Last Sunday of the Church Year, November 23rd,
anno + Domini 2025
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches, Custer
and Hill City, South Dakota
Today - Luke 23:27 – 43
Audio of the sermon available HERE.
Today. Today we close out another journey with Jesus through the Church Year. Today we come to the End, and the Beginning.
Last Tuesday I listened to Pastor Goldammer’s sermon recorded last Sunday. He was working with another set of readings focused on the End, and did a fine job connecting the dots, from the drama in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago during the first Holy Week, to the struggle of Christians in Nigeria, who face death today for their confession of Christ Jesus, to our comparatively minor but still real struggles in the Christian lives we lead here in the Black Hills. Gordon did a wonderful job exploring the reality of our lives, of the Last Day, and our future lives in heaven. He showed how they are all connected together and redeemed by Jesus, who has won for us a future that will be wonderful, perfect, life forever with God and all the host of heaven.
Today we close out the Church Year with the remarkable conversations Jesus held in the last hours before His death, conversations with wailing women, with His Father, and with a fellow subject of crucifixion, who, by God’s grace and the power of the Word, had the very best moment of his life, even as he hung dying on a Roman cross.
Today we are privileged to focus on that Day, the pivotal day in the history of fallen humanity. For it was that Day which makes today, and every other day, a day for rejoicing, a day made by the Lord, for our blessing. Our calling today and always is to live from that Day, which is still determining our today, and our tomorrow, one-thousand nine-hundred and ninety-some Novembers later. So today, let’s listen closely to Jesus’ conversations, listen to His words of wisdom, truth and mercy, that He spoke as He made His way up the hill to Golgotha, and even from the Cross.
Today is not the day for mourning. Jesus turns to the women who were following His crucifixion procession, beating their breasts and wailing, and He says: "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
Who were these women?
The text doesn’t tell us precisely, but many think that they are “professional” mourners, like the crowds outside Jairus’s house, weeping and mourning over his daughter, who had just died. Jesus also told them to stop wailing, and sent them away, just before entering the house and raising the little girl from the dead.
Such mourners were customary in Jewish culture, and it’s easy to see how this practice would be extended to Jews condemned to death by the Romans, a natural addition to the morbid spectacle. This possibility is reinforced by the title Jesus gives them: “Daughters of Jerusalem.” Most of Jesus’ followers were from Galilee, not Jerusalem. The sophisticated, upper-crust citizens of the capital were the least likely to believe in Jesus. If this is correct, then we may question the sincerity of these wailing women. Regardless, Jesus tells them to stop, because His future, while horrifying in the next hours, is eternally bright and joyful. But for these women, and all who lived in Jerusalem, destruction is coming, their future is very grim, the end of Israel as they understand it. In last week’s Gospel, Jesus prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, which would happen almost four decades later, in the A+D 70., He is referencing it again, today.
For behold, Jesus continues, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' [30] Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Cover us.' [31] For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?" The reason the tree of the Hebrews was still green that Day was Israel’s primary purpose for being, which was to provide the human lineage of the Messiah, the anointed Savior of God. No matter how faithless most Israelites were over the centuries, God had made a promise. Faithful to His promises, the Lord always preserved a remnant, kept a bit of faithful sap flowing. God always prevented the total destruction of the nation of Israel, so that, from the house and line of David, Mary could be chosen to give birth to God’s Son, the Savior, Jesus.
But now that their most important purpose was fulfilled, now that the sap of salvation would be flowing to all nations, what would happen to unfaithful sons and daughters of Abraham? Jesus predicts a bitter fate was approaching the Jews in Jerusalem. And He proclaims throughout all the Gospels an even worse fate for all men, women and children, unless they come to understand what is really happening “today,” that Day, almost 2,000 years ago. For that Day was, and still is today, the Day of Salvation for all who trust in the Crucified One, whether they are biological descendants of Abraham, or not.
Today, as you contemplate the Cross, weep not. Not too much, at least. The death of Jesus is truly hard to contemplate, and the part each of us sinners has played in making the Cross necessary is a heavy thought, which may bring you some tears.
But you do not need to beat your breast and wail for Jesus. Rather, rejoice in His steadfast commitment to you and all sinners. For today is the day for Divine Mercy. Two others, convicted criminals, were led away to be put to death with [Jesus]. And when they arrived at the execution grounds, the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified [the Christ], and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [34] And [just then, as spikes are driven through His flesh and He is lifted up from the earth] Jesus says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Father, forgive them. There was never love like this, love for enemies, love for torturers, love for all people.
Today and every day is a day for God’s mercy, because Jesus has won the Father’s forgiveness, for you. Mercy, along with justice, is essential to God’s character, and so the plan of forgiveness was a completed reality in the mind of God from before the foundation of the world. And on that Day, that dark but very good Friday, the miracle of forgiveness shone like never before, a miracle of salvation, not for good people, but for God’s enemies, for sinners, for you, and me, and all people.
Today is the true King’s Day. Recently our American Republic observed a bit of mass political theater as concerned citizens held “No Kings Day” rallies. As far as I heard, none of those rally goers repeated the American Revolutionary chant of “We have no king but Jesus!” That would have been interesting!
Monarchies and republics come and go. But there is one True King, yesterday, today and forever, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, the King of Heaven, the potentate of the Universe. The Man Jesus, also the eternal Son of the Father, sits at God’s right hand, ruling over all things, precisely because the Father accepted His self-sacrifice on behalf of His enemies. Father, forgive them. And He does! For Jesus’ sake.
Today is the Day for Mission, for outreach to dying sinners, for effective Gospel proclamation. Today and every day, God’s living and active word does not return to Him empty, but always achieves the purpose for which the Lord sent it forth from His mouth. Like it did on Golgotha, for one of the two thieves, dying alongside Jesus. What Word did the Holy Spirit use to convert the penitent thief? The last thing Jesus had said, I would think. Father, forgive them.
Insults were hurled at Jesus by the soldiers and the rulers of the people, the Pharisees, priests and elders. These slurs also happened to lay out Jesus’ claims about Himself, with one eternally significant error. The rulers scoffed at [Jesus], saying, "He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!" [36] The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine [37] and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!"
One of the two criminals joined in the abuse, and it seems from the other Gospel accounts of Good Friday that the second one started to insult Jesus as well. But something changed him. By God’s grace he came to believe that this One, a dying man capable of praying to God for the forgiveness of His executioners, this man is the Christ of God, the Chosen One, come, not to save Himself, but to save others. Confessing the justice of his own crucifixion, confessing his own sinfulness and Jesus’ innocence, the penitent thief cries out in faith: Jesus, remember me, when You come into Your Kingdom. And Jesus confirms his faith, confirms that he is accepted by God: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Today. For you. Today is the Day for rejoicing for you, because your place in paradise has also been guaranteed. What Jesus promised and delivered to the repentant thief that Day on Calvary, the blood-bought forgiveness that transforms enemies of God into beloved children, that victory is also for you. By the Resurrection God the Father confirmed and announced to world the reality that was already perfected on Golgotha. So, today we rejoice, for this same Jesus comes to us to deliver to us the same promise, the same forgiveness.
Today you are not yet in paradise, and you are unlikely to be crucified. But sin and its consequences surely plague your today, just as they did those thieves hanging on either side of Jesus. Thanks be to God, your problems with sin don’t seem so dramatic, but sin is still as dangerous as ever. And the solution for sin today remains the same as it was on that original Good Friday.
When God, through consequences, through earthly authorities, and through His Word, makes it clear to you what you deserve for your sin, the only solution is to turn to Jesus in faith and ask for His rescue. Yes, sinner, you are forgiven. Convicted, corrected, absolved, restored and reconciled again to the Father, you go forth, filled with God’s mercy and love, ready to walk in the Lord’s Way.
Today you are not yet in paradise. That Day, outside Jerusalem, the penitent thief’s earthly journey with Jesus was complete. He would not gather week after week with the infant Church, he would not support and participate in the Mission of Christ that the Holy Spirit worked through His Church. And yet, he has played a tremendous role in Christian Mission, thanks to the pen of St. Luke.
Today, and millions of times more, the forgiven thief’s story has been used by the Holy Spirit to draw yet more sinners to Jesus. The forgiven thief has played his part in heavenly absentia. You, on the other hand, have the privilege of playing in-person your part in extending Christ’s Kingdom of grace to more souls.
And you can participate in this great work
of God without worry, without concern that you must do it just perfectly. You can relax and rest in the promises that
Jesus has made to you, and then simply share His love and His Word in your
daily life. It’s just that simple. The Holy Spirit will take care of the
rest.
There are lots of other Bible passages that teach us about the Last Day. But today it is appropriate and edifying to close out the Church Year with the Crucifixion. Even though the Cross happened long ago, and the End of the Age is yet to come, still the Crucifixion is a good End Times text to study, the best, really. For, as we prepare for the Last Day, only the Cross makes us ready for the End. The judgment, the disturbances in the earth and sky, the fear and trembling that the Bible describes as part of the Last Day are already complete, finished, fulfilled for us by Jesus, on that Good Friday. The Cross was Jesus’ goal, His End, and it is our salvation. All of the Bible points to or flows from that cursed tree, which Jesus has turned into a tree of blessing, the Tree of Life.
One Bible passage that is all about that Day has been turned into a favorite Bible song, often sung by children: “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Taken from Psalm 118, and written around the time the Temple was built by Solomon, this favorite verse is rightly beloved, a good and true confession of faith in the Lord’s daily providence, which should create a joyful and grateful spirit in us. “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
But wait! There’s more. Because the Psalmist is doing more than telling God’s people to rejoice in His daily blessings. He actually speaks about a particular Day. In fact, the believing thief might well have been singing Psalm 118 as he breathed his last and his soul passed into paradise. All of this psalm is remarkable. Let’s just hear a bit. As you listen to verses 20 – 26, picture in your mind the thoughts of that thief, after Jesus’ proclaimed His promise:
This is the gate of the Lord, Through which the righteous shall enter.
No comments:
Post a Comment