Jesus speaks to us in today’s Gospel saying:
We do not have to imagine or explore the meanings God gives
us in parables as to what the Kingdom of heaven may or may not be like. It is sunarai, a bearing together with God, the
cross. When Jesus tells us “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to”, what He
is actually saying is that this is how the kingdom is on earth. And when He
wishes to “settle accounts”, it is not a one-sided debt repayment, but a
bearing together of the cross of payment.
Parables give teachers and preachers of the Word so much
trouble, because we do not sit and ponder what words actually mean. To say,
“may be compared to” is only inviting us to think about ourselves and not
Jesus, when in every parable Jesus is declaring that this is about Him, not
you.
Therefore, we must say that the kingdom of heaven “is the
same as”, not just a soft “may be compared to”. We re-translate this way,
because in other parts of the Bible this same word is the difference between
life and death.
In Psalm 28, king David laments that if God were to forget
to save him, that he would “be the same as” those who go down to the pit. In
other words, he would be sent to hell and everlasting death, if God did not
have a plan to bear David’s sins away.
In Ezekiel 31, the Lord is deriding Pharaoh saying that he
is a king unlike any other king on earth in his earthly glory. Yet other
kingdoms were “the same as you” in that they were cut off from the face of the
earth, just like you will be.
In these two instances and others, being “the same as”
something quite literally means that what happens to them, happens to you.
Thus, when we apply that to our parable, we have to concretely say that what
happens in the parable is going to happen in the kingdom.
There is no room for imaginative exploration or sloughing it
off as an “earthly story with heavenly meaning”. This is real. You are in debt
up to your ears and either you have that debt covered by Christ or you are cut
off as Pharaoh is and must repay it on your own. Jesus paints a stark picture
for us so we get it. He is not ambiguous or metaphoric.
You do not get to make the Bible say what you want it to
say. Jesus gives you His Word and that’s that. It is concrete and it is black
and white, because otherwise you wouldn’t get it, you would never figure it out
on your own, and you’d always read the Bible wrong.
God does not create burdens, but He lifts them. Don’t lean
on your own understanding and especially do not lean on the understanding of
those who only see Jesus as an invitation to imagine something greater, instead
of the Savior He is. For you need to repent of sin, not change your mind on
God.
Which brings us to how the kingdom will “settle accounts”
with you. Again, Jesus is talking about more than just financial stewardship
towards our neighbor. You are to forgive debts, but you don’t. You are to show
mercy, but you don’t, but when you want forgiveness and mercy, it better be
there in spades.
In this second word we are looking at, Jesus is doing more
than just “settling accounts”, He is “bearing together”. God has come to settle
as equals, even fulfilling His own law of “bearing one another’s burdens”.
Meaning, God will repay.
So we should read this verse in this way: “Therefore the
kingdom of heaven is the same as a king who wished to bear with his servants.”
God is wanting to extract repayment from His servants, but He does so in a way
in which He is the One repaying. He does this by coming so close to us, that He
takes our place and pays our debts for us.
We can read it this way in the Bible, because this word “to
bear” is used almost exclusively by Jesus to refer to His cross. In fact, His
command to take up your cross, or bear your cross, and follow Him, uses this
word. You are also to bear Christ’s yoke upon you, because it is easy.
Jesus is also the God-man Who bears away the sin of the
world, as we sing each Sunday. And Jesus makes sure we know He is repaying in
our place by saying that no one bears His life away, but He lays it down of His
own authority.
Jesus has come to settle accounts, but in a backwards,
Kingdom of heaven way. In other words, together with you in mercy and
forgiveness. He has come that He might show you that your life-crushing debt is
too much for you. That your sin and death kill and destroy. There is no room
for self-righteousness, much less for self-improvement or imagination. You are
dead in your debts.
As in our parable, the Lord takes the debt upon Himself, it
doesn’t just go away, He is the one who owns it after all. Whether or not it is
paid back, the Lord is in debt. He is in debt because He is a severe man
bearing up a cross that He did not put down and reaping the sin and death that
He did not sow. Debts do not go away, they cling to the Lamb of God.
Thus, the cry from the Good Friday crowd: “Bear Him away!
Bear Him away! Crucify Him!” “Bear Him away and release to us Barabbas.” Not
just that crowd, but your sin also cries out in this way and yet this is the
will of God: that the guilty go free and the Innocent man is condemned.
Jesus bears the cross alone in order that He might bear
together with you your own cross in this life. Jesus is sacrificed and dies in
order that your debts be paid in full and whatever else you rack up in the
future be paid for as well. (Good Samaritan)
Now, through the cross of Christ you become like Him Who
became like you in every way except without His own sin and death. You are made
the same as Jesus. You are baptized into the same baptism as Jesus. You bear
the cross the same as Simon of Cyrene: you carry it in this life, but its end
punishment is taken by another in your place.
The Kingdom of heaven is the same as the Lord coming to
settle debts on earth: in the forgiveness and mercy of the Crucified Jesus.
This is how the kingdom will act here. This is what is going to happen to you
once you enter the kingdom of heaven. No guess work. No speculation. You bring
debts that are forgiven in the blood of Christ.
You are not left alone to repay your debts. Your Lord comes
down all glorious not to extract, but to forgive. He extracts payment from Himself.
His sacrifice is the one, true currency of heaven, the same as it is on earth.
Therefore, the Lord bears our earthly burdens together, with us, and opens His
treasuries to spill out His sacraments upon His Church, in an overpayment for
our debts.
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