If Jesus were to return, say, in the next few days, would you know it? Do you know what to expect? Would you recognize the signs and the events surrounding His return? Well, according to what Jesus once said, there won’t be an eye on earth—living or dead, believing or not—who will not know that He is returning when He comes back. (cf. Matthew 24:25-27) So, you will most certainly know that Jesus is returning when the Day comes, expecting it or not—the signs will be given, the events will happen, and you will know. It would also certainly be hard to miss a trumpet sounding and the dead rising from their graves. (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:52, 1 Thessalonians 4:16)

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Watch, Jesus tells you. What does that mean? Why would He say that if you’re going to know it when He returns anyway?

Well, for one thing, Jesus’ return is something at which to rejoice. And if it’s something at which to rejoice, then the whole Church on earth—you included—would wait and watch for Jesus with eager anticipation. This is why, among a few reasons, the Church’s constant, vigilant prayer is, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.“

For another thing, Jesus is encouraging you to remain ever vigilant for His return for the very fact that you do not know they day or the hour of His return. He may return next hour, tomorrow, next week, next year, or perhaps not even in the years He has given you to walk this earth. So, Jesus tells you to watch, to keep on watching; in other words, always be prepared. You don’t know when Jesus is going to return—Jesus, Himself, didn’t even know (cf. Matthew 24:36)—so you must be ready all the time for His return. “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.“

That’s the point of the parable that Jesus told in today’s text. Make what you like of the characters, items, place, and events of the parable, the focus is on the preparedness of five of the virgins versus the lack of the same of the other five. Five were able to be prepared, with lamps and oil enough to wait and not grow weary, while the other five were not.

This begs the question: what exactly is this preparedness? How does one prepare for Jesus’ coming again? How is one prepared for it? These questions are especially poignant given the response of the Lord of the wedding feast to the foolish virgins upon their arrival to the closed doors. If the result of the difference between being prepared and unprepared is the Lord saying to the unprepared, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you,” then it would be better to be among the prepared.

To understand preparedness in light of Jesus’ parable, you have to know what’s going on in the parable. All ten virgins were to be guests at the wedding banquet, but not one of them knew when the bridegroom would arrive. So, they would have to be prepared for whenever that would be. The longer he took, the more likely it would be that the virgins would grow weary of waiting, and perhaps some of them weren’t prepared for an extended wait as a result. That’s the situation in the parable that Jesus told. Five of the virgins, He called them wise, not knowing when to expect the bridegroom, were prepared for an extended wait; you might imagine that they had enough oil to last them through the night, because the feast might start late and last through the night. The other five, He called them foolish, had grown weary of the wait and didn’t have the oil to make it, and once the bridegroom had returned, it was too late to get more oil.

Superimpose that over the return of Christ, and you might have the picture already. The one who is prepared, not knowing when Jesus will return, is as prepared for an imminent return as for one which would happen well past their years. The one who is unprepared has grown weary of waiting, so they are not eagerly expecting Christ’s return.

This preparation comes from outside of oneself. In other words, you don’t do anything to be prepared for Jesus’ return. Conversely, you do everything to be unprepared.

What prepares you for Christ’s return? Jesus Himself does, and He does it through Word and Sacraments—regular and frequent use of the Word and Sacraments. So, you come here for regular worship services, whereat the Word of God is proclaimed to you and you receive the very body and blood of Jesus Christ in bread and wine, and therein your sins are forgiven you and your faith is strengthened—be that on Sunday or other days on which services are held at God’s house. You come also for regular Bible and Confessions studies, whereat the Word of God is proclaimed to you, and your knowledge of the faith is increased. You make use of the Scriptures also in your own regular devotions, and even there Jesus speaks to you through His Word, feeding your faith.

In every case Jesus is proclaimed to you, and the whole counsel of God is given to you. You hear of the incarnation and birth of the Son of God. You hear of the ministry of the Son of God. You hear of the passion, suffering, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. You hear of the ascension of the Son of God and His work at the right hand of majesty as your Prophet, Priest, and King. You hear of the promise that the Son of God made to return, and in that return to take you to Himself to live with Him in His everlasting, glorious kingdom. And every time you hear of the Son of God, you receive the Son of God, and He strengthens your faith, forgives your sins, and gives you everlasting life. This, dear hearers, is the preparation that He gives to you so that you may watch and wait with eager anticipation. “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”

But it can be easy to undo all of His work, and if His work is undone, it is all your doing. In light of what it means to be prepared, as God continues to tarry, it is easy to grow weary in waiting for Jesus to return. Your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and numerous other generations past have been waiting and waited for Jesus’ return; now here you are doing the same thing. Are you sure that Jesus will be returning? How are you sure? Isn’t that voice in the back of your head asking you these things? Are you beginning to believe it? Has it been saying this for a while? Is it getting harder and harder to quiet and ignore that voice?

If it is, you might be getting ever closer to the point where you doubt Jesus and His promise to return. Jesus says,

And in doubt, you say, “Yeah, I’m not so sure.” Old Adam asks the same question that the serpent did in the Garden: “Did God really say…?” (cf. Genesis 3:1) Of course, what is meant by that is, “God didn’t really mean to say...” And if you doubt in this area, then you can doubt in all areas, and before you know it, you don’t really believe anything of the Word of God. You don’t do your regular devotions. Next, you make excuses about Bible study times. Then, you miss one Divine Service, then another, and another, and so on. You end up despising the Word of God. In the end, when Christ returns, you would find the doors closed to you, and you would hear the Lord of the banquet say, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.”

Of course, there are many other things which can cause you to doubt God’s Word, to bring you to unbelief and other great shame and vice. Illness and death, suffering and other struggles in life, anguish and labor, etc.—these are all part of the curse of the fall. And all of these would work in concert against you. But for the sake of the text before you, the weariness of the wait is the primary concern, such that you lack preparedness toward the return of the Son of God, and this to the effect of the dire consequence of not being known by the Lord of heaven: “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.”

Nevertheless, you can be sure of what Jesus has said; you can be sure that He will keep His promise to return and to take you to be with Him in Paradise. How can you be sure? Because God doesn’t lie—Satan is the father of lies, and your flesh is complicit in those lies, but God has never lied to you and He never will. If Jesus said He will come back for you, then He will come back for you. Dear hearers, Jesus did say that He will come back for you. You are here, now, having heard Him say just that! And you can be sure of that because He has said other things to you that you can take to heart:

• But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. (Isaiah 43:1-3a)
• Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (John 14:27)
• For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

This good news endures forever. The good new of the Word of God proclaimed to you, preached into you, fed to you, to give, nourish, and strengthen your faith, to prepare you for the return of Christ to bring you to Himself. Worlds will perish, the sun be darkened and the moon destroyed, but the Word of God remains forever—so, too, the one kept in that Word. That’s you, and you can only take God’s Word for it! Ultimately, I can’t do a thing to assuage your doubts of God’s Word but to continue to proclaim the Word of God to you. Through that Word, the Holy Spirit is at work to embolden you to take Him at His Word, to trust that when He says something, He means it. Therefore do not doubt, but believe; fear not, Jesus is coming again to take you to Himself, because you are forgiven for all of your sins.

In the year that King Uzziah of Judah died, St. Isaiah had a vision of the Most Holy Place in the courts of heaven. The Lord was sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. There were angels standing above the throne—six-winged seraphs—covering themselves with two pairs of wings out of respect and modesty, being in the presence of YHWH Sabaoth. They cried to each other antiphonally words from which the Sanctus is derived, and the place shook for the sound of their cries while the smoke of incense filled the temple.

St. Isaiah was privileged to get a glimpse of heavenly worship. It’s probably fair to say that he didn’t see everything that happened in the Most Holy Place; likewise, what he revealed might only be but a portion of what he was given to see. The sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of everything going on must have been more than he could understand; I would wager even the taste of things happening was palpable and more wonderful than anything he had ever experienced below. Once the wonder of the scene catches up to him, though, he realizes who he is and where he is.

“Woe is me,” he exclaims, “for I am undone!” Who is he? He is a man of unclean lips living in the midst of a people of unclean lips. And let me make things perfectly clear here. It wasn’t just his lips and his people lips that were unclean. From head to toe, inside and out, St. Isaiah was impure, as were the people among whom he lived. Where is he? He is in the presence of the King, YHWH Sabaoth, and more than that, his unclean eyes have seen Him. (cf. Isaiah 6:1-5)

However, one of the seraphs flew over to him. He had in his hand a live coal, taken with the tongs from the altar where the incense was burning. The seraph touched St. Isaiah’s mouth with the live coal. Those unclean lips were touched with a holy fire—a cleansing fire which purges iniquity, taking it away. And when something is purged of iniquity, it is made pure. “Behold, this has touched your lips;” the seraph said, “Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.” And let me make things perfectly clear here. As much as St. Isaiah spoke of his lips as referring to the whole of him, so here the seraph does the same thing. His lips may have been the part of St. Isaiah that was touched with a live coal, but, as the seraph said, his sin is purged. St. Isaiah could now look upon God and live! (cf. Isaiah 6:6-7)

On this day of observing All Saints, you have heard as you do on every All Saints’ Day, the Beatitudes from Jesus’ sermon on the mount. Jesus speaks of the blessings of being one of His saints: having possession of the kingdom of heaven, comfort, the earth as an inheritance, being filled, obtaining mercy, being called a son of God, and even having a great reward in heaven for being persecuted like the prophets who went before.

These are all great things, and blessings to rejoice in to be sure (even that persecution), but they all hinge on the one I omitted from the list. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The blessings of the saints, and your blessings as a saint, rely on this one: being pure in heart and seeing God. One cannot look upon God and live except he be made pure in heart, unless his iniquity is taken away and his sin is purged. You need to be refined in the fire of the holiness of God so that your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged.

So, the Father sent the Son into the flesh to win and effect that change for you. You see, you still fall under the same curse that St. Isaiah faced in his vision. If you found yourself in the presence of YHWH Sabaoth, your fate would be the same as that expressed by the prophet—you would be undone—unless someone came over to you and purified you. This is the threat and curse of the Law. Your lips—your entire being—is unclean and you live in the midst of an unclean people, and for it you should die.

Therefore, “[W]hen 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.” (Galatians 4:4-5) “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” He who is holy became one with you in order to assume your iniquity and sin into His own flesh and become the object of the Father’s wrath. No one may look upon God and live, so God becomes man in order to die with the sins of the world. He faced that death head on and triumphed over it as death gave way to life and He rose from the grave. And for it, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, you are at peace with God, reconciled to Him, and have received the adoption as sons.

So, then, how do you become pure in heart? Well, like St. Isaiah before you, it must be done to you. You don’t just wake up one morning, or one moment come to your senses, and decide to be pure; you are made pure! A seraph flew to St. Isaiah and with a live coal and with that purified him. You are made pure with water and the Word. There at the font, you were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. You were washed as the name of God was applied to you, and you were sealed with the cross on your forehead and breast to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. It is as if the seraph had come to you with those sweet words, “Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is purged.”

Then, week after week, you hear it again: words that recall for you your drowning to sin and rising to newness of life. The called minister of God stands up here and proclaims to you that you are forgiven for all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Then, he ushers into your mouths the very body and blood of Jesus Christ, given and shed for you on the cross for the forgiveness of all of your sins. And you in faith receive the very things they give: forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Speaking through St. Ezekiel, YHWH prepared His remnant to come out of the Babylonian captivity. For far too long, the people of Judah had been chasing after false gods and forgetting the statutes of God. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged Jerusalem several times and took people into captivity, including Sts. Ezekiel, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. But it was by the pen of St. Ezekiel that these words of YHWH are recorded:

The captives returned, the temple was rebuilt, and for a time, the people of Judah lived in relative peace under the grace and protection of YHWH. They were washed clean, you could say, and made to dwell again in their own land.

But that sprinkling of water and being cleansed from all filthiness is of great significance for you. For it was at the font that this very thing happened to you. There, your heart of stone was removed from you and you were given a heart of flesh. There, the Spirit of God was placed within you and you were made a new creation. That heart of pure flesh now wishes to walk in the Spirit of God, in His statutes and judgments, seeking to keep and do them. Of course, you know how the battle between your sinful flesh and new heart often bears out; that’s why you come here week-in-and-week-out, to hear the Law judge you for your sins and the Gospel to bring you back to that newness of life, braced again for bearing the fruits in keeping with repentance. Nevertheless, this blessing wouldn’t be yours unless you were made a saint and given a pure heart.

This is why you sing the words of St. David, week-in-and-week out, crying out to him as did the Apple of His Eye, to renew that heart of flesh that He has put in you as said through St. Ezekiel. In a few moments, you’ll be singing those words,

You still wrestle Old Adam and still require a renewal of that joy of salvation—of having your heart cleaned and purified.

Living in this mysterious duality, as sinner and justified, you can look upon God and live. Of course, for the time being, all you see is an image of the crucified God, and He is the very image of the invisible God. So, look upon the crucifix, and there see your crucified God who died for you, knowing this, that on the last day, when He returns you will see God.

For it is like St. Job once said,

It’s the same thing that you heard from St. John’s first letter this morning:

St. Job and St. John are ones who are blessed to be pure in heart, as are all the saints of God, living and dead.

In fact, St. John, like St. Isaiah, was privileged to get a glimpse of the goings on in the heavenly places, this time in the new heavens and new earth. St. John related that in his vision while exiled on Patmos, one of the seven angels showed him…

God’s servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and there is no fear of death because His name shall be on their foreheads. That name is placed on you in Holy Baptism.

So, when Blessed St. John saw this vision, he was seeing you, dear saints gathered here, with all the saints the world over and all the company of heaven. You will be gathered around the throne of God and of the Lamb, with the light of Christ shining on you. You, like St. Isaiah, St. Moses, Sts. Adam and Eve, St. Paul, St. Timothy, St. Ezekiel, St. Daniel, St. Hananiah, St. Mishael, St. Azariah, St. David, St. Job, and St. John are pure in heart, made so by way of baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. You are forgiven for all of your sins, therefore, you shall see God with your own eyes and not another, and live for eternity.

It makes sense that St. Isaiah would say what he said. “Woe is me, for I am undone!” When St. Moses spoke with YHWH and asked to see His glory, God responded,

It is clear from this and in other places that no man may look upon God and live. Sts. Adam and Eve hid in the Garden of Eden once their “eyes were opened.” (cf. Genesis 3:10) St. Paul told St. Timothy that the King of kings and Lord of lords lives in unapproachable light which no man has seen or can see. (cf 1 Timothy 6:16) So, St. Isaiah found himself in what he believed was the presence of YHWH, in the palace of unapproachable light; he was sure that he was dead.

“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said, ‘Repent,’ willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.”

That opening thesis of the 95 on the power and efficacy of indulgences was the first pebble—grain of sand, perhaps—tossed into the pond which would be the 16th century Reformation, which would eventually birth the Lutheran Church and give rise to the various other protestant traditions around the world. Now, while these theses would be material worthy of our studies on Wednesday night, they were not intended to start a new confession or church body, and certainly not a document intended to reform the Church on earth in it’s entirety. Martin Luther simply wanted to talk about indulgences and if they were truly effective in releasing people from Purgatory or if they were a pious fraud being sold to ordinary Christians in order to fill the church’s coffers—a singularly focused reformation, perhaps.

Fortunately for Luther and those who lived in his country, the local governments served a roll in how the church operated—there was no separation of church and state—and his prince elector did not allow the sale of indulgences in his land; nor did the neighboring prince. Unfortunately, Luther’s parishioners (and likely those from neighboring parishes) would travel to where the sale was permitted, purchase an indulgence, then return to show Luther the piece of paper that proclaimed them freed from sin and no longer needing repentance. Outraged by the fact that people had paid for their forgiveness—grace that was freely theirs by right of being a son of God in Christ—Luther is said to have taken the indulgences, torn them up, and burned them, at least as I have heard it told.

“Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said, ‘Repent,’ willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” “Christians are to be taught that the pope’s pardons are useful, if they do not put their trust in them; but altogether harmful, if through them they lose their fear of God,” thesis 49.

The idea of never again needing repentance, or at the very least, not needing it even for a brief moment, carries with it a loss of the fear of God. Think about it: the Law says you are a sinner, but you carry with you a piece of paper—a simple piece of paper signed by a fellow sinner—stating that you are free from the need to repent. God says you have sinned and deserve to die for it, repent! And your reply is, “Whatever! The pope has freed me from the need to repent.” God, in His righteous wrath, is justly angered by sin, yet Christians in the early 1500s laughed in His face, clutching a piece of paper for which they payed a silver coin.

How did they get there? Well, to begin with, the Romish church falsely taught, and still teaches, that repentance consists of three parts: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. The Law is proclaimed, showing a Christian his sins, for which he confesses, and then is given something to do to make satisfaction for the sins confessed (and maybe a little extra for the sins not yet remembered). You probably know satisfaction as the “10 Our Fathers and 10 Hail Marys” that a Roman Catholic must recite after coming out of the confessional booth, though there may be other works attached to these recitations. These three parts met, the repentant is said to then have merited forgiveness. With the practice of indulgences, at the simplest, they replaced the third part of repentance, satisfaction, or even the fullness of repentance, as Rome taught it.

Given the Romish doctrine of repentance, and its accompanying doctrines, indulgences were a simple means out from under the weight of sin. To illustrate, imagine a man shackled to his sins—they are like a ball and chain to him. He knows they’re there; after all, every Christian was taught that they were a sinner. So, he makes confession of them. Now, still shackled to them, he must perform a good work to rid himself of them. He is expected to do good in order to make up for the good that he couldn’t do in the first place, to put it most simply, while still bearing the weight and consequences of not doing that first good—while still shackled to his sins. Consciences would be burdened with wonder: “Can I do the good I need to do?” “Can I do enough good?”

Along come indulgences which, for a few pennies, would ease the conscience of the burdened. Instead of earning forgiveness by way of works, one could now buy their way out from under the burden of sin and repentance, as Rome taught it.

Now, as Christians of the Reformation, you should be able to see the error of both ways. They squarely put the responsibility of forgiveness on the shoulders of the penitent. They make forgiveness dependent on the work of man, either in doing some good in order to make satisfaction for sin, or paying off the debt of sin by giving money to the church, which is rightly lamented by Christians of the Reformation as being error, as taught by theses 62 through 66:

• The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.
• But this treasure is naturally most odious, for it makes the first to be last.
• On the other hand, the treasure of indulgences is naturally most acceptable, for it makes the last to be first.
• Therefore the treasures of the gospel are nets with which one formerly fished for men of wealth.
• The treasures of the indulgences are nets with which one now fishes for the wealth of men.

However, the greater error of indulgences is the error of Rome’s doctrine of repentance—specifically that satisfaction must be made in order to merit forgiveness—which the selling of indulgences compounded.

“Every truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without letters of pardon. Every true Christian, whether living or dead, has part in all the blessings of Christ and the Church; and this is granted him by God, even without letters of pardon,” theses 36 and 37.

These two theses are at the heart of the Lutheran doctrine of repentance. The Lutheran Confessions teach that repentance has only two parts, contrition and faith, which you can also understand to be the Law and the Gospel. “The Law reveals sin and drives us to cling to Christ alone. The Gospel, imparted by means of Word and Sacrament, comforts and soothes consciences.” This comfort and soothing comes in the most basic Gospel statement, God’s sweetness to aching consciences: “Your sins are forgiven.” There is no need for satisfaction to be made by the penitent in order to be forgiven for all sin, for it has already been made by the sacrifice of the Only-begotten Son of God on the cross. There is no need to pay with gold or silver in order to be worthy of forgiveness, for the price of your forgiveness has been paid—the holy, precious blood of Christ and His innocent suffering and death. It is done for you, it is paid for you—those little words “for you” which figure so prominently in all of Christ’s work and Lutheran teaching of God’s grace, especially as regards the Lord’s Supper, a means by which the Gospel, that comforting and soothing Word of God, is imparted to you.

The selling of indulgences, indeed the entire doctrine of repentance as Rome taught, is contrary to this, contrary to the Word of God, and blasphemously seeks to set up a means equal to or even better than that set up by God for the forgiveness of sins, as stated in thesis 79: “To say that the cross, emblazoned with the papal arms, which is set up [by the preachers of indulgences], is of equal worth with the Cross of Christ, is blasphemy.”

“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” Jesus said. It is in that Word of God where you learn of this two-parted repentance. For the Word of God plainly states, even as Rome taught, that God is a just God, who in righteous wrath, is angered by sin. That Word of God plainly states that sin keeps you in bondage; that is to say, that by your sin, you are unable to work your way out from under it—as even Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.,” and a slave has no means to free himself. That Word of God plainly states that the Son of God took on human flesh in order to take upon Himself your sin and bear for you the full wrath of God, in order to free you from your sin. This is the Law and the Gospel—the Law which says that you are a sinner in need of a savior, and the Gospel which declares to you that Jesus, the Son of God, is your Savior who has set you free from sin. That law brings about contrition in the repentant, who by faith receives the forgiveness that Christ won. “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

Now, have things changed? Yes and no.

First, with regard to the Papish church, indulgences are no longer sold. That may be considered a good thing. The Council of Trent in the mid-1500s condemned and abolished the financial abuses tied to indulgences. Furthermore, Pope Paul in his 1967 decree Indulgentiarum Doctrina reinforced the reform from Trent. That said, indulgences can still be earned through what may be called spiritual actions—specific prayers, pilgrimages, acts of charity, etc. So, while they may have removed the easy route of buying an indulgence, there is still a transaction that must take place in order to obtain an indulgence, which is may be classified as little more than a semantic difference.

Second, Christians of the Reformation might consider themselves better than Rome for having abandoned the false teaching of repentance. Ironically, however, many still cling to it. Remember thesis 1: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said, ‘Repent,’ willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” Though justified by God’s grace, you still sin—you live your temporal lives simul justus et peccator, at the same time justified and sinner. God is still angered by sin, and that anger is still to be feared. Therefore, Jesus says, “Repent”—confess your sins in contrition, and hear again and receive by faith the wonderful, good news of sins forgiven for Christ’s sake.

Still, there exists, even among Christians of the Reformation, those who lack a proper fear of God. While you may not have letters of pardon to put your trust in, and thereby lose the fear of God, there are certainly other items in which to trust and lose a proper fear of God. In fact, some of them may be papers, such as the baptismal certificate or confirmation certificate stuffed in a sock drawer. These, like indulgences, are worthless before God, not even worth the paper or stock they are printed on. They are certainly useful if no trust is put in them, useful as reminders that you have been baptized into Christ and that you reiterated the confession of faith made at your baptism, reminders that you have been washed clean in a most blessed flood and given faith to trust this, and that you promised to remain in that faith and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it. But to hold those up before God as licenses that free you from the life of repentance that Jesus called you to hold no water and Word before the throne of God; the ball and chain are still shackled to your ankle.

For others, it is enough for them that they “belong” to a certain fellowship, that they are members of a Lutheran congregation. In their minds, they are a part of something that believes, teaches, and confesses rightly, whether or not they believe, teach, or confess the same, or even regularly and often participate in the believing, teaching, and confessing (read: worship). For them, that’s conscience comforting and soothing, for by believing that by being in with the right crowd, they believe that they are in with God. But to hold one’s membership in an organization up as a means of grace show a complete and utter lack of fear of God; the ball and chain are still shackled to your ankle.

These are but two crass examples showing a lack of fear of God. Rightly said, anything in which you trust which is other than God and His Christ for your forgiveness, life, and salvation, demonstrates a lack of fear, love, and trust in God. These are faithless, and they are sin. Indeed, they are all a trust in no one else than yourself. In fact, every sin is a demonstration of a lack of fear, love, and trust in God, as so taught by the Ten Commandments and Luther’s explanation of the same.

Therefore, abide in God’s Word. Returning to it now, we hear this Word from Christ: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15) Repent of your lack of trust in God and trust in yourself, and believe in the gospel which declares to you the grace of God for you. Thanks be to God that with the command to repent comes the grace and faith to do so, and with the command to believe in the gospel comes the grace and faith to trust in God and receive these words: you are forgiven for all of your sins—no letter of pardon necessary!

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” It’s a bit of a weird question. Just give it a moment of thought. If the law says, “Pay taxes,” then it is certainly lawful to pay taxes—being under Roman rule, the law in Judea was to pay taxes to Rome. However, this was a question designed to trap Jesus in His own words, as evidenced by the buttering-up He received: “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.” If He answered “No,” then the Herodians—supporters of Roman rule—would have been angry; Jesus would be labeled as a radical and insurrectionist (a little foretaste of what happened when Jesus was brought before Pilate). If He answered “Yes,” then He would have angered the Pharisees and the religious right of His time, certainly giving them more ammo in their attempt to thin His crowd of followers.

“Whose likeness and inscription is on the coin?” “Ceasar’s,” they answered.

“Fine then, render to Caesar those things which are his.” If you’re going to carry around in your pockets money that bears the image and name of someone else, then you have been granted permission to use someone else’s coin for your legal transactions. And when he calls for some of it to be returned—a sort of fee for your use of his tender, a tax—then you are obliged to render to him that for which he asks. This is the law. A simplified explanation, perhaps, but the illustration stands.

The same goes today. You likely have money in your wallets or purses or ways to access money emblazoned with “United States of America” and “E pluribus unum” upon it, filled with images of past presidents, other historical figures, and historically significant places in this country, and the like. Whose likeness and inscription is on this coin? The U.S.’s—therefore, render unto Washington that which is Washington’s.

And this is a fine point to be making in a Lutheran sermon. For the text surely espouses the doctrine of two kingdoms. The first part of Jesus’ response speaks to living in one of those kingdoms. All people are citizens of a state on earth or otherwise live under the rule of a kingdom on earth. With that citizenship or life under rule comes responsibility, expressed in today’s text as “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

However, this isn’t the only place where life in this kingdom is mentioned in Scripture. St. Paul wrote, echoing Jesus’ words:

And even Peter wrote,

Therefore, as Christians, you are commanded to be good citizens of the state, dutifully honoring the authorities placed over you and rendering to the state the tribute requested—the taxes owed. Resistance is futile, Paul wrote, for it only brings judgment from God upon the ones who resist.

That’s all a bit simplistic and general. Things work a little bit differently in this state and country, as evidenced by the ballots you currently have sitting at home, which include at least four measures regarding taxation or tax revenue, indicating that you, as a citizen of the state, have some sort of a say in what is “rendered to Caesar” in this day, age, and place.

However, for as much as Christians are citizens of the state, you also hold another citizenship, granted by faith for the sake of Christ Jesus who died and rose again in order that you might be called sons of God and fellow heirs with His only-begotten Son. And so, Jesus continued in His answer to the Pharisee’s disciples and Herodians, “And [render] to God the things that are God’s.”

Now, many a sermon has gone in the direction of stewardship with this passage. It’s a good direction to go in with this text, as the broad context of today’s Gospel lends itself to a sermon on stewardship. After all, Jesus was asked a question about money, albeit underhandedly, and He followed up His answer with “give to God that which belongs to God.” As the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer teach, all that you have, every material possession that you call your own, your eyes, ears, and members, every sense and talent, logic, wisdom and intelligence, even this citizenship of the state, is a gift from God. These are His things that you claim as your own and use as your own. So, when Jesus says, “Render to God the things which are God’s,” especially in a passage about money, it stands to reason that a sermon about stewardship would follow.

And I could go on and on about how by God’s grace, you can give generously to the church. I could go on and on in an attempt to encourage you to be the cheerful giver that Paul speaks of. (cf. 2 Corinthians 9:7) I could speak at length about goals and desires that have been expressed at this congregation, all of which involve some amount of money. But, stewardship is not specifically about giving to the budget or a project, but about giving from a cheerful conscience, not grudgingly or out of necessity, but in order to help support the furtherance of the proclamation of the Gospel, by word and deed, as has been purposed in the hearts of the givers, as St. Paul wrote. (cf. 2 Corinthians 9:7) Truth be told, all that happens here, day after day, can only continue as you return a portion of that which God has delighted to give you, both from your paycheck and the various other gifts you have been given.

So, I could do all of that stewardship preaching, but truth be told, I don’t think I’m very good at it, nor am I comfortable doing it. Fortunately for you and me, the text has another context which permits me not to preach on stewardship, for when Jesus spoke the words, “[Render] to God the things that are God’s,” He did so after saying the same of Caesar holding a coin that bore his name and likeness. It did not bear the name and likeness of God. And despite a reference to an unspecified god, the legal tender in the United States of America does not bear the name and likeness of God. Therefore, dollars and coins, while certainly gifts from God, from His hand, and rightly called His, are not necessarily the things of God that the text speaks of.

So, it must be asked, what are the things of God? Which are those things which bear the name and likeness of God? For the answer, look to the font, as the Scriptures point. For there, in a most blessed flood, water was applied to you, dear Baptized, with the Word. Which is that Word of God? Christ the Lord says in the last chapter of Matthew, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” (Matthew 28:19) This is no unspecified god whose name was given to and put on you, but God’s name, YHWH, the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There, at the font, you were marked with the sign of the cross upon forehead and heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified; or, as St. Paul wrote, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Galatians 3:27) Therefore, if you have put on Christ in the waters of Holy Baptism, then you bear the image of the only, true, living God, for He is the image of the invisible God, as St. Paul declared, (cf. Colossians 1:15), and you carry in your person His name—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Yes, dear Baptized, you are the things of God, for you bear the name and image of God. And the Scriptures are replete with passages that declare this truth to you. The Apostle St. John gave this beautiful picture of eternity:

Though you cannot now read it, you bear on your brows the name of your Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. And, having received the sign of the cross in those blessed waters, you also bear His image, as it is also written:

“For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Corinthians 6:20 NKJV) Bearing the name and image of God, dear Baptized, you are the things of God, therefore, “[Render] to God the things that are God’s” by glorifying God in your body and spirit, and, as St. Paul wrote elsewhere, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1)

Furthermore, “[Render] to God the things that are God’s” by going to Him in confession. As has been mentioned many times from this pulpit, your confession is God-given. And, this, both same-saying God in what He says of Himself—for no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:3)—and in what He says about you—that you are a poor, miserable sinner in need of a Savior.

And here’s the interesting about confessing your sins: in doing so, you are rendering to God the things that are God’s. For, when you confess your sins and plead for forgiveness for the sake of Christ, you confess that your sins do not belong to you but to Him, who has taken them from you and died with them so that you would not have to. He has risen from the dead, but those sins are removed from you as far as the east is from the west—every sin you have committed, are committing, or will commit is not yours, but His, and His death was and is the atonement for them all!

All of this because you are the things of God. You bear in your person the name and image of God. You are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and in your Baptism, you have put on Christ, the very image of the invisible God. This is God’s gift and grace to you, and it brings with it this thing of God: you are forgiven for all of your sins.

When one hears this parable, the natural inclination is to look at what the all of the people are doing. These people are invited to a feast. When it came time for the feast, they are fetched by a servant, but each of them gives excuses and declines showing up. Additionally, they take those who came to fetch them and treated them spitefully and killed them. Of course, this would incense the one who invited them, and in the parable, he destroyed the invitees and burned up their cities.

Then, there are other people brought to the feast, and again, the attention is on them. The hall is filled with guests, but one of them isn’t wearing the proper wedding garments. It was traditional in the time of Jesus that when you invited someone to a wedding feast, you provided them the appropriate attire. When he’s approached about it, he hasn’t an answer. So, he is bound hand and foot and thrown into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now, you might recognize the history of Israel in the first group. They were the chosen nation, God’s people—least among the nations, a nation of slaves, in fact. But God chose them to be the nation by which He would redeem and save the world. Led out of slavery in Egypt by the hand of God, and how did they repay Him? Disobedience, unfaithfulness, complaining and quarreling—the typical stuff of fallen human nature.

What’s a God to do? Well, first He warned His invitees by the prophets, inviting them back to the feast which was prepared for them, but warning them that if they didn’t repent, the consequences would be harsh. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37) That was Jesus mourning over Jerusalem and all of Judah for her faithlessness. Well, they did kill the prophets, just as the people killed the servants in the parable, and God did burn their cities, first sending the Assyrians to destroy the Northern Kingdom then the Babylonians to bring the Southern Kingdom into exile. But a remnant remained.

This is similar to the parable you heard last week, of the wicked tenants. The nation of Israel is represented by the tenants. Like the invitees in today’s parable, they treat the servant prophets spitefully. So, the owner reckons that they would respect his son, but they kill him supposing that this will gain them the inheritance. It all sounds so foolish today, a foolishness in which you participate in one way or another, as mentioned last week.

Consider these parables with this in mind, though: After nearly 70 years in captivity in Babylon, the remnant returned to Jerusalem and Judea. They rebuilt their country and homes and the temple. About 400 years passed, 400 years of veritable silence from God and His prophets; but after those 400 years, “[W]hen 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.” (Galatians 4:4-5) The descendants of that remnant treated the Son spitefully and killed Him. Why? He was a threat to their religious status quo, developed over those 400 years; it was a system by which they assumed that they would gain heaven: following the Law, even and including man-made ordinances superimposed on the Law of God. Jesus turned their religion upside down, and for that, He was better off dead, in their estimation—out of their way to the inheritance.

But, His death ushered in a new era. It is a time of peace with God by way of the blood of the Lamb. This peace with God, however, was not just for His chosen people, but for all nations. The original intent behind God choosing a nation—choosing the nation that He did—was that One would come out of it who would be Savior of the world: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2) So, the hall is now filled with guests, both good and bad—both Jew and Gentile.

This wedding feast is that between the Lamb and His Bride, the Church. This is one of my favorite images from the Passion of the Christ. On the cross, as Jesus hung dying, He left Father and mother and was joined to His Bride. He joined His bride by assuming Her members’ filthiness, spots, blemishes, and sins into His own flesh and dying with them, presenting Her to Himself without all of that, as St. Paul wrote. (cf. Ephesians 5:25-27) All who are at this wedding feast, then, are robed in Christ’s righteousness—or, they should be.

You see, while the feast is ongoing in eternity, there is but only a foretaste happening here. Prophets today—those called ministers of the Word, the stewards of the mysteries of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:1)—can only operate as a steward of the mysteries based on what is confessed that those present at this foretaste of the feast are arrayed in the robes of Christ’s righteousness. He may know the people well, know their life stories, he may even have baptized those people, or they may be first timers in the congregation, it doesn’t matter; all he can go by is the confession they make before they are admitted to the Lord’s Table. Only God knows, there may be one who has refused the wedding garments—those robes of Christ’s righteousness—and are taking the Sacrament to their harm and, ultimately and unrepentantly, to their damnation.

How does this look? Well, there are several iterations.

• There are those who claim a right to a place at the foretaste at a place because they bear the name Christian. Their confession may differ than the confession made at that particular altar, and their understanding of what the Sacrament is (and isn’t) and who should or shouldn’t take it may be lacking or simply denied for the sake of convenience.
• There are those who claim a right to a place at the foretaste in a place like this because they bear the name Lutheran. They attend a church which claims the name Lutheran, have been life-long members there, even confess to have read the writings of the good doctor and love him, but their confession differs as before from the confession made at this altar. It would be someone who belongs to a congregation of a different Lutheran body, for instance, but still demands a place at this table.
• There are those who claim a right to a place at the foretaste in a place like this for the reason that they have been a life-long member of that congregation. Pastor so-and-so, who founded the congregation, baptized them, they have served on this board and that, they have donated one object or the next to the congregation (and their name can be found all over the place as a result), they have given to one endowment or another at the congregation (basically bankrolling the place), and they work to keep the place neat and tidy, and for any one of these things (or for all of them), they believe they deserve a place at the table of the Lord.

And there are many others, not the same, but similar. They are all similar in the fact that their claim to a place at the foretaste is based solely on what they have done or who they have made themselves out to be. And you know what? It can be stated as simply as, “I take communion at Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church because I am a member at Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church.” Where is the talk of worthiness, and where that comes from? Where is the talk of Christ and His robe of righteousness? Oh, it may be assumed, but as a dear professor used to like to say, “The Gospel assumed is the Gospel denied.”

But God does know. He knows the heart of all of those who are of the Bride of Christ or claim to be. He can see whether or not they wear the wedding garments.

So, if you claim a right to the place and the benefits given out in the name of Jesus Christ solely on your merits, then repent. The words you use in your confession of faith may be the right ones, but in your heart, you don’t really believe them. Dear hearers, that’s all of you. There is not one here who does not in some way, no matter how small, trust in their works or merits. Repent, believe the Gospel, and bear fruit in keeping with repentance!

For the truth of the eternal wedding feast and life everlasting is that you have it all by grace. Your place at the Lord’s Table at the foretaste is also yours by grace. Your wedding garments—the robes of Christ’s righteousness—are given to you by grace, placed on you by the single act of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And God is also merciful. Like I said, each one here has moments when you think yourselves worthy of God and salvation by your own merits. But, God is merciful to overlook and forgive your transgressions. I say overlook to mean that when God now looks at you who are in Christ Jesus, He sees His Son, for whose sake your sins are covered—He sees a saint where a sinner stands!

And that brings me to the point of all of this. I said earlier that when one hears today’s parable, the natural inclination is to look at what the people are doing. It’s not that what they are doing isn’t important. But looking at what they are doing, as natural as it is for fallen man, ignores what it is that the master has done.

• He invited people to the wedding feast.
• He sent out servants to bring in those who were invited.
• He showed wrath to those who refused him and rejected his invitation.
• He sent out servants to gather others to fill his hall, both good and bad.
• He provided garments to everyone attending the wedding feast.
• He has one who refuses his gift of garments tossed into outer darkness.

Now, aside from the displays of wrath—which is righteous indignation against those who refuse the graciousness of God—everything that the people have is from the gracious hand of the master. The kingdom of heaven is compared to this, so the fact that the people have what they do in the parable demonstrates the love and compassion of your gracious heavenly Father.

Otherwise, whenever the people are doing anything, to be understood as doing something apart from what God is having them do or with something other than what He has given them, it leads to grave consequences. These works are refusal and rejection, even if they think they are doing something good or beneficial. The consequence is being consumed by God’s wrath—being tossed into outer darkness. People have what they need—especially that one thing needful—only by way of God’s grace for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, it bears repeating that the truth of the eternal wedding feast and life everlasting is that you have it all by grace. Your place at the Lord’s Table at the foretaste is also yours by grace. Your wedding garments—the robes of Christ’s righteousness—are given to you by grace, placed on you by the single act of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For God loved His creation so that He sent His only-begotten Son into the flesh, Jesus Christ, and all who by grace believe in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life. Look at the one doing all the verbs: God loves, God sends, God gives faith, and God gives everlasting life. And because He does all of this, and you have received faith to believe and trust in Him, then for the sake of Christ Jesus your Lord and Savior, you are forgiven for all of your sins.

Those hired vinedressers, the tenants, were foolish and blind. Anyone reading or hearing the parable could tell that. Even the chief priests and elders of the people knew it.

In the parable, a landowner planted a vineyard, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. He leased it to the vinedressers then went off into another country. The lease isn’t too difficult to understand—the rules are easy to figure out here. It’s the owner’s vineyard, winepress, and tower. The tenants are hired. They were to tend to the property, care for the vineyard, harvest the grapes, and give the owner what is his. In return, they got to live on the land and keep some of the harvest.

But that’s not the way it goes in Jesus’ parable.

The hired vinedressers refused to honor the terms of the lease. In fact, they were so brazen as to kill the servants that the owner sent to collect what was his—twice! It is clear that they wanted the land and all that belonged to the owner, and they were willing to kill for it. The owner still needed to collect, and he was willing to let the tenants remain in their lease, so he sent his son. “They will respect my son,” he said.

Foolishly, they killed him, too. “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.”

It’s the kind of parable that makes you shake your head in disbelief. The owner is gracious and merciful in allowing the tenants to remain in the lease, even after killing his servants, sending his son only to get what is his according to the terms of the lease. The tenants could have had what they wanted (well, a lot of it, anyway), but they kill the son, instead. How foolish and blind they are!

“When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

“He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

It seems unconscionable that people would be foolish enough to kill a son and expect to keep the owner’s property. In no time and at no place does that logic ever play out; therefore, no one should be foolish enough to hold to it.

But that is exactly what happened.

“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.” (Matthew 21:45)

They were the same people—of the same people—that God had placed into His promised land, often referred to in the Old Testament as His vineyard. To them, God sent prophet after prophet. These prophets proclaimed to them the Word of God. They came to demand the fruits of God’s vineyard—repentance, faith, trust in His promises—reminding them of their sin, and pointing them to the promise of redemption in the Seed of the woman. Hear that again, dear people—the prophets pointed God’s people to the promised Son of God that He would send to them!

Time and again, the people rejected the prophets’ words, beating them, stoning them, and killing them. God would send some prophets, they would be rejected, and God would send more, and they would be rejected. Graciously and mercifully, God was patient with His people, sending prophets to call them to repentance and reminding them of the promised redemption in His Son, hoping, you could say, that they would turn from their wicked ways and return to Him. (cf. 2 Chronicles 7:14; Hosea 6:1ff)

But the warning was ever present:

God kept His promise. “I will send my Son to them; they will respect my Son.” “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5) In a stable outside of Bethlehem, the virgin Mary gave birth to a Son whom they would call Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. True to form, seeing Him as the heir, as it were, they did not respect Him.

It was a short four days after telling this parable that Jesus would be captured by the temple guards. A day after that, the chief priests and elders of the people would be sneering at Him as He hung dying on the cross. They took Him, cast Him out of the vineyard, and killed Him—Jesus was bound by the chief priests and elders of the people, led outside of Jerusalem, and crucified on a hill called Skull. “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.”

And it’s a good thing they did, too. Jesus came, not merely as another prophet, but as the Son of God and Son of Man, to give His life as a ransom for many. And so, He willingly went to Skull to shed His blood as a propitiation for the sins of the world—for the people of Israel who heard the prophets and those who killed them, for the chief priests and elders of the people who rejected the Chief Cornerstone, for those who now do not confess Him, and for you, dear Baptized, who confess and trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Jesus came as the Son—as a servant—not to punish, but to receive the punishment for the sins of the world and to save.

And the ironic thing in all of this is that in His death, Jesus gives you the inheritance. Jesus came “to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” In His death in your place and your baptism into His death and resurrection, Jesus gives you the adoption as sons, making you coheirs with Him of the glory that is His, now ascended to the right hand of Majesty. You are baptized, and so you have been placed in God’s vineyard, the hedge built around it and you, and He your tower to watch over you and protect you. “This is the LORD’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

However, this parable demonstrates the blindness and foolishness of sin. It led the Pharisees, chief priests, and elders of the people to believe that God would approve of their rejection of the Son and let them keep the inheritance. Never mind their rejection of the terms of the lease—their rejection of the rules.

As I said before, such an attitude seems unconscionable. It’s irrational, blind, and foolish. And the same irrational, blind foolishness infects you as well. You are also tempted to deny and reject the rules or the Son. And it must be said that if you reject one, it will lead to the rejection of both.

For instance, you claim to be a Christian, but reject the Law of God. Dear hearers, this is more than merely sinning—having transgressed and rejected the Law of God like you normally do—then repenting of it and receiving forgiveness. No, I am speaking of an outright rejection of the Law of God. It manifests itself in you in the form of pet sins that are just too attractive to you or too precious, not the kind of pet sin that you “simply” struggle with, but the kind that you do not want to let go of. It manifests itself in a congregation or church body in their struggle to “fit in” in society, and so they end up embracing or overlooking a sin or sins in an effort to attract more people to their services and programs—so they refuse to call a sin a sin.

The inevitable conclusion of rejecting the Law of God is to reject the Gospel. After all, if the Law proclaims to you your sinfulness, and the Law is not proclaimed to you, then you will recognize no need for forgiveness. If you are not told of your sins, you will see no need for a Savior. If you can be Christian and cling to your pet sin, then what’s to say that you need to kill and repent of any sin in you? You come to the conclusion that you are doing pretty good, so you don’t need the Son, you have no need of Jesus and the salvation He freely gives. Likewise, those congregations and churches which overlook a particularly popular sin; if they do not condemn this sin for the sin that it is, as the Word of God directs, what’s to say that they wouldn’t then not condemn any sin? The conclusion is made by the people in those churches that they are doing pretty good, so they don’t need the Son, and they have no need of the Jesus who died to give them salvation—they want a Jesus who pats them on the back.

In both cases, Jesus and His forgiveness is rejected. Yet somehow, the “Christian” with the pet sin or sins believes that they please God with their efforts. Somehow, the church which refuses to condemn sin still claims an inheritance with Jesus. However, if Jesus is rejected, then there is no salvation and no inheritance. These, as Jesus says in the parable, will have the kingdom taken away from them and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. The threat to them is not so much in their rejection of the Law of God, but that the rejection of the Law leads to the rejection of Jesus, the Son and His death on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.

Sometimes, however, it’s the rejection of the Son which comes first. The rules are fine, but this Jesus fellow isn’t necessary. However, if you are going to reject the Son out-of-hand, then you reject the Scriptures which declare who He is and why He came. You call them false. And if you call them false, then you also end up rejecting the Law of God which the Scriptures also proclaim.

In both cases—rejecting the Law or the Gospel—you end up being lost in your sins, and you condemn yourself.

Still, the Law of God is proclaimed in all of its harshness. You have sinned—transgressed the commandments of God—and for it, you deserve to die. Consequently, you reject and kill those whom God sends to you to call you to repentance, especially if it hits a little too close to home—if you’ve perceived that I am speaking about you.

And the Gospel is proclaimed in all of its sweetness. At just the right time, God sent His Son born of a woman, born under the same Law that you find yourselves under, despite rejecting it, that He would take your sins into His flesh and die for them in your place on the cross. Jesus has come, Jesus has died, and Jesus has risen again. You are baptized into His death and resurrection—you are placed into the vineyard—you have been given the kingdom of God. Now, ascended to the right hand of Majesty, He intercedes on your behalf and continues to send spokesmen to you to declare to you the graveness of your sin, and proclaim to you the full pardon that is yours in the blood of Jesus. By His death, you are made right with God—He has taken your sin from you—you are forgiven for all of your sins.

Jesus said,

How dear to God are these little ones! Jesus says that their angels always see the Face of His Father. There are angels assigned to His little ones, and they are always before the throne of God. These angels, messengers of God, are much more than part of God’s creation that merely gaze upon the Face of the Father. St. John wrote that under the leadership of Michael the archangel, the angels of God cast the dragon and those angels who followed him from the Face of God. The dragon is the devil and Satan, that serpent of old. (cf. Revelation 12:7-9) The prophet Daniel also wrote of Michael, the great prince who watches over the sons of the children of Israel, who on the last day will come at the time of great conflict, but that the people of God would be delivered through it. (cf. Daniel 12:1-2) It is these warrior-messengers of God that keep watch over the little ones, and they are always before the Face of the Father.

It all begs the question; who are “these little ones?” Well, you’d certainly be right in calling them children, but “these little ones” are more than children.

Today’s text starts with the disciples arguing about who among them is the greatest, and the example of divine humility that Jesus gives is to stoop down to receive a little child—a little, innocent child. So, it is often said of children that they have guardian angels because of their so-called innocence, which is properly understood as naiveté, blissful ignorance, and utter dependence on others for their livelihood. It is said that their guardian angels are often very busy keeping their little ones safe due to the constant danger they put themselves in and often come out of seemingly unscathed. Because of this “innocence,” it could be said that children need some sort of guardian angel.

However, like I said, “these little ones” means something more than children—more, even, than believing children—they are the ones, young and old, who have been given faith in YHWH and trust in the Son, Jesus Christ, for their salvation. Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Those who are to enter the kingdom of heaven—that is, those who have been given faith—are described to be as little children. It is that same innocence mentioned before that Jesus is referring to. You who believe and trust in Jesus Christ have been turned, or converted. This is the work of the Holy Spirit when and when He pleases to convert people, as is confessed in the Augsburg Confession (cf. ACV), and having been converted, you become like little children—naive, blissfully ignorant, and utterly dependent on another for your livelihood. Like a little child, a Christian is completely givable to, and without this grace from God, a person would be utterly lost, in this life and for the next.

Therefore, dear Baptized, you have an angel who always sees the face of the Father in heaven. This should be of great comfort to you. Your Father in heaven, in Jesus Christ, has assigned a warrior-messengers to you. And this angel assigned to you is always before the face of the Father who is Jesus Christ, whom the Scriptures describe as the glory of the Father. (cf. John 1:14) It would not be out of line to imagine that your angel is before the face of God in your stead, and certainly for you, holding the place that is yours in glory, as they are there now continually beholding Him as their glory and worshiping Him in eternity.

“For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” (Psalm 91:11 KJV) The first verse of today’s Gradual would suggest that in addition to being ever before the face of God that your guardian angel keeps you in all your ways, that they are always keeping watch over you. How these warrior-messengers are always before the face of the Father and watching over you is a divine mystery, but here they are, keeping a guarding eye on you while seeing the face of the Father in heaven.

As that little, humble child, you are completely givable to, as well. God gives to you to supply all of your needs. He sends the sun and the rain upon you. He sends messengers who are men to proclaim to you the Word of God—Law to kill you and Gospel to raise you to newness of life. And “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents,” for, you could say, they see their charges receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for their sins and given forgiveness, life, and salvation.

As stated, the disciples were arguing to begin today’s lesson was over who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The idea of being great causes swollen heads and broad shoulders which prevent entrance through narrow gate of Jesus Christ into eternity. (cf. Matthew 7:13-14) This hubristic idea of greatness is sin. Therefore, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

“[W]hoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea,” Jesus said. So, what would cause one of these little ones to sin? What would cause a person to have an inflated ego and the desire for greatness? If it is a hand or a foot or an eye, it would be better that one enter into eternity without this member. (cf. Matthew 5:29-30) But it isn’t a hand or a foot or an eye that causes sin. How about a teacher or leader or someone that is looked up to? Certainly these could lead one into sin; persuasive false teaching, erroneous charisma, ego-stroking sayings—any of these uttered by someone in a position of authority do and have led many a person into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Many would be better off if these false teachers had a millstone hung around their necks and were tossed into the sea, but these teachers do not cause sin. What causes sin? Jesus answered,

It is from your heart that evil comes. It is from within. It is your old, evil nature that causes you to sin. From there comes ideas of greatness and the jockeying for position that creates big heads and broad shoulders.

The heart is a vile organ, you could say. The prophet Jeremiah certainly does: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Not a hand, nor foot, nor eye, nor false teacher will cause you to sin. “The devil made me do it” is a faulty assertion. You sin by your fault, by your own fault, by your own most grievous fault. Any idea of greatness that you may have of yourself, that you are good and right and powerful, is your sin, and it comes from within you.

These ideas of greatness always lead to the idea that you can make it on your own. Parents can attest to seeing it in their children, who develop the idea that they are able to do that thing which you know they cannot do without your assistance or that you must do for them. Yet, they are insistent that they have to do it on their own. Sure, they are learning independence, but they are also exploring their greatness; “If I can do this without mommy or daddy, then I don’t need them. I am great enough on my own.” Sin does the same with you before your Father in heaven. It teaches you that you don’t need your guardian angel. It teaches you, even more treacherously, that you don’t need the Savior, Jesus Christ, because you are great enough to save yourself.

But there is only one way to greatness. And that is to be totally given to by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, as a little child must be given to. It is to be humbled to realize that you are totally incapable of saving yourself and to see your need for a Savior. Thanks be to God that Jesus is always there, that your angel is always before Him, and that He is your Savior to forgive you.

This is a daily struggle that is met with daily grace and mercy. Daily, you sin much, reaching for that unreachable greatness, testing and crossing boundaries, doing the things the Word of God commands you not to do. Daily, that same Word works in you by way of the Holy Spirit to bring you to repentance—such grace from the One who has given the Law. Daily, your Father in heaven is merciful, for the Father has claimed you as a dear son in the waters of Holy Baptism, at which He has lavished on you everything that the Son has won for you by His bloody sacrifice on the cross—chiefly the forgiveness of your sins, life, and salvation. Then, as if to nail the point home, you are gathered here week after week to hear the same thing from me, to hear the voice of God in His called and ordained servant tell you that you are forgiven! Sent forth from here by God’s blessing, you face the daily struggle again for another week.

It’s no wonder then, that everyone who believes in the Father and trusts in His Son is given a guardian angel, because they daily need God’s help and providence. So, by God’s grace, Luther has provided daily prayers asking for just that, and for the help of His holy angels. At night, you can pray:

And, in the morning when you get up:

In both prayers, you commend yourself into the Father’s gracious keeping, humbly acknowledging that you are lost apart from His grace. Both times, you ask for His holy angel to be with you, to guard you against the wicked Foe, just as that warrior Michael cast him out of the presence of the Father. And God grants it because you are His dear little one.

How dear? For you, the Son took on human flesh, descending a little lower than the angels (cf. Psalm 8:5, Hebrews 2:9) and shed His blood on the cross for your forgiveness. For you He died and rose again that you would be turned to Him by His grace and forgiven for your sins. For you, He sends an angel to guard you and keep you in all your ways, and who always sees your heavenly Father’s face. You are His dear little one, saved by grace through faith, given to in Jesus Christ, your Savior, forgiven for all of your sins, made to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, you laud and magnify His glorious name here on earth as you look forward to doing so with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in eternity, evermore praising Him and singing that song that they sing: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8)

For now, you rejoice that you are His dear little one for whom He has assigned an angel who stands before His face. He sees your need and graciously supplies for your need. For now, you sing the songs with the angels while still on earth, as you are daily prepared to be with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. This is yours for the sake of Jesus Christ, because you are forgiven for all of your sins.

At the end of Matthew 19, Jesus said to His disciples,

Then, chapter 20, today’s text, starts.

Preaching on today’s Gospel, Luther wrote,

What Luther is getting at is precisely what I hope to get across in the sermon today.

After all, many can and do debate about the different hours. As Luther put it, some say that the hours represent different ages in the history of mankind. Some might say that they are meant to show the different stages in the life of a man when he might come to faith, either in the first hour, such as from birth, to the eleventh hour, such as on his deathbed. And I’m sure there are other possible explanations as to what the hours might mean.

These explanations all work to one extent or another, to one degree or another, and they are all worthy and necessary discussion which help to flesh out the meaning of this text. But to focus on the different hours solely misses the point that Jesus is making by introducing you to workers who are hired at different hours of the day—and more importantly, by introducing you to the master of the vineyard.

The workers are hired to work in the master’s vineyard. The master has expectations of them—they are to work the vineyard, be that tending to the vines, picking the grapes, making the wine, or any number of other tasks that may need to be done in a vineyard. The master has agreed with them for a day’s wage. When the master goes out to hire more workers, the agreement is the same, though not explicitly stated in the parable. He will pay them whatever is right.

This, Jesus says, is what the kingdom of heaven is like. Therefore, you, dear hearers, have been hired by the Master to work in His vineyard—you are baptized and made a part of the Kingdom of God, and you have a place in the Church Militant. Each of you, according to the gifts you have been given, have been given tasks in this vineyard, be it tending to the vines, picking the grapes, making the wine, or what have you—however these tasks may translate to your given vocations. You likely know your gifts; you certainly know your vocations—and in both cases, you definitely have issues and problems and disagreements and general malcontent.

When the end of the day comes, the master pays his workers. Each of them receives a day’s wage, no matter when they were hired.

Likewise, when it comes to the end of this age, you will each received your wage, no matter what age of mankind you were in when you came to faith or what stage in your earthly life you came to faith. You are one whom the Master has chosen—you are His elect—and your wage is salvation procured for you by His Son on the cross. If the wages of sin is death (cf. Romans 6:23), then the wages of forgiveness of sins is eternal life; this is what the Master deigns to give you as one that He has forgiven for all of your sins. As Jesus said, all who for His name’s sake leave everything—that is, those who are called by His name—“will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”

That is what your election is. When you were hired by the Master—when you were claimed by Him in the waters of Holy Baptism—you were forgiven for your sins, and you continue to be so. The agreed upon wage there at the font was eternal life and salvation. You are paid what is right—what is righteous or your righteousness: the blood of Jesus shed for you as the propitiation of your sins and the seal of eternal life.

Here’s the kicker, though: the wage is the same for first-hour Christians as it is for eleventh-hour Christians. The duration of work, amount of work, difficulty of work make no impact on this wage. Why? Because you didn’t earn it. Jesus did! Jesus earned the wage of life and salvation by His own righteousness, which He gives to you as your righteousness and forgiveness of sins. The trick is to move away from the thinking that those who work more or more arduously somehow have earned more life and salvation—a preposterous idea, if you really give it any thought, and it’s an idea contrary to the Word of God. The work God gives you to do does not earn you an increase of His favor, as regards forgiveness, life, and salvation. These He gives you freely as His elect—His chosen workers.

Now, I could go into the degrees of glory, which do relate to duration, difficulty, or amount of work. I could speak about how to the one whom much is given, much is expected, as in the parable of the talents (cf. Matthew 25:14-30), or how the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, how the one who sows bountifully will reap bountifully, as St. Paul wrote. (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:6) It was Dr. Francis Pieper who wrote,

As an image of this bliss without degrees, I have seen it said that when the apostle Paul entered eternity, he did so to the cheers of those he martyred, even though, as he wrote, he called himself the chief of sinners. (1 Timothy 1:15) I like to joke that he and John the Baptist, whom Jesus called lower than least in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 11:11), have to duke it out for the lowest seat at the heavenly banquet, a topic which suggests the degrees of glory. Such discussions, however, are really quite immaterial to the text at hand. The text at hand deals with the wage given to the workers, which relates to eternal life, the one and only degree of bliss.

For today’s text, with regard to the degrees of work and degrees of glory, it is enough to say that there is work to be done, and God has entrusted you with that work. He has agreed—indeed, already granted to you—the wages of life and salvation; guaranteed them to you for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, who by His perfectly obedient life, by His death and resurrection, even by His ascension and continued intercession for you, has earned for you these things, because for His sake, you are forgiven for all of your sins. This is the goodness of God the Master that is to be esteemed higher than all human works and merit, the mercy of God that alone must have all the praise!

“If I live, I win; if I die, I win.” Those were words oft repeated by LaDonna, and ones that have been on repeat in my head for the last several weeks.

Dear friends and family of LaDonna, Dave and Ros, Michael, Sonja, and Rebecca, LaDonna has won!

Her words echo what you heard from the pen of St. Paul moments ago. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul was being heroic, I guess you could say, given the task before him. He would have preferred to die and gain eternal life, for in Christ, death is but the doorway to eternal life: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” However, remaining “in the flesh,” as he put it, would mean fruitful labor, which was more necessary on account of the Philippians (and pretty much the rest of the new Christian world). As he wrote, “Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”

LaDonna’s words may seem a little more selfish. She wasn’t looking at life and death through the lense of either resuming fruitful labor for the sake of the Kingdom, per se, or being with Christ. Her words were said in the midst of a battle with cancer, to be free of that while continuing to live in this Vale of Tears, or to be free of that in the eternal arms of her Savior. Either way, she would win! However, don’t mistake these two people’s circumstances for different sentiments, for the same confession of faith undergirds both statements.

Which is better? To go on living as a disciple of Christ on this earth (and all that entails) or to be forever with the Lord? As suits the will of God, to live is Christ and to die is gain. It’s a win-win scenario! That is what both Paul and LaDonna confessed in their own words.

To hear words like that helps me to know that I’ve done a good job. Now, I don’t want to take all of the credit because I’m not the only pastor that LaDonna has known; I’m not the only teacher of the faith that she has learned from. Nevertheless, to hear words like that always bring to mind something I was told at seminary. It wasn’t said in a classroom setting or even by one of the professors. Before one of our chorus tour services, during the devotion, the chorus director told those of us preparing for the ministry, “Your job as pastor is to teach your people how to die well. If you do that, you will have taught your people how to live well.”

Dear friends and family of LaDonna, she has died well. I don’t mean to diminish or even ignore her suffering and pain, or even any fear in the process of dying, but that she died in the faith, she died well. In the General Prayer every Sunday, it is prayed that God would “preserve us…from an evil death.” In this Valley of Sorrow, one may suppose that suffering in death is evil, that dying because of a horrible illness is evil. These things, suffering and illness and even death, are a result of evil, but it is not what this petition is referring to. An evil death is one that is died without faith in Jesus and trust in His promises. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, death is now the doorway to life eternal, and those who die believing this die well; by the grace of God, they have been preserved from an evil death.

They die well—LaDonna has died well—because of faith in this promise: Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26) Though LaDonna has died, because she has died well, yet shall she live. Because she lived and believed in Jesus, she shall never die that evil death, which is eternal separation from God in the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (cf. Matthew 25:41)

So, LaDonna won, just as countless others who have gone before with the sign of faith. You might even say that she ran her race. She ran as one who had been given faith in Christ so as to obtain the prize, an imperishable prize, as St. Paul wrote elsewhere. (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:24-25) She ran with perseverance, looking to Jesus who bought and sanctified her in His blood. (cf. Hebrews 12:1-2) By grace through faith, she ran in the joyful hope of the promise of Christ: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Revelation 2:10) And so it is also written, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” (Revelation 2:11) “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38) “[I]n all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

Dear friends, it’s all about Jesus. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, LaDonna was born again in the waters of Holy Baptism and lived a life of faith and perseverance. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, LaDonna died in the assurance of the forgiveness of all of her sins and in the hope of the resurrection of all flesh, and hers specifically to eternal life. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, LaDonna now rests from all her labors with the crown of life. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, LaDonna is more than a conqueror. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, she won!

Dear hearers, these promises are for you, as well. I pray that you have learned and are learning to die well, like our dear friend and sister. The Son of God has taken on your flesh and blood, removed your sin from you, and died with it on the cross. There He shed His blood for your propitiation, making payment for your sin and washing you clean. On the third day, He rose again, defeating death. He is now ascended and seated at the right hand of Majesty. “I am the resurrection and the life,” He says. “Do you believe this?” By faith, may your answer be like LaDonna’s.

“If I live, I win; if I die, I win.”

Peter asked a valid question. That is to say, at face value, it’s a valid question. I mean, he essentially asked, “How often shall I forgive my brother?” But, as Old Adam always does to things like this, the question had to be made personal. “How often shall my brother sin against me?”

Now, you might imagine what Peter was really asking. “Is there a point when I can stop forgiving my brother? I mean, he just keeps on sinning against me! Sometimes, I’ve forgiven him for a sin against me, and he turns right around and does it again! How man times do I need to forgive my brother?”

Jesus’ answer should be obvious: your brother will sin against you often, and you should forgive him for it every time.

In order to drive the point home, Jesus told a parable. He compared the kingdom of heaven to an earthly kingdom. The king, then, is representative of the Lord of all—God. The king wanted to settle accounts with his servants—read as the people who live in his kingdom. In this kingdom, then, the servants are representative of you, dear baptized.

One servant was singled out. He wasn’t singled out for any particular reason. He owed ten thousand talents, but there’s no indication that this is anything significantly more or less than the next guy. No, understand Jesus’ introduction of this servant as nothing more than saying, “Take this servant, for instance…”

Ten thousand talents is no insignificant amount. A talent is a unit of weight. It has the equivalent of anywhere between 30 to 75 pounds, depending on who is doing the archaeology or weighing, I suppose. So, 30 to 75 pounds multiplied by 10,000 results in between 150 to 375 tons of some precious, monetary metal. You’re looking at multiple millions or trillions of dollars by today’s standards. Ten thousand talents is absurdly large! Needless to say, an insurmountable amount for any one man to repay, and that’s the point Jesus was making in His parable—the actual amount is not important, how the servant accrued it isn’t important, but that it is much, much more than the servant—than any servant—can repay is the important part.

The king demanded payment, but the servant was unable to pay, obviously. The servant was essentially in slavery, and the king was going to make that official. Understand, dear hearers, that the servant was practically losing his life over this—the king was essentially demanding the servant’s life.

The servant, however, asked for mercy and patience. Though he asked for time in paying the king what is owed, he had to have known that it was impossible. The king certainly knew as he was moved with compassion, released the servant, and forgave him the debt.

Dear baptized, that servant could be any one of you, and, in fact, is every one of you. What you owe God is unimaginable and unfathomable. No figure can rightly demonstrate your debt of sin to God. And, in fact, the Scriptures would never outright tell you exactly how much sin you’ve carried around in your flesh, as if it could be quantified. The Confessions even imply that the full weight of your sin is hidden from you, otherwise such knowledge would utterly destroy you. You may get the idea that such an absurd number like ten thousand talents maybe isn’t so absurd after all.

Dear hearer, do not dwell on the number, though. The Law of God simply shows you that you are a sinner and declares to you that it is more than you can handle. You may crawl on your hands and knees before the altar here and plead for mercy and patience, but you would never in countless lifetimes be able to make up for what you have done—the price is too great, and for it all, you deserve to die!

But, the Father is moved with compassion and mercy. So, He sent His Son, your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to bear the full weight of your sins and redeem you from every last one of them—every last bit of your sinfulness. Your life is demanded of you, and Jesus paid the demand in full with His life. You are atoned for, redeemed, bought back from death to life by way of the passion and bloody death of Jesus on the cross. Your ten thousand talents is repaid, and that of your neighbor, and that of all on earth!

So, “How often shall my brother,” a fellow redeemed of Christ, “sin against me, and I forgive him?” Often and every time. After all, you often sin against your Creator and Redeemer and He forgives you of it every time…completely! He’s done the same for your brother, completely wiping out his slate of sin, just as He has done yours. So, what makes you think you’re better than God—that you know better than God—so that you would not forgive your brother? No, Jesus’ answer to Peter, and then to you is to forgive your brother every time.

But that’s not the way Old Adam works. Like I said, he likes to make things personal. Just look at the servant, for instance. Forgiven, he went on his way and found a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii. A denarius is a day’s wage, so 100 days’ wages—a pittance compared to what was just forgiven him. Just like the first servant had done, the second begged for mercy and patience. The first servant, though, would have none of it, having the second thrown into prison until he would pay all that he owed.

The king got wind of this. He had the first servant tortured until he would pay all that was due to him. Again, what he owed was greater than he could pay, and as this is a parable, and heretofore everything else has represented something, you might have an idea what is meant by the torturers.

So, what does all of this mean? It means that in those moments when you crawl to the altar of God, or in any circumstance where you seek mercy and patience from the Father, you are asking Him not to look at your sins, nor deny your prayer because of them. You are neither worthy of the things for which you pray, nor have you deserved them, but you ask that He would give them all to you by grace, for you daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment and torture. So then, you too, will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against you.

Easier said than done. Easier confessed than done. Easier recited than done, as what you just heard was pretty much the entire explanation to the Fifth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, which is exactly what Jesus was teaching by way of this parable, answering Peter’s question. Your brother will sin against you often, and you shall forgive him every time. And, as reason for your doing this, Jesus points you to the forgiveness that you have received from the Father, for sins and sinfulness far greater than what your brother has done to you. But, as the parable also demonstrates, it is far easier for your Father to have compassion on you than for you to have compassion on your brother.

The simple reason for this is because you still have your Old Adam. Jesus has not returned yet, so you are still simul iustus et peccator—at the same time justified and sinner. You are justified because you are forgiven and set free by the blood of the Lamb, shed for you on the cross of Calvary. You are justified because you are baptized into the death and resurrection of the Son of God and Son of Man. You are a justified because you entire life and death are bound up in the life and death of Jesus, and He will see you through life and death to resurrection—a resurrection like His. You are justified because the Father declares you just for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. You are justified because you have God-given faith in these words: you are forgiven for all of your sins. But you are sinner because you still live on this side of eternity, in a fallen world, struggling with your fallen flesh.

As much as you may want to forgive your brother, it is difficult, if not impossible, to do. As much as you know you should forgive your brother, it is extremely difficult to find the will to do so. “[T]he spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (cf. Matthew 26:41b) So, like the servant in the parable, when you are approached by another asking for mercy and patience, you are so very often unable and unwilling to show any.

“So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” That, alone, should be enough to cause despair. Certainly, you can think of a time when you held a grudge against a brother, begrudgingly but not sincerely forgave a brother, or flat-out refused to show forgiveness to a brother asking for as much. The unforgiving servant is thrown to the torturers, and Jesus promises that your heavenly Father will do the same to unforgiving you.

And your conscience would remain in despair and terror were it not for the fact that it is by grace that you are saved and forgiven, not by works. It is Jesus, and Him alone, who has paid the full price for all sins, including your unwillingness and inability to forgive and your desire to hold on to grudges. On the cross, as Jesus bore the sins of the world, before breathing His last and giving His life as the propitiation for the sins of the world, He said, “It is finished.” (cf. John 19:30) The work is done, forgiveness for all is won, and to you who are baptized and receive His Word and Sacrament, it is freely and often given and received.

That is to say, even though you daily sin much, you are forgiven every time. God gives you repentance, for this and every other sin, and showers you with grace and mercy to forgive you for this and every other sin.

Your God-given faith, poured upon you and your brothers in the waters of Holy Baptism, given to you and your brothers by way of hearing the Word of God (cf. Romans 10:17), apprehends this forgiveness and makes it yours. By it, you come again and again to the altar of God or to His representative, repenting of your sins, asking for mercy and patience, and your Father pronounces through His mouth-piece—your pastor—Holy Absolution. Those who have no God-given faith do not receive this forgiveness, nor do they seek it, and it is nearly impossible for them to give any.

But for you who are in the kingdom of your Father in heaven, you have been adopted by Him as fellow sons with His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ—to you He is patient and merciful and gracious and slow to anger. (cf. Psalm 103:8) That is because Jesus took your place in death—He did what you could not do, namely the work which wiped your overbearing slate of sins clear. “It is finished,” He said, and so you are forgiven for all of your sins.