Trinity 18

Matthew 22:34-46 - Trinity Eighteen - September 25, 2016
David’s Son and David’s Lord

The reason the Pharisees were so blind to the true nature of the law is because they were so disinterested in theology.  The reason they were so unable to see how the law applied to their lives is because they did not care about Christian doctrine.  They found theological discussion of God’s word boring.  They were much more interested in what they considered more practical matters, and they thought they had a firm handle on these.  Instead of meditating on the promises and mysteries of Holy Scripture, the Pharisees preferred to discuss other things — like what they had to do to gain God’s favor and blessing — or how they might build some sort of system for remaining faithful to God while caring as little as possible about the why and wherefore of what God actually commanded. 

This is what they did.  In order to do this, they took interest in what all men know by nature (at least to some degree): the law.  The law is written on everyone’s heart.  It can be smeared, distorted, ignored, or even added to, sure.  But it is God who wrote it on our hearts when he made us in his image – so it’s there.  We call this natural law.  Now, every false religion out there, or that’s ever existed, is and has been what really just amounts to an ornate and perverted twisting of this natural law.  People suppose that by being obedient to the law, however they may have arranged it, they might find approval in their consciences and rewards in heaven.  This is natural.  And it makes sense.  Doing good makes you feel good.  And only good people go to heaven.  So be good, and you’ll get there and you’ll feel good about yourself on the way. 

Every religion other than our Christian faith is a religion of the law that appeals to people by making sense.  They seek to capitalize on man’s own natural knowledge of right and wrong.  And yet none of these religions is actually able to make anyone righteous.  Sinners who do what is in them to do still fall short of God’s holy standards, because what is in them is sin.  In fact, they only dig themselves deeper into sin, because by trying to work their way to God they only end up running away from him and distrusting him all the more when their own good works inevitably offer them no true peace, no certainty, and only fear and regret.  Instead of leading anyone to love God and to love his neighbor, false religion leads people to hate God and to judge their neighbor.  

This was the religion of the Pharisees.  But their religion was even worse than others for the simple reason that they had corrupted, defiled, and hijacked the true religion that God had graciously taught in Holy Scripture.  They learned it, but with hardened hearts they ignored the spirit of it, and touted a false distortion of it in the name of the Lord.  They should have been more interested in what the Bible taught.  They should have been more interested in the love that God commanded of them – and the love that God revealed to them.  Maybe then they would have known the right answer to the question they posed to Jesus.  Maybe then they would have known the answer to the question that Jesus asked of them.  Instead their mouths were stopped.  

When God calls his people and creates his Church, he does not bank on the fact that we have a natural knowledge of the law.  No, he knows how sinful we are and how inclined we are to justify ourselves.  And he wants us to know it too.  That is why he gave his law to Moses, written down in stone, so that it could rightly reveal what good works please him as well as rightly reveal our need to be saved.  For these reasons the law must be preached.  Even as long as we are in the flesh, as long as we have contrary desires and inclinations that run counter to God, we must be warned and chastened by the law.  And though it strikes and stings more sharply than our flesh would prefer, the law that God revealed to Moses on Sinai is for our good.  We know this because we have tasted that the Lord is good.  We have learned to rely on and love the mercy that he has revealed in Christ toward sinners. 

Only with the confidence that the blood of Christ gives us are we made ready to face God’s holy law honestly and squarely and say, “I am not afraid of you no matter how you thunder against me.  Curb my lusts, discipline my disobedience, rebuke my pride, riddle my body with the wages of sin, yes, but you cannot kill me forever.  I am already buried with Christ.  And with him I am already raised by faith in what my Baptism promised me.  You can boss me around all you want, and for love of Christ I will make note of the love you require since this is the love to which I will soon be raised in glory.  But you may not deny me the love I need, for my Christ is mine and I am his and he who fulfilled your demands and suffered your condemnation did so to rescue me from all my sin.”  This is the confidence that you have toward the law.  What does it reveal in you that Christ did not bear for you?  Nothing!  So own it.  Repent and be done with it.  Turn to God who has had mercy on you.  His door is still open to you in the very words you are taught to say amen to.  The law is now your servant and never again your master.  Christ is your Lord.  The law is God’s eternal and holy will.  As such it condemns you.  Yes, but Christ is God’s eternal and holy Son.  He has obeyed God’s will, and so reveals his holy and eternal will to save you. 

This confidence the Pharisees did not have. In all their posturing towards the law – all their judging others based on their rules – as though they had thereby fulfilled the law – they were terrified even to draw near it.  

As we know, there is blessing in obeying the law.  And yet, he who transgresses is cursed.  And, as St. James writes, “whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10).  The law is a terrifying thing.  Who can approach it – even if only to try and fulfill it?  Who will dare?  Is it not better to avoid it all together?  So thought the Pharisees.  It is better to do other things that will fulfill the law without actually dealing with the law itself.  See how they lack our confidence? 

So in order to avoid actually having to deal with the law – you know, in case they accidentally transgressed it – but still wanting to fulfill the law – in order to gain God’s blessing – the Pharisees put together a tidy, little system of religious behavior.  They built a hedge around the law the way the Lord told Moses to put a barrier around Mt. Sinai lest the people draw near and die.   They invented 613 commandments, which if a man did he would successfully avoid sinning against God.  248 were positive thou shalts.  365 were negative thou shalt nots.  They talked of these together and in their charming Jewish way would debate about which of them was the greatest.  But then they held people to these rules of theirs and completely ignored the Law that God had given.  They taught as doctrine the commandments of men.  But their worship was vain.  As Jesus said, quoting Isaiah 29, “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8[-9]). 

Their hearts were far from God.  Their hearts were centered on themselves.  They had no interest in drawing near to God’s holy habitation.  They despised his word and loved their own rules more.  Because of this they had no idea what truly fulfilled the law and saved them.  That is why they didn’t recognized Jesus. 

He came to be their Savior.  But they found a way not to need a Savior.  They built a hedge around the law to avoid breaking it.  But in so doing, they completely lost sight of what the law truly demanded of them.  They were too afraid to encounter Sinai, and so they gave no interest in the dwelling of Zion.  They were too afraid to examine what the law really required and so they never considered how God had planned to save them from the wrath it revealed.  They took no interest in who their Savior was or whose Son he was or whose Lord.  That is why Jesus totally schooled them when the lawyer asked his trick question: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”  “None of yours,” was essentially what Jesus answered.  “Have you forgotten?  Yours are just made up.  I will not play your game.  No, God’s are much greater!  Love:  love God;  love your neighbor.  On these two commandments the whole Bible depends. That is why Moses said concerning the law which you ignore, ‘This commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off … But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it’” (Deuteronomy 30:11, 14). 

But because the word of God was so far away from their hearts, so was God, and so was love. 

Most people look at the Bible as a book of religious rules.  They are wrong, of course.  It contains the wisdom of God.  Scripture is inspired by God and able to make us wise unto salvation.  What then of Jesus’ statement?: “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”  Does this not mean that the Bible is just a big book that teaches us how we might love God as we should – with all our hearts and so on – and our neighbor as ourselves?  Well, it is true that you must.  But if you cut through all the religious rules that hypocrites invent to make this manageable, you discover that that you don’t and you can’t.  You discover that the love God requires of you is the love you lack.  You discover that you have not put the best construction on others when you hear juicy gossip, or lies that confirm a bad attitude you have toward another.  You discover that your neighbor’s reputation has not been as precious to you as your own pride and that you would rather deny him a fair hearing than admit that you have failed to love him as God demands you do.  

So what do you do?  Build a hedge around the law?  Make excuses for why the one who has fallen from your favor deserves to be hated?  Justify your words by saying that they are technically true or that somebody else said it first?  This is what the Pharisees did.  This is what it means to hedge the law.  But to investigate love – true love – requires a fortitude and confidence that you will not find in yourself.  To come to terms with how you have sinned against God above and your brother or sister below requires that you know something more profound about that word of God which is very near to you – in your mouth and in your heart.  It requires that you know how David’s Son is David’s Lord – to know the why and the wherefore and to stake your life upon it. 

This is not trivia.  This is not mere religious talk or intellectual curiosity with obscure details.  This is the heart of the gospel.  Whatever theological debate or discussion or distinction that is ever made that does not cut to the heart of the gospel in some way is a waste of your time and nothing more than Pharisaical musing.  But Jesus did not muse.  Jesus was not playing some rabbinical game.  Jesus was asking the question that anyone who is cut to the heart by the law needs to know how to answer: “Whose Son is the Christ?  How can he be both David’s Son and David’s Lord?”  On the answer to this question rests our whole faith.  On the answer to this question depends our boldness and confidence to approach the love that the law requires, because the answer to this question reveals and gives to us the love that God has toward poor sinners. 

When God long promised in the Law and the Prophets to send his Son to be our Savior, his plan was for divine love to become human love as true God became true man.  And he did.  David’s Lord became David’s son in order to love as God required those created in his image to love.  Jesus loved God above all things.  He loved his neighbor as himself.  He did it for you.  — He loved God.  He studied his word and found in it his greatest joy.  He loved his neighbor.  He served him in compassion, not judging and betraying him or growing impatient with his ignorance, but covering his faults in patient kindness in order to win him as his own beloved. 

This is why it is so important and precious for us to know and confess who the Christ is.  He is David’s Son.  He is our Brother.  He is our Substitute under the law having been born under the law.  He is David’s Lord.  He is his faithful and merciful God who promised himself in love to rescue him from sin and condemnation.  He who had compassion on David is the very one who came to save David – who was born in the city of David so long ago to fill his people’s desire for redemption.  And so he fills your desire for mercy. 

He who knows that Jesus is David’s Son and David’s Lord, he who understands the significance of this, and, as he is able intellectually, ponders this truth of the Incarnation and the divine and human natures of Christ – he who seeks for its importance in everything that God’s word teaches – such a one is not too proud to let God scrutinize his life.  Such a one is not so delusional with self-righteous presumption that he would despise the spirit of the law.  No, instead he investigates it.  He draws Sinai with a ready heart to learn God’s word, because he knows that for Jesus’ sake he already has free access to his home in Zion – in Zion – where his sins are freely forgiven.

“I was glad when they said to me,
‘Let us go into the house of the Lord’

For the sake of my brethren and companions,
I will now say, ‘Peace be within you’” (Psalm 122:1, 8). 

We enter the house of the Lord to learn.  Pure doctrine unites us.  It is the basis for our peace with each other because it is the basis for our peace with God.  Here Jesus teaches us, not to silence us, but to enlighten us, to cheer us, to embolden us to seek from his Father as dear children and citizens of his Kingdom.  Our Lord became our Brother for this purpose.  His love covers the multitude of our sins and clothes us with the righteousness his obedience has earned for us.  This is love.  On this love for you hang the Law and the Prophets whose wisdom we are so happy to investigate and learn.  Amen.