Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the
Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and
love. (2 Jn 1)
Who speaks to you saying,
“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven
over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no
repentance.”
Last week, Jesus left us at the great banquet with the poor
the crippled and the lame and the blind, because we are a part of that group.
And today we are joined by tax collectors and sinners in order to listen to
Jesus and His sermons on repentance.
Repentance is one of the words from the Bible that
could be translated as “change”. Quite literally it means “change your mind”.
This is an extremely difficult thing for us to do personally especially in our
sin, much less convince someone else to change. Truthfully, it is impossible
for us to really change.
Now, there are many things we could say about change in our
lives. Indeed, it is a hot topic for all the motivation speakers out there and
they flood our social media feeds, TV screens, and school books with the idea.
The thought pushed is that change is good and necessary and I'm sure you could
rattle off a few quotes that you have heard.
For now, I think this one sums up this motivation movement
best: “a wise man changes his mind, but a fool never will”. Sounds almost like
it could be in the Bible, right? And I agree. There are things in this life
that require change, such as when we are presented with evidence to that end.
Truly, life changes even without our prayers or permission, so we must either
change based on the evidence or be left behind.
Life is for changing, growing.
But now apply that logic to God and His holy things, change
doesn’t work so well. Some parts of holy Scripture imply that God changes, His
mind at least, but other parts say He never changes.
Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord do not change; therefore
you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”
Numbers 23:19,
“God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.”
And our favorite: Hebrews 13:8,
“Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday and today and forever.”
So does this give us divine permission to remain entrenched
and stubborn? No. What it appears to mean is that God is a fool for not
changing, according to our motivationalists.
Consider our Gospel heard today. We will also include the
Parable of the Lost Son, which we did not hear today, from the rest of St. Luke
chapter 15. For, in each case, there is a change but it is not a good
change.
At first, there were 100 sheep. Everyone was happy. Things
were grand. That turns into 99. But what’s so wrong with that? 99 sheep is
still a lot. It’s not 100, though, and its supposed to be 100. There were 10
silver coins, then there were 9. 9 is not 10. There were two sons, then there
was 1. 1 is not 2. Here God would be a fool for NOT changing the lost into
found.
So how would you know that a change is good or bad? How do
we decide whether something is a good change or bad change, at least in the
relationship God has with us?
Let us turn to God’s Word for some illumination on
“change”.
One of the Greek words we translate as “change” in English
is more closely related to “displacement”, than change. We hear in Galatians
1:6,
“ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting
him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel”.
That “turning” there is our word for change, but using
“displace” in there makes the sentence more severe, as in, in sin, you displace
yourself to a different gospel, a gospel of death. Whereas in Hebrews 7:12, our
Lord says,
“For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is
necessarily a change in the law as well.” Though we could just as easily
say the priesthood is displaced from the Temple to the whole world and the Law
is displaced as subordinate to the Gospel, in Christ.
Another Greek word translated to English as “change” is
μεταβάλλω,
which sounds like our word “metabolism”. We only have Acts 28:6 in the New
Testament that uses this word saying,
“They were waiting for him to swell up
or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no
misfortune come to [St. Paul], they changed their minds and said that he was a
god.”
Leviticus 13 uses this word a lot when talking about
diseases, which we have that language too, when speaking of health and the body
metabolizing these things. When Joshua went up against the kingdom of Ai, in
chapter 7, Israel changed when they confronted a little bit of opposition. They
metabolized, thinking God had left them and so their strength left them.
The problem with these changes in Scripture is the same
problem we already described from Jesus’s parables. The change marks something
bad happening or something bad that has happened and shouldn’t have. So far,
change is not good.
Let’s cap this idea off in listening to 2 Corinthians
11:13-15,
“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising
themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises
himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise
themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their
deeds.”
The word “disguise” is the change word. To speak Biblically
of change is to change what God has made good into what God calls evil.
Meaning, you are changing the natural order of things, how God created them,
and in your sin you change it into your order of things which is a corruption.
Now while your own personal changes can be a good thing to
your neighbor, they have little effect nor do they necessarily reflect heavenly
changes. In your sin, you can change for the better for your neighbor, but not
for God.
However, in the same way the devil and false apostles
disguise themselves, God is going to disguise you. He
“will [disguise]
[y]our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him
even to subject all things to himself” says Philippians 3:21. This is
accomplished when God makes the greatest change in order to justify sinners:
being made man.
In the very midst of our complete inability to change,
Christ changes into us in a way that He remains God 100% and man 100%. He does
so in order to be subjected to His Law of perfection. This Law that drives us
to change and repent of our evil ways. He does so, because we do not and can
not change our sinful nature.
We can not repent, so our Savior comes to repent on our
behalf, not as a “get out of jail free card”, but as our substitute. He shows
us that true change can occur in man, but only if that man is 100% united with
God. An impossibility…without Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
In Christ, God changes. But not in His divinity. His change
is that now He transfigures man to be united with Him, bodily, 100%.
Transfiguration, another change word from the Bible, is what Christ does to
prove to us that His divinity remains in His body. This is the true change that
God desires for us, and it doesn’t come with caring for the proper amount of
sheep or alternate life choices.
Romans 12:2 says,
“Do not be conformed to this world, but
be [transfigured] by the renewal of your mind” and 2 Corinthians 3:18,
“And
we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being
[transfigured] into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For
this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
So the motivationalists are partially correct. Change must
come from within, but true change must come from above. A change that can not
only make things right going forward, but also right all the wrongs of our
unalterable past. All humanity needs Christ’s change. The change that addresses
the need for change in the first place: “why are things so wrong”, and makes it
so “wrong” never happens again.
This is the transfiguration, the change, that Christ
purchased and won for us upon His cross and this is the change He proclaims for
us: unity with Himself. This is the only change that matters and only after it,
can other change happen. How do you keep 100 sheep from straying or 10 coins
from getting lost, or one son from leaving and dying on you? Changing their
mind? No. They must all be made “one” in Christ Jesus.
100 and 10 are numbers of perfection. There aren’t going to
be 100 sheep in heaven, neither will there only be 144, 000. There will be the
perfect number of sheep saved, the perfect amount of coins rescued, and the
complete number of sons saved by grace, through faith, for Christ’s sake.
There will not be growth and change in eternity. Imagine God
changing His mind! Change would be bad. God does not change and this is good
because the plan has always been the salvation of mankind. It has always been
100 sheep, not 99. It has always been 10 coins, not 9. It has always been
“pardoning
iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance”,
as our Old Testament says,
“because he delights in steadfast love” (Micah
7:18).
Jesus achieves our change in His suffering and dying. He
then leaves our constant changing in the care of the Church of His Spirit in
Word and Sacrament. Through the preaching of the Gospel and Baptism, we are placed
upon the path of righteousness 100%, on account of Jesus’s work for us alone.
The Spirit then keeps us there by His continuing to preach the death and
resurrection of Jesus, continuing to remind us of our baptism, and feeding and
nourishing us with the Gospel, in the Body and Blood of Jesus.
This changes us, transfigures us into His Image, metabolizes
us into godliness, and disguises us with the Body and Blood of Christ Himself.
He throws our lot, our entire being, in with Him in order that we may grow up
in Christ and not in the infertile soil of our “best effort”. He takes our
burdens of growth and change and, though they hurt and are painful, He makes
them His own and lives this life with us.
But He does so in, with, and under the change that His Word
and Sacraments effect in this world. That is that it gives us a new life, His
life. And this new life He gives us brings us back to our first word for
change, that of repentance. First, He saves us. Then He shows us that we are
displaced from Him, into sin and death. Then He changes us by His justification
and in that justification and grace of our Lord, we confess our sin and receive
forgiveness for it.
Thus, we learn from our parables that God does not change,
for His position has been and always will be that of the salvation of all
humanity for His Name’s sake. We are the changing ones who, in our sin, decide
that we would be better off on our own and declare that “change for the
better”.
So yes. Be the change you want to see in the world, but make
sure it is the change that Christ has given to you. Make sure it is the truth
of this world and its inviting and forgiving Creator. Be sure the change in
this world is God’s change, which is easy because He brings it to church with
Him every time, in His Word and Sacrament.
