all have a problem with authority. And whether we would like to admit it or not, we all have a problem with God’s authority. As sinners, our natural perception is that God’s authority prevents us from getting what we want. 

 

Just think about it. How often do you withhold from God what is rightfully His? How often do you speak carelessly, or misuse God’s Name? How often do you neglect or despise God’s Word and Sacraments? How often are you not content with what God has given to you?

 

We certainly do have a problem with God’s authority. The wicked tenants desired the authority for themselves. Even the Owners’ servants weren’t respected and neither was His beloved Son.

 

Our sinful nature challenges God’s authority as we operate in cahoots with the fallen world. We are tricked by Satan, just like Adam and Eve were in the Garden, to falsely think that God is holding back what we want. And if we sit back and think how the world portrays freedom today, freedom is defined as crossing the boundary of what’s good and right. 

Our fallen sinful nature even leads us to think wrongly about the church. We may get to thinking, “This is my church. The church belongs to me.” We sometimes forget that the church belongs to the Lord. We, the Church, belong to the Lord.

 

Remember, God planted the vineyard. We didn’t. We did nothing to deserve the vineyard. We didn’t choose God. He chose us and set His love upon us. 

 

Today, you and I are both the tenants and servants. Upon His death and resurrection, Jesus gave us His vineyard as His stewards. The planting of His vineyard is entirely His doing, not our doing. For Jesus said, “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18) on the truth that He is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). It is in this way alone that we became God’s cherished children, the objects of His constant love and His constant care.

 

For us, we no longer rely on the promise of the Lord’s salvation, since salvation is fully accomplished in Jesus Christ, our Lord. 

 

As His tenants, we are all certainly capable of committing the same wickedness of the chief priests, scribes, and elders and their forefathers. We say things like, “It’s my car. It’s my money. It’s my investment.” But the reality is: It’s God’s car. It’s God’s money. It’s God’s investment. The reality is that we get the privilege in managing those things for Him. 

 

So, if we are truly listening to the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, you would notice that Jesus is also speaking about the proper giving back of what God has given to you. The good news is that the Owner of the vineyard is patient. He waits a long time before He goes out and sends His servants to collect His rent. He doesn’t evict the tenants. He keeps sending servants. He doesn’t quit. The Owner of this vineyard – Prince of Peace Lutheran Church – is a compassionate, loving and caring God who won’t quit.

 

Even as His beloved Son is beaten up, thrown out of the vineyard and killed. Even in that very action, God gets His way. For in the rejection of His beloved Son, God the Father is providing a new beginning. God the Father is providing forgiveness and restoration. He is providing the cornerstone upon which His people will be built.

 

So, when the Owner of this vineyard comes looking for fruit, will you produce His fruit, or will you challenge His authority by your sin by being crushed by the Cornerstone?

 

Thanks be God that He is patient! Always remember that Jesus died for all those times you challenge His authority. So may we always repent and receive His forgiveness. God holds nothing back from us! When you repent, He always forgives unconditionally! And He not only gives us the vineyard, but He gives us the kingdom! Amen.

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

 keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.  

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

"The Parable of the Compassionate Father" (Luke 15:1-3, 11-32)

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’ So [Jesus] told them this parable: 

 

“‘There was a man who had two sons’…” (Luke 15:1-3, 11).

 

The Parable of the Prodigal Son. This is a beloved parable for many. It is a parable that is certainly well known. It’s right up there with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It’s known by Christians and non-Christians alike.

 

So, what more could be said about this beloved parable? It turns out: a lot. There is so much for us to learn and appreciate from the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

 

So, what led to Jesus telling this parable? Well, first we have tax collectors and sinners – those people caught up in public sins – drawing near to Jesus. But they weren’t alone. With them were some Pharisees and scribes who were grumbling at Jesus, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). They are muttering about the table companions with whom Jesus fellowships. 

 

This is quite an interesting crowd: tax collectors, the especially immoral, Pharisees and scribes. They all are brought together to hear Jesus.

 

So, with this odd crowd, Jesus answers the criticism of the Pharisees and scribes by telling three parables to everyone who has ears to hear. All three have to do with the joy over finding what was once lost. A shepherd rejoices over finding the one lost sheep out of a hundred. A woman rejoices to find the one coin she had lost out of ten. And then to our parable today, a compassionate father who has two sons gives a joyous banquet to celebrate the return of a wayward son.

 

So, what were the Pharisees and scribes to think when they heard these parables, and especially the third parable? What do you think?

 

So, Jesus says: “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me’” (Luke 15:11-12a).

 

Essentially, the younger son said, “Dad, I wish you were dead, give me my inheritance now!” What child cannot identify with disobeying and disrespecting their father? What father has not feared, if not experienced, his child’s rejection?

 

And what does this father do? He shows compassion as he gave his younger son his inheritance.

 

So, the younger son gathers his share of the inheritance, waves goodbye and says good riddance to his dad as he soon converts his possessions into cash. With his new wealth, he takes a journey to a far country. And there, he blows his inheritance by living the high life. He went from living in luxury to being penniless and hungry. 

 

And just as things were turning bad, they turned for the worse. Not only was he broke, but now a severe famine arose. In order to survive, he lowered himself to feed pigs, an unclean animal. There he is, a Jew, feeding pigs, and now he longs for what the pigs have. At least they have shelter and are provided food. He has hit rock bottom. He is scraping by as he feeds filthy unclean pigs. And as he feeds those filthy animals, he was longing for what they had, since he had nothing.

 

It was in this hardship that the younger son came to his senses. Sometimes it takes affliction for a person to finally wake up. And praise God when that happens. Sadly, we all know of cases when hardships lead a person to further dig in all the more into sin and debt. Thankfully, this is not what happened to this son.

 

So, he begins to prepare his speech. “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:18-19). He has it all planned out. He is resolved to go back to his father, confess his sin, admit his unworthiness as a son, and beg to work as a hired hand.

 

He arose and went on his way, but before he even speaks his confession, his father sees him and runs to him. He runs to his son and welcomes him with hugs and kisses. He does not lecture him for his sins. He loves the sinner even before that sinner makes his statement of repentance. 

This father is truly compassionate. These are not the typical actions of a human father. He orders the best robe, a ring and sandals, and a feast! The celebration begins at once! The dead son lives! The lost son is now found!

 

Meanwhile, the older son was out in the field and as he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. He soon learned that this party was in celebration of the return of his brother. He was fuming. He grumbled and pouted. Day after day, he was out in the field doing what he thought he should be doing. He felt slighted. And who wouldn’t be sympathetic to him? Afterall, he was faithful to his father. 

 

So, his compassionate father comes outside. He pleads for his son to join the celebration. But the father only hears criticism of his love. The older son reminds him of all the years of faithful service that he has rendered for his father. But he never received a party. “Celebrate all you want, but I won’t go inside!” He was bitter.

 

It was then that his compassionate father reminded his older son: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31). So, what happened with the older brother? Did he eventually go inside to join the party? We don’t know. Jesus leaves us with a cliffhanger. 

 

Again, may I ask: What were the Pharisees and scribes to think as they heard this parable? What are you thinking? What would you do if your lost child who rejected you returned to you? Would you run to your child and embrace him? Would you lecture him? What if you were the older son?

 

The Pharisees are both sons – the one who wasted his inheritance and the one who remained with his father. We are both of his sons. We are prone to wander. We are greedy. We don’t want to wait for our inheritance. We want it now!

 

And despite it all, you may see yourself as more deserving of God’s love than others. Afterall, you attend church weekly, you go to every Bible study, you give tithes and even give alms by increasing your offerings during Lent. You deserve a party! Where is your party?!

 

In this parable, it isn’t just the younger son who was lost, it is the older son, too. The younger son came to his senses. He returned home and was found. That older son appeared to not be lost – at first, but he became lost. He considered his life to be a life of a servant and not a son. He considered himself a slave. 

 

But it was their compassionate father who forgave them. 

§  To his younger son: “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:22-24).

§  To his older son: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32).

 

No earthly father is like this father. This father is God the Father. Although this parable is often called The Parable of the Prodigal Son, it could also be called the Parable of the Compassionate Father. What the compassionate father does is amazing, he runs to meet his wayward son. He doesn’t yell at his son. He loves his son. He forgives his son. He restores his son.

 

For Jesus says, “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7) and “There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10).

 

There is no creature on earth like the triune God. His forgiveness is incomparable. God certainly is justified in His anger over our sinful rebellion. But when we repent, when we come to our senses and return to Him, He unconditionally forgives us, He embraces us, and He feeds us. In fact, this is what occurs at each Divine Service, we poor sinners confess our sins, as we give our guilt to God, and He absolves us, He reconciles us back to Him, He forgives our sins of thought, word, and deed. And, what happens next? He throws us a banquet, a foretaste of the heavenly feast to come, of Christ’s body and blood under bread and wine that forgives sins and gives us life and salvation.

 

In this season of Lent, we marvel at how “God loved the world so that He gave His only Son the lost to save, That all who would in Him believe Should everlasting life receive” (LSB 571, stanza 1). The compassionate God the Father sent His only Son so that we might escape eternal suffering. For our sake, Jesus became poor. He hungered and thirsted and no one gave Him anything. For our sake, He spent everything. He squandered everything to find you. He gave up His life as He hung crucified on a cross among thieves, so that he would save you, so that He would find you. Every sinner who has been saved has been sought out and found by Jesus Christ Himself. Through His Word and by the power of the Holy Spirit, He finds sinners and brings them home. May we show this same compassion when a sinner repents! Amen.

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

 keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.  

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +

"Why Does God Allow Pain and Suffering?" (Luke 13:1-9)

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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

“There were some present at the very time who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And [Jesus] answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?’” (Luke 13:1-2).

 

Today’s Gospel lesson from Luke 13 appears like news ripped from the headlines. 

 

A group of unnamed people approach Jesus with the question: “Jesus, did you hear? Pilate had all those pious Galileans killed? They came to offer godly sacrifices at the temple. Jesus, why did this happen?”

 

In other words: “Why did this bad thing happen to such good Galileans?”

 

The question they are asking or the answer they want from Jesus is “why.” Why did these terrible things happen? What did they do to deserve it?

 

First, a little background. If you recall, the histories of the northern and southern regions of Israel were such that it could be assumed that God was punishing the Galileans. Afterall, Galilee had a longer and more pronounced history of apostasy as most abandoned the one true God. So, could God have been punishing them? Did they have this coming to them? Did they deserve it?

 

It appears that these Galileans came to Jerusalem for the Passover Seder. They appeared to be pious Jews. So, did they truly deserve what was coming to them?

 

Now, the mixing of the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices at the temple was a heinous crime. Pilate violated all holiness codes by sending his troops into the courtyard of the temple to murder Galilean Jews while they were slaughtering their lambs for the Passover Seder. Pilate supervised this heinous act. And the mingling of the Galilean’s blood with the lambs’ blood would then constitute a mockery of the Jewish religion.

 

So, why did these terrible things happen to these good people who were just doing what God had commanded them to do? If God cannot protect His people in His temple, then where can God protect His people? To this, Jesus offers no comfort.

 

In fact, Jesus adds some other news ripped from the headlines: “What about those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them? Were they worse offenders than all the others in Jerusalem?”

 

So, not only do bad things happen to good people, but also to innocent people, who were just minding their own business, living their lives, while a tower falls on them. This is so unnecessary! Why did this have to happen?

 

We, too, have the same headlines with the same question: Why did this have to happen? Terrorists take over an airplane filled with innocent people. An earthquake destroys a city. A tornado flattens a town. A train derails and spills chemicals into a river, which threatens the lives of innocent people. Airplanes collide in midair. Wildfires destroy a city. A child is hit by a stray bullet and dies. An invisible virus spreads across the globe. A person is diagnosed with lung cancer who has never smoked a cigarette his entire life. Why? Why do innocent people suffer and die? 

 

Couldn’t God prevent this? Why does God allow pain and suffering and death? This question has been asked in many ways and at many times. And we have attempted to answer this question. We have tried to make sense of the why.

 

For the people who approached Jesus, they appear to have interpreted the Galileans’ blood mingled with their sacrifices to mean that they deserved it. “They deserved it because they were not good Jews. They had it coming! Certainly, God rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior!”

 

We, too, try to interpret both natural and human disasters. Just think about earthquakes, wildfires and mudslides in California. For many Christians, they say, “They must have deserved it. They had it coming, because of their sin!” Even secular minded people play this game of why by saying that it’s man-made climate change that is causing hurricanes, tornadoes and droughts. We all – the religious and the secular – get excited about interpreting the events of our times.

 

All we can do is to come up with theories on why God allows bad things. As if we can fathom His mind. But you may notice, Jesus does not respond this way. Jesus doesn’t come up with theories. Instead, He puts the question back on them and on us.

He says, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). Jesus doesn’t linger on why these Galileans met such a violent fate. He does not address Pilate’s wickedness and cruelty. Instead, Jesus continues to address the crowd and uses this tragedy as an illustration for their need to repent.

 

Jesus says that these particular events – the slaughtering of the Galileans at the temple and those who died in the rubble of the tower in Siloam – are not signs of God’s judgment on individuals, but of His wrath against all of sinful mankind. No one is a worse sinner than another, but all have sinned. The Psalmist writes: “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one” (Psalm 14:2-3).

 

We were all born into a creation that is broken, decaying, and falling apart. We were all born as creatures who are stained and corrupted and weakening day by day. We are all helpless. And we cannot get out of it. The problem for sinful humanity is that we owe a larger debt than we can ever repay. On our own, we cannot put things right. We will all suffer. And we will all die.

 

But it is here, in our helplessness, that God gives His response. It is in our weakness that God comes. 

 

John the Baptist called on all his hearers to repent of their sins and receive his baptism of repentance (Luke 3:3). He called his hearers to bear fruits of repentance (Luke 3:8), and he said that every tree that does not bear good fruit is to be cut down and thrown into the fire (Luke 3:9). Does this sound familiar? This is exactly what Jesus is saying in the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree.

 

Jesus is no less urgent! He calls on all to repent lest we perish in sin as the Galileans and the 18 who were crushed by the tower in Siloam.

 

Repentance includes sorrow for sin and trust in the One who brings forgiveness and release. And for humanity to be rescued, it is necessary for Jesus, the Rejected Prophet, to perish in Jerusalem (Luke 13:33).

 

So, we must repent! In the face of death, which is the wages of sin, repentance is Jesus’ solution. And repentance isn’t just doing a little bit better than we used to. God doesn’t just want us to be a little better. He wants us perfect, just as He is perfect.

 

Our suffering is connected to sin ultimately in Adam, whose sin precipitated all human suffering. But a son of Adam – the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God, brings forgiveness and the promise of release from all who suffer the effects of sin. So, for us and for our salvation, Jesus will perish on behalf of all humankind, including for those Galileans whose blood was mingled with their sacrifices and those who were crushed by the tower in Siloam.

 

In the face of death, turn to Jesus, who alone is life. We only have hope in Him, for He alone has conquered sin and its power. By His own death, He conquered death for you and me.

 

So, let us repent as Jesus calls us to do saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

 

Again, for Jesus, any tragedy should not be seen as a sign of God’s judgment on specific people for specific sins, but as a sign of His judgment for all people. Jesus does not call us to speculation, but to contrition, repentance and faith. For He says: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish”(Luke 13:3, 5).

 

So, the Christian is never to think when analyzing the headlines, “they must have deserved it,” but rather, “I deserved the same,” yet also, we are to always thank God that Jesus perished on your behalf, and rose again three days later, so that you would not perish eternally! Amen!

 

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

 keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.  

+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +