Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
October 16th,
Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer
and Hill City, South Dakota
Our Lord Jesus Christ
Matthew 22:34-46, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Lord Jesus Christ. My Lord Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus, Our Lord. Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns. In our repetitiveness we are, whether we realize it or not, copying the Apostle Paul, who in the first nine verses of his first letter to the Corinthian Church names the Savior, using by one or more of these titles, nine times. Of Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus. The fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
We speak this name and title a lot. What does it mean? Are we thinking about what it means when we say it, or do we toss it off as a wrote phrase? Do we allow Paul’s frequent repetition and our liturgical mimicry of him to dull our ears and chafe our hearts, so that the significance of ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ is lost to us? I pray that we do not. But if by mindless neglect you have lost the wonderful, mysterious, joyful significance of ‘Lord Jesus Christ,’ do not despair. The Holy Spirit today provides us just that part of His Word best suited to break our lethargy, bring us to repentance, and lift us up to God once again, through the right understanding and faith concerning these precious words: Our Lord Jesus Christ. In this title, rightly understood, are all the wonders and treasures of God’s Good News of Salvation. So let’s dive in; the water is invigorating.
The Man who bears the Name will lead us into the truth about ‘Lord Jesus Christ.’ The setting of our reading from Matthew chapter 22 is the first Holy Week, those eternity-changing 8 days, from the Sunday Jesus entered Jerusalem to shouts of ‘Hosanna’, through the agony of that Friday we call Good, to the dawn of a New Creation on Sunday morning. During this week, Jesus’ years long confrontation with the Jewish religious elite reaches its climax. Just before our reading, Jesus had shut down the Sadducees, a faction of priests who had gone Greek. They continued to serve in the Temple of the Jewish God; it was a good gig, after all. But they denied much of what Moses had taught about the living Lord God, preferring the cosmology of Athens, which hated the idea of a physical resurrection of the dead.
Now, the Pharisees, another faction of Jewish religious elite, confront Jesus. Unlike Sadducees, Pharisees loved the writings of Moses. But their way of interpreting Moses focused so much on the Law, on the things we must do and not do to please God, that these religious lawyers can only ask a Law question. “Teacher,” one of them asks Jesus, “which is the great commandment in the Law?”
Couldn’t almost any faithful Hebrew child have answered this question? Jesus certainly could: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 100% dedication, commitment and loyalty to God is the first and main thing. Then, when you’ve given yourself perfectly to God, follow this similar commandment: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Just two rules, simple in form and easy to understand.
Not so easy to do. But there you have it, a Law answer to a Law
question. And, as it does for us if we
truly open our ears to hear it, this Word of God shuts the Pharisees’ mouths. They have no response.
Now, if we treat the Law of God as an abstract idea, holding it out at a distance in our minds, then we can cogitate and pontificate about it, marveling to each other about how sublime and good it is. But, if the Holy Spirit brings these words close, like a mirror in front of our eyes, so close we can’t look anywhere else, well then we can either run away, or we can confess that we have nothing to say to this Law’s judgment of our lives. Because we do not love like the Lord God requires.
Into the silence of the Law, Jesus asks a Gospel question, a good news question. It doesn’t seem like good news, it seems confusing. But it is, once the meaning of ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ is revealed. In the silence generated by His Law, the Lord, the God of Israel, can only be understood as a demanding judge, before whom we sinners must quail. And He is. And we must. By the way of our works, by the way of the Law, the Lord is good, just and all powerful. And He is our Destroyer, our Condemner. Every tongue, sooner or later, will be stopped before the Holy Fear that is the Lord God, who demands that we love Him, and each other, 100%. All means all.
Lord willing, our mouths will be shut sooner, not later, sooner, before it is too late to hear Jesus. Because the Lord Jesus Christ comes to us in the silence of the Law, and speaks a word of hope, a word of peace, a word of rescue.
Now, says Jesus to the Pharisees, let me ask you a question: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He then asks them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
The Pharisees’ Law question uses two titles, Lord and God, and so reveals a strict judge who demands perfect love. This is good and right. But it leaves us exposed, naked before the condemnation of our failures to love.
Jesus’ Gospel question brings in
more names. The son of David. The Christ.
The Spirit. Both first century
Hebrew children and 21st century Lutheran listeners might need a bit
of help sorting these out.
The Christ, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew title ‘Messiah,’ simply means ‘the anointed one.’ It refers to the savior promised by the Lord. Promises of the Christ are found throughout the writings of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. These promises reach their apex under King David, the mighty king of Israel, a flawed man whom the Lord nevertheless used to lead Israel to greatness. To David the Lord promised a son, a descendent, who would rule on his throne forever, a savior who would restore Israel. This promised immortal son of David is the Christ, the anointed one to come.
The Christ is to be a descendent
of David, which to the Hebrew mind meant that David was greater than the Messiah. Fathers are always understood to be greater
than sons. That the source of a person
is greater than the descendent reflects the reality that God is the Creator and
we are creatures. This is why we are to
honor our father and our mother, not the other way around. For dad and mom are God’s chosen source for
our procreation, our existence. A father
does not worship his son, he does not
call his son Lord.
And yet, David, speaking of the Christ, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, says this: “the Lord said to my Lord.” Go study the Psalm in question, Psalm 110, and you will see that David is talking about the promised Messiah, the Christ, the coming savior, who is to be David’s descendent, his son. The Pharisees certainly understood this. So why, asks Jesus, does David call his son, his future descendent ‘Lord,’ as if this son were greater than himself? It doesn’t make sense. But there it is, right in the first verse of Psalm 110.
First Jesus shut their mouths with the Law. Now He creates a greater silence with the mystery of the Gospel. None of the Pharisees, nor the Sadducees, nor any other self-important religious leader, dared to ask Jesus anymore questions.
The Good News in all of this is this: Jesus Christ is the Lord. The Lord, the Almighty God of Israel who revealed Himself to the Hebrew people through His servant Moses, the One who laid down the Law that shuts our mouths and condemns us, this same Lord is Himself the Messiah. The Christ. The anointed Savior, sent not so much to save God’s people from earthly oppression, but rather to save us from the oppression of our failure to love. The Lord Himself would come and Shepherd His loveless people, and save them.
The Lord surpasses our understanding in this endeavor. For this Christ, God’s eternal Son, the Lord come to save, is also the son of David, a physical descendent in the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. Finally it was revealed that the Christ is to be a child of the House of David. And that child is this Jesus from Nazareth, the child of Mary, born under suspicious circumstances. Jesus is the Lord, the God of Israel, come to save His people from their sins. God and man are one, in Christ.
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Jesus asks the Pharisees a question that leads to this mysterious Good News. But at the moment, there is no more debate. It is impossible to respond. Jesus knows God’s Law, and He knows the mysterious promises that also come in the Word of God, given to Israel through Moses and the Prophets. The Pharisees have no Word to respond to Jesus. They do not understand, and their only thought, word and deed is to crucify Him. And thus Jesus reaches His goal. Thus the Messiah fulfills His anointed calling. Thus the Lord God saves. Those who hate Jesus for claiming to be equal to God are lost in hate and rage. Those who hope to find in Jesus a savior, or a warrior king, or at least a new prophet from God, these hopeful souls now can only watch in silence, as the one they thought might be the Christ submits to evil.
Jesus is executed on the trumped up charge that He claimed to be a king, over and against the Roman emperor Caesar, who would brook no rival. Caesar, by the way, wanted to reserve the title ‘Lord’ for himself. But that’s a theme for a whole other sermon.
On Good Friday it seems that Jesus is just a sham. Weak, pitiful, crucified, he cannot be the Savior, he cannot be a new king, he certainly cannot be the Lord God Almighty. The deadening silence of Friday afternoon is broken only by the jeers of his enemies, who think they have won.
But of course, the Lord Jesus Christ has won. Hidden under the suffering, the blood, the shame, there, from out of the deepest darkness shines the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Lord God Almighty, the Son of David and also the eternal Son of God. This victory would remain hidden in a tomb until Sunday morning. But the Good News is this: as He died, Jesus became our salvation. Which is the meaning of the name ‘Jesus:’ The Lord is our Salvation. Jesus’ victory, and the fact that He is God of God and Lord of Lords, is revealed in His resurrection on the third day.
Your Lord Jesus Christ did not make a way of salvation that set aside God’s Law of Love. Nor did He make a new kingdom by utterly rejecting every sinner who ever rejected Him. Which is all of us, by the way. No, our Lord Jesus Christ saves by going right through the Law for us sinners. God’s Son became a man to fulfill the requirements of the Law, in our place. He paid the debt we owe to the Law, and swallowed up the death our lovelessness has earned from the Law. All of this, the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you, for me, and for all people.
God’s way of salvation is always a surprise to us sinners. That life should come from death, glory from shame, joy from suffering: what a wonderful, unexpected gift. So also, God’s way of delivering His salvation to us today is unexpected. We sinners are still capable of rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. For reasons of pride, or logic, or our concept of fairness, or the material limits we see in the creation, we have so many ways to reject that God must do the whole work of salvation, right down to this day. We protest, but He is still coming to shut mouths and deliver forgiveness through the means and in the way He chooses: through the weakness of words spoken by sinners, through a meager bath, and through a meal that fills no one’s stomach, but gives eternal life. The Lord Jesus Christ pours Himself into all of these forms of His Good News, His Gospel, in order to save you.
And then what a change. Because He loves you, you also love Him. And His love spills over in you, resulting in you sharing love with your neighbors. Our love to God and neighbor is still imperfect. But it is made perfect by His love. For we have been called into the fellowship, the communion, the Body of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, in whom we have forgiveness, life and salvation.
All of this, and eternal joy, are found in these words: Our Lord Jesus Christ. To us be the forgiving and life-giving love poured out at Calvary. To Him be glory, honor and praise, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, today, and forever and ever, Amen.
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