READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Ezekiel 34:11-16
1 Peter 2:21-25
- St. John 10:11-16
Grace to you and peace from Him Who Is and Who Was and Who
Is To Come: Jesus Christ. (Rev 1)
Who speaks to you today, saying:
“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me”
You see folks, life is real easy. There are only two religions in the world: “Do this” and “Done. And there are only two paths in life: life or death.
Behold Jesus sets before us two ways of life, today. The way of seeing and the way of not seeing. This is not the first time Jesus has spoken like this. He asks questions like, “Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?”, from Mark 8:18.
And, John 12:40, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”
And my personal favorite in John 9:39-41, “Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind…If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.’”
What God wants us to hear in His Word is that there is a Way of Life and a Way of Death. What’s interesting about John 9 is that it is those who are blind who are declared guiltless, forgiven, you could say. Their blindness saves them. Why is that? Because, when we say, “we see”, we are putting our fear, love and trust in our observation and reason, as opposed to the Word.
And yet, Jesus gives sight to the blind and blindness to the sinners who refuse to repent.
Jesus has addressed this sort of upside-down Gospel before, such as in Jeremiah 21. At that time, Babylon is threatening the complete conquest of Judah and Israel, finally destroying Jerusalem, and taking all the treasure and all the people captive to Babylon. The Babylonian Exile, in other words, is right around the corner. The king and the priests turn to Jeremiah for the Lord’s guidance, His all-seeing wisdom.
And the Lord responds:
"Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death, he who stays in this city (Jerusalem) shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war. For I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good, declares the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.” (v.8-10)
So much for being God’s chosen people. Thus, the leaders of the Israeli kingdom said in their sin, “We do not see this happening” and they murdered Jeremiah. His message of “submit to Babylon” earned him multiple assassination attempts, imprisonments, and eventually his martyrdom. As Jesus said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” (Mt 23:37)
He says the same in our Gospel today. Will you have joy now or later? Will you have suffering now or later? If you suffer now, as our pregnant woman, that is, if the Jews submit to Babylon, forsaking Israel, and allowing their capture, then their sorrow will turn into joy. That is, they will go to captivity, but they will come back. God will not forget them.
Jeremiah even gave them the great promise of “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper”, before they went (Jer 29:7).
But if they want joy now and listen to the false prophets, they have their reward now. “They are swindlers and liars”, says Jeremiah, “from the least of them right to the top! Yes, even my prophets and priests! You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there! Yet the priests and prophets give assurances saying “peace, peace” when there is no peace. Were my people ashamed when they worshiped idols? No, not at all—they didn’t even blush. Therefore they shall lie among the slain. They shall die beneath my anger.” (Jer 6:13-15, ESV and TLB)), thus saith the Lord.
Thus, the unfaithful say two opposing things at the same time, we do not see our pride and joy failing and we see our success only. This is the way of death. The repentant sinner says, we see judgement coming, but we cannot see how this can be, or how God can do such a thing. This is the Way of Life.
But why is it so backwards? Why can’t God just be upfront and obvious? Proverbs calls this out saying, "There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12).
In our eyes, the way that seems right is to cling to our own empires and declare them “what God wants for us”. However, when we get what we want out of it, it is never enough. So much so, that when we get what we want it is not what we want, as we thought. The way that seems right is the way we observe in sin. Thus, our very point of reference is warped.
So when the sinner looks at the suffering and death of Jesus, he says, that’s all wrong. Its all backwards. Its all so messed up, in unbelief. Jesus is supposed to bring about the new kingdom of Israel. Jesus is supposed to right all the wrongs. Jesus was supposed to live.
In Jesus the way of life is the way of death. In this case, death to self and death to the world. The Way of death, that way of hearing the Word of God and rejecting it, comes only after faith can hear and eyes can see. The way of death Jesus has come to walk is the way of the Law.
That, you would think, would be the Way of Life. And it is, for the good, upright, and holy. As St. Paul says in Galatians 3:10, “For all who rely on works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’”
And here is our best at walking this way, in our catechism from the 9th Command: “We should fear and love God so that we do not scheme to get our neighbor’s inheritance or house, or get it in a way which only appears right, but help and be of service to him in keeping it.”
We should do those things. But we don’t. Jesus does and thus we hate Him for it. That He can be content, that He can want more for His neighbor than He has, and that He can be right in serving that way, takes the spotlight off us.
When God is made flesh for His neighbor, His own received Him not. Jesus only had the Way of Life, so our sin, the devil, and the world had to put Him on the Way of death, falsely accuse, and convict Him, and nail Him to a tree.
Little did our sinful minds understand that love is the fulfillment of the Law, of the Way of Life. And since, Jesus took up His cross and followed God in perfect, pure, sacrificial, obedient, and serving love for God and neighbor, He was accepted by God, “a fragrant sacrificial offering” (Eph 5:1).
What appears wrong, the suffering and death of Jesus, is meet, right, and salutary. What appears right, rejoicing and reveling in our self-righteousness, is wrong. Sin has skewed our vision and thus we remain in our sin. The Son of God has come giving Faith; faith to hear, see, and believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
The Kingdom may not be of this world, but there is life in it, in Jesus. And that life is found and received by faith alone. For, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14)
The Way of Life is the Way of Jesus, really Jesus Himself and His work completed on our behalf. That is, that the Word of God be taught in its truth and purity and we as children of God lead holy lives according to it, from our Catechism again. (1st Petition)
The way of death is every other way that is not the Way of Life. That is, despising and teaching or living contrary to God’s Word. That is the Way of the Cross, that He Who knew no sin chose to walk the way of the sinner, ingesting the wages of sin, in order that death be destroyed.
And death is destroyed by death, the death of God in the flesh. It’s reign and power ended, but Christ lived on. Jesus was supposed to live and He does live. And because He lives, the Way of Life lives as well, now open to all Who believe and are baptized.
This can be done any and everywhere. The Jews believe, “Israel first!”, Rome thinks, “Rome first!”, the Americans think, “America First!”. Each believing that they have found God’s promised land and woe to any who disagree.
But if we just look at God’s gift of Holy Baptism, we see that’s not true. Anywhere there is water, can be a holy baptismal font. Likewise, anywhere the pure Gospel is read and taught, can be a holy pulpit. And anywhere Jesus is proclaimed as Body and blood, God and man, given and shed for you, can be His Holy Table.
The Way of Life is the Way of Faith. And faith leads to the cross first. When Jeremiah and Moses lead the people out of a seeming promised land into exile and into the desert, they are prophesying the cross.
Back to Galatians 4:25-31, “present-day Jerusalem…is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother…Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise…Therefore we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.”
In faith, we see that suffering comes first, glory second. In faith, we see that our heavenly Father has placed us in our own Babylonian Exile that we may learn to love Him and our neighbor. In faith, we walk the path of sin and death, because it is the path that our Savior leveled out for us, not that we continue in our sin and die, but that we live.
Moses cried out in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;”
Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” (Jn 11:25-26)
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Who speaks to you today, saying:
“A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me”
You see folks, life is real easy. There are only two religions in the world: “Do this” and “Done. And there are only two paths in life: life or death.
Behold Jesus sets before us two ways of life, today. The way of seeing and the way of not seeing. This is not the first time Jesus has spoken like this. He asks questions like, “Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?”, from Mark 8:18.
And, John 12:40, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”
And my personal favorite in John 9:39-41, “Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind…If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.’”
What God wants us to hear in His Word is that there is a Way of Life and a Way of Death. What’s interesting about John 9 is that it is those who are blind who are declared guiltless, forgiven, you could say. Their blindness saves them. Why is that? Because, when we say, “we see”, we are putting our fear, love and trust in our observation and reason, as opposed to the Word.
And yet, Jesus gives sight to the blind and blindness to the sinners who refuse to repent.
Jesus has addressed this sort of upside-down Gospel before, such as in Jeremiah 21. At that time, Babylon is threatening the complete conquest of Judah and Israel, finally destroying Jerusalem, and taking all the treasure and all the people captive to Babylon. The Babylonian Exile, in other words, is right around the corner. The king and the priests turn to Jeremiah for the Lord’s guidance, His all-seeing wisdom.
And the Lord responds:
"Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death, he who stays in this city (Jerusalem) shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war. For I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good, declares the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.” (v.8-10)
So much for being God’s chosen people. Thus, the leaders of the Israeli kingdom said in their sin, “We do not see this happening” and they murdered Jeremiah. His message of “submit to Babylon” earned him multiple assassination attempts, imprisonments, and eventually his martyrdom. As Jesus said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” (Mt 23:37)
He says the same in our Gospel today. Will you have joy now or later? Will you have suffering now or later? If you suffer now, as our pregnant woman, that is, if the Jews submit to Babylon, forsaking Israel, and allowing their capture, then their sorrow will turn into joy. That is, they will go to captivity, but they will come back. God will not forget them.
Jeremiah even gave them the great promise of “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper”, before they went (Jer 29:7).
But if they want joy now and listen to the false prophets, they have their reward now. “They are swindlers and liars”, says Jeremiah, “from the least of them right to the top! Yes, even my prophets and priests! You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there! Yet the priests and prophets give assurances saying “peace, peace” when there is no peace. Were my people ashamed when they worshiped idols? No, not at all—they didn’t even blush. Therefore they shall lie among the slain. They shall die beneath my anger.” (Jer 6:13-15, ESV and TLB)), thus saith the Lord.
Thus, the unfaithful say two opposing things at the same time, we do not see our pride and joy failing and we see our success only. This is the way of death. The repentant sinner says, we see judgement coming, but we cannot see how this can be, or how God can do such a thing. This is the Way of Life.
But why is it so backwards? Why can’t God just be upfront and obvious? Proverbs calls this out saying, "There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12).
In our eyes, the way that seems right is to cling to our own empires and declare them “what God wants for us”. However, when we get what we want out of it, it is never enough. So much so, that when we get what we want it is not what we want, as we thought. The way that seems right is the way we observe in sin. Thus, our very point of reference is warped.
So when the sinner looks at the suffering and death of Jesus, he says, that’s all wrong. Its all backwards. Its all so messed up, in unbelief. Jesus is supposed to bring about the new kingdom of Israel. Jesus is supposed to right all the wrongs. Jesus was supposed to live.
In Jesus the way of life is the way of death. In this case, death to self and death to the world. The Way of death, that way of hearing the Word of God and rejecting it, comes only after faith can hear and eyes can see. The way of death Jesus has come to walk is the way of the Law.
That, you would think, would be the Way of Life. And it is, for the good, upright, and holy. As St. Paul says in Galatians 3:10, “For all who rely on works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’”
And here is our best at walking this way, in our catechism from the 9th Command: “We should fear and love God so that we do not scheme to get our neighbor’s inheritance or house, or get it in a way which only appears right, but help and be of service to him in keeping it.”
We should do those things. But we don’t. Jesus does and thus we hate Him for it. That He can be content, that He can want more for His neighbor than He has, and that He can be right in serving that way, takes the spotlight off us.
When God is made flesh for His neighbor, His own received Him not. Jesus only had the Way of Life, so our sin, the devil, and the world had to put Him on the Way of death, falsely accuse, and convict Him, and nail Him to a tree.
Little did our sinful minds understand that love is the fulfillment of the Law, of the Way of Life. And since, Jesus took up His cross and followed God in perfect, pure, sacrificial, obedient, and serving love for God and neighbor, He was accepted by God, “a fragrant sacrificial offering” (Eph 5:1).
What appears wrong, the suffering and death of Jesus, is meet, right, and salutary. What appears right, rejoicing and reveling in our self-righteousness, is wrong. Sin has skewed our vision and thus we remain in our sin. The Son of God has come giving Faith; faith to hear, see, and believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
The Kingdom may not be of this world, but there is life in it, in Jesus. And that life is found and received by faith alone. For, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14)
The Way of Life is the Way of Jesus, really Jesus Himself and His work completed on our behalf. That is, that the Word of God be taught in its truth and purity and we as children of God lead holy lives according to it, from our Catechism again. (1st Petition)
The way of death is every other way that is not the Way of Life. That is, despising and teaching or living contrary to God’s Word. That is the Way of the Cross, that He Who knew no sin chose to walk the way of the sinner, ingesting the wages of sin, in order that death be destroyed.
And death is destroyed by death, the death of God in the flesh. It’s reign and power ended, but Christ lived on. Jesus was supposed to live and He does live. And because He lives, the Way of Life lives as well, now open to all Who believe and are baptized.
This can be done any and everywhere. The Jews believe, “Israel first!”, Rome thinks, “Rome first!”, the Americans think, “America First!”. Each believing that they have found God’s promised land and woe to any who disagree.
But if we just look at God’s gift of Holy Baptism, we see that’s not true. Anywhere there is water, can be a holy baptismal font. Likewise, anywhere the pure Gospel is read and taught, can be a holy pulpit. And anywhere Jesus is proclaimed as Body and blood, God and man, given and shed for you, can be His Holy Table.
The Way of Life is the Way of Faith. And faith leads to the cross first. When Jeremiah and Moses lead the people out of a seeming promised land into exile and into the desert, they are prophesying the cross.
Back to Galatians 4:25-31, “present-day Jerusalem…is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother…Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise…Therefore we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.”
In faith, we see that suffering comes first, glory second. In faith, we see that our heavenly Father has placed us in our own Babylonian Exile that we may learn to love Him and our neighbor. In faith, we walk the path of sin and death, because it is the path that our Savior leveled out for us, not that we continue in our sin and die, but that we live.
Moses cried out in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;”
Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die” (Jn 11:25-26)
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
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