Trinity 3

Luke 15:1-10 - Trinity Three - June 12, 2016
 Heavenly joy

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“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”  (Hebrews 12:1-3)

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.  These witnesses are those who in Old Testament times were saved from sin and divine judgment by grace alone through faith in Christ.  Like us they never saw Jesus.  But they waited for him.  In him they found their joy in the midst of trials, and their confidence in the midst of spiritual conflict and failure, because in him was their redemption, their forgiveness, their righteousness, and their eternal life.  By faith in God’s promise they received Jesus even before he was born, because by the faithfulness of God’s promise Jesus received them. 

They are called witnesses, because, like Abraham, they rejoiced to see Jesus’ day.  By faith in the gospel they heard, they saw his day and were glad.  They now have what they sought.  In heaven they rejoice in unsullied gladness forever – with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven who have since joined them through the last 20 centuries.  What do they rejoice in?  They rejoice in their own salvation to be sure.  Their strife is over.  But so they also rejoice with the angels to know that Jesus continues to receive sinners today as he so often and patiently received them. 

We are their brothers and sisters who experience nothing more than what they themselves experienced.  And so as surely as we rejoice that they now rest from their labors, having already run their race, they rejoice with the angels when one sinner among us repents.  This is how we run our race.  We repent … and take refuge in him who receives sinners. 

When a rich man uses his wealth to serve a poor man, the righteous man rejoices.  This is what it means to be righteous.  It is to use what God has given you for the benefit of others and not just for yourself.  When a healthy man uses his health to help a sick man recover, it is the same cause for joy in one who is righteous.  How much more when a righteous man uses his righteousness to help one who is caught up in sin – gently showing him his error and his way of escape, and covering his shame.  As the rich man who thinks his wealth comes from himself is stingy with his money, and as the healthy man who is proud of his own fitness sneers at the one who is weak and feeble, so it is the self-righteous man who looks down on the sinner who has fallen.  He is proud.  He regards his righteousness as something to boast in.  He regards the sinner as one to despise. 

But inasmuch as our righteousness is a free gift from God, just like our money and health – and so much more so – therefore, it brings joy to our hearts to see one who has no sin have compassion on one who has much.  This causes the angels to rejoice: Mercy.  So it causes all true Christians in heaven and earth to praise God when he receives sinners to himself and covers their sin with his own blameless life.  He who does not rejoice in this is no Christian at all. 

What joy it is, therefore, not just for us, but for those of our Christian loved ones who now recline in Abraham’s bosom, when the almighty God before whom they stand without fear in heaven comes to us in the name of the Lord to grant us peace.  This is why we pray the way we do when Jesus gives his own body as bread and his own blood as wine: “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You …”  We pray this right before we celebrate the Lord’s Supper because it is in this gracious meal that the heavenly saints and angels rejoice to see Jesus have mercy on earthly sinners.  He who has riches gives us his most precious treasure.  He who has perfect health gives us his life.  He who is righteous forgives us our sins. 

The Sacrament of the Altar is not reserved for special occasions.  It is our daily bread whenever the soul is famished, and our constant source of joy so long as our sin would leave us sad.  To prepare for the Lord’s Supper requires nothing more than to know your need for Jesus to have mercy on you, to believe he does, and to take his word for it that here you receive his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.  Dear Christians, we receive him because he has first received us.  The same Lord who comforts the sinless saints in heaven by being always present with them comforts us sinful saints on earth with his bodily presence in the Sacrament.  We receive him where he promises to receive us.  We receive the holy, holy, holy Lord God who comes in the name of the Lord to save us now, as we sing.  When we do, heaven rejoices.

And so, Jesus teaches us to repent.  He teaches us to hunger for what the world cannot give and to thirst for what is ours in heaven.  This is how he continues to receive sinners who themselves are losing in their strife against sin, who fall prey daily and weekly in various and shameful ways to that wicked adversary who seeks to devour them with lies.  Jesus receives such sinners by joining them in their strife and overcoming it for them.  He exposes the lies by telling the truth.  He perfects our faith through our suffering, drawing us closer to his cross as we bear our own.  He humbles us under the mighty hand of God even as he humbled himself to save us.  He who is now exalted promises that we too shall overcome who cast our burdens on him who cares for us. 

In Psalm 51 we pray that God would create a clean heart within us and renew a right spirit.  We also pray that our willful sins would not drive the Holy Spirit from us, and that he would restore unto us the joy of our salvation.  We pray in anticipation of that feast in heaven.  At the heavenly banquet, God’s new creation will be complete, and this joy will be more than restored.  It will be permanently perfected in our permanently cleansed hearts.  In the meantime, we pray for repentance in hopes to enjoy his peace today and know it perfectly hereafter.  The Sacrament of the Altar is our most precious meal on earth.  It teaches us above all that only Christ can, and only Christ has won eternal salvation for sinners.  Here Jesus receives us at his table and gives us life with God beyond death. 

This joy in your salvation is what makes heaven swell with happiness.  It is this joy that was set before Jesus as he endured the cross for you.  Like yours, it was hidden in suffering.  But this joy in your salvation is what carried him through and strengthened his resolve to suffer for you.  Because he knew that even as the world rejected him in contempt and as his Father turned his face in righteous anger, yet he was saving the world by lifting his Father’s countenance upon all those who were otherwise under his wrath. 

By enduring the cross, Jesus gained what he most desired.  He gained the authority to forgive you your sins and to give you what you need to join the multitude of saints in heaven.  Think of that!  That is what he most desired.  He owned heaven and earth and all he made, but laid it all aside that he may own you above it all.  That right to have compassion on you and claim you as his was the pearl of great price for which he sold all and gave his life! 

And having gained that right – all authority in heaven and on earth having been granted him – he uses it to give you a robe of righteousness that covers you from all accusations and removes all guilt and shame.  This robe was given you when you were baptized and born again.  And as often as he finds you naked and soiled, he clothes you in this same baptismal robe again and again through the gospel you hear.   In ever-flowing mercy, Jesus renders you perfectly fit and well prepared to stand confident before God who searches your hearts.  And so he renders you fit to rejoice with him at his Supper. 

The Pharisees and scribes complained that Jesus was receiving and eating with sinners.  If Jesus were righteous, they assumed, he would condemn them and have nothing to do with them.  Righteousness is a precious thing, after all.  One who is righteous guards this treasure of his to make sure that it is not polluted by sin.  But of all weights that might ensnare us, which we are urged by God to lay aside, this is the heaviest.  It is the weight of having to maintain your own righteousness and present yourself holy before God on your own.  It is such a heavy weight not only because it is impossible to achieve, but because it is this very self-righteousness that causes would-be saints to despise sinners and so also to despise Jesus for having mercy on them. 

But God demonstrates his own righteousness not by condemning sinners, but rather by forgiving them – by becoming sin for us.  The Pharisees assumed that Jesus must be approving of the sinners he spent time with.  But that is not true.  Nor did he make light of their sin.  But he did not reject them on that account.  He received them as they were.  He knew better than they how deep and evil their hearts were.  But Jesus had mercy not because he saw potential in sinners to overcome and save themselves.  No.  He had mercy because he is God who loves what he has made.  He came in the flesh not to show flesh how it’s done, but to do what flesh could not do.  He who deserved praise suffered hostility from sinners in order to bear their sin in their place.  And having suffered such hostility, he forgives the sin of those who learn to hate the sin in themselves. 

He who has been wronged wants justice.  But he who has done wrong wants mercy.  Jesus was wronged.  But the justice he desired he gained by taking the world’s sin upon himself and bearing the just condemnation of God.  He became the sole wrongdoer for our sakes.  And in bearing our sin, the mercy for which he begged was the very mercy he was winning.  He gained mercy for us.  The Pharisees were so fixated on how the sin of others affected them that they could not see their own sin.  But we are called to fix our eyes on Jesus. There we see the true weight and magnitude of our sin as God suffers not for himself, but for us. 

On the cross, Jesus despised the shame.  So he teaches us to despise it too.  He wants us to be ashamed of our sin.  This is repentance.  It isn’t simply knowing that sin + God equals judgment.  It is coming in line with God’s judgment, agreeing with it, and knowing the sorrow and shame of having dishonored God, hurt your neighbor, used your body and mind, your eyes and ears for uncleanness rather than for that which gives glory to God.  But despising this shame, Jesus glorified God in order that God might glorify us who blush at our own unworthiness.  He makes us worthy by taking our sin away on the cross.  And now he bears with us and joins us in our weakness and guilt.  He speaks through his ministers and through each one of our Christian brothers and sisters who are bold enough and kind enough to call a spade a spade and to speak God’s peace in Christ to poor sinners who desire mercy and salvation.  

We rejoice when shame is covered.  We rejoice when sin is forgiven.  And so we rejoice to cover it and forgive it ourselves.  We rejoice that we have been blessed to know our sin and be granted repentance.  For then we know our Savior who gives peace to those who struggle. 

Here today, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses too.  Everyone here bears witness to the word of God that is spoken today.  Do not be ashamed to repeat it and discuss it among yourselves.  Do not be ashamed to apply it to one another as you admonish your friends to lay aside burdensome sins and to embrace the forgiveness of sins instead.  Do not be ashamed to call everyone here your brother and sister since we all stand as witnesses with God almighty that what is forgiven in this place is as valid and certain even in heaven as though our dear Lord had dealt with us himself. 

As the Son of God seeks that lost sheep to bring it home, and as his bride, the Church, searches until her precious coin is found, so also the Father waits patiently for his son to return.  When Jesus finds what he is looking for, when the Church finds what she regards as precious, when God welcomes back what he is waiting on the horizon to see, heaven rejoices – angels and all saints.  And so for the joy set before us, we join them in their happy praise now and forever: the Lord receives sinners and eats with them.  Amen.