READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
St. Matthew 21:1-9
Zechariah 2:10-13
Philippians 2:5-11
- St. Matthew 26 & 27
Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
Who speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
“But Jesus
remained silent. And the high priest said to him, ‘I adjure you by the living
God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.’”
Thus far from the Word of God, written to show the wool
pulled over the high priest’s and all our eyes. Jesus has said He is the Christ
and has shown it. He also will show it by His death and resurrection and also
His return on the Last Day. But in our sin we cannot see it, thus we must have
our sight restored. The wool of sin must be shorn off and we must be made like
Christ and be restored in Him alone.
Church is closed, says a certain, current, one-world
government. And we agree because its for safety reasons. We want the people
safe, don’t you? You wouldn’t put your family in danger for church, would you?
See we agree. Stay home. Turn on your internet. Be safe.
And that’s all it took, in the past, to get a faithful
populace out of church and its happening again. In this Armageddon time,
because of some blowhards with bombs, once again, we see the same excuses the
world governments use to stamp out God’s church. It is not direct warfare, it
is indirect. They veil their true intentions and we are fooled again.
But this is not new, though we love playing the victim. This
is how it has been in our times. We have been fleeced. Do you know that word,
“fleeced”? It was only, maybe 500 years ago, that that word came to have a
negative meaning. And this made sense because of where it came from. Shearing
the sheep, you get its fleece, but it gets to be cold and without any other
benefits from its wool.
There was the golden fleece of Greek myth. This was a quest
of Jason and the Argonauts, which when won, would be a symbol of the rightful
king. Odysseus, of Homer fame, then also used the fleece of large sheep to
escape from his overpowered enemy. That act puts us closer to define being
fleeced, or being tricked out of our livelihood or advantage.
And there you have it. Either fleecing can be a symbol of
divine right or it can be a tool of deception. Both of which you can see in our
reading of our Lord’s Palm Sunday procession. For, at the same time Jesus
proclaims Himself as king, riding to the tune of Hosanna, to Royal David’s
city, He also then is arrested, put on two trials, and found guilty in front of
everyone.
So Jesus puts on the figurative golden fleece, claiming rule
by divine right. Christ is king, He says and appears to trick everyone by being
convicted of blasphemy against the same people’s religion He claims to be from.
This is evidence of the crowd replacing shouts of Hosanna with shouts for His
crucifixion, on Good Friday.
In like fashion, Judas was fleeced, though he did not
repent. St. Peter was fleeced, though he did repent. And here we see in this
very church, fleeces hanging up. Covering what? Metal? Jesus? Our guilt and
shame? Indeed and all the other unsightliness we want hidden before the Day of
Judgement.
St. Paul says that we cover up what is less honorable in our
bodies. And yet, by doing so we give it more attention. Adam and Eve come to
mind here. When they cover up after sinning, they simply bring more attention
to their sin. When we cover up, it is to our shame for by that act we admit our
guilt in the matter.
But today, in our Armageddon Times, we have no shame. We
don’t cover up. It is the exact opposite. What we are shameful of, we want
everyone to see. These days, we wear our shame on our sleeves and make parades
to show it off to the world. You know why we don’t care? Because as soon as
someone objects, we simply point out their shame as well, then everyone shuts
up.
Game. Set. Match. No one fights for right. No one gets upset
at real things, as in upset enough to do something about it. We are all too
afraid of our own shame and simply retreat into ourselves. We stay home. Turn
on our internet, and be safe.
Thus it should be no surprise that Jesus must fleece us, but
for the opposite effect. We fleece and un-fleece each other and ourselves in
hopes for advantage and know nothing but fleecing, deceit. Jesus fleeces us in
order that He get us to crucify Him. He shears Himself of His own life and uses
it to cover us.
And when we learn of this, in both senses we feel fleeced.
First, because Jesus could have asked for our help. It would have at least been
the polite thing to do, even though we would have refused. And second, we are
offended because Jesus's shame was turned into glory. As if He didn’t have any
shame, like us, to begin with.
Jesus’s fleecing was only a fleecing to our sinful senses.
We saw it as Him tricking us, because we couldn’t imagine someone without
shame, suffering and dying for those who are filled with shame. On top of that,
we thought we had covered up enough to not be found. And the shame we did show,
we thought could fool God into thinking we were on His side.
“by the new and living way that he opened for us through
the curtain [through the fleece], that is, through his flesh” (Heb 10:20).
Jesus is God covering Himself with our flesh, with a reasonable body and
rational soul. This is the Glory of God and His Golden Fleece. That He can take
on human flesh, remain God through it all, and suffer in our place.
In our sin, we see it as Jesus tricking us. Tricking us into
this life. Tricking us into suffering our own trials. Tricking us to believe in
Him. Thus, we live in the upside-down, where lies are truth and the Truth is
treason, deserving of death. Thus, Jesus comes telling the truth and we believe
He is lying and so put Him to death.
We believe He is lying and send Him to the cross with our
sin. We think we have the power to fleece God, pretending to follow Him,
getting Him close, then turning Him over at the last minute. But that is the
veil over our own eyes. You see, that was the plan all long and our sin, death,
and the power of the devil were perfect, unwilling participants.
Look at it this way. The fleecing, or veiling, begins with
Moses. In Exodus 34, at the same time the Tabernacle was veiled with the same
veil that was torn in two, Moses also was made to veil. This is because every
time he would go in to speak to the Lord, whether it was up on the mountain or
in the Holy of Holies now being constructed, his face shone with a bright
light.
“Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and
behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him” (Ex
34:30). Able to coax them near again and proving he was safe, he would veil
his face for their sakes. So Moses was veiled and the Ark of the Covenant was
veiled.
That veil stays up, until Jesus. We hear of it still in use
in the Temple. Thank God, because we can at least be sure that, if nothing
else, the Word was still being preached and taught in its purity, as they still
held the Word in high regard, keeping the veil up.
We too, keep the veil up, not to hide, but to remember.
Remember that the veil was utilized to cover up the Truth. The truth that Moses
spoke and the Truth of the Ark. The veil is lifted, St. Paul says, “when a man
turns to the Lord” (2 Cor 3:16). When a man converts, returns to the Truth,
then the veil is lifted.
And what happens in that moment? The Temple veil is torn in
two and we see the Ark of the Covenant, with two angels, the cherubim, one
sitting where Jesus’s head had been and one where His feet had been. Moses’s
face veil is torn in two and we see a man and hear that God will come as a man
and necessarily will suffer.
For, “This is what is written” in Moses, St. Luke
24:46-47 records, “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the
third day, and in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins will be
proclaimed to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.”
In other words, the Gospel was shining under the veil of
Moses. Under our fleece we find lies and deceit. Under the fleece of Jesus we
find mercy, we find truth, we find forgiveness. The Fleece of the Lamb of God
is the Golden Fleece stained with Blood. The marks of spear and nail mark the
King. Christ the King. That is the Golden shine that our sinful eyes cannot
stand to look at.
That Golden Fleece, then is laid on us. Being baptized into
the Lamb of God we now put on the Lamb. This Blood-stained, resurrected Fleece
of God now fleeces the devil, death, and our sin. It tricks the devil into
thinking we are easy prey until he bites into us and finds the Body of Christ.
It tricks the world into thinking we are dunces and unimportant, until it kills
us and sees us seated with Christ on Judgement Day.
It also tricks our sinful nature by telling the truth. For
not only do we judge ourselves unworthy of grace, but also not in need of it.
We believe we are Jason, able to fulfill the quest towards holiness and we
believe we are Odysseus, able to fool God with our sheep’s clothing.
Rather the Fleece of God reveals us. It reveals our sin,
worthy of temporal and eternal punishment. Out in the open. No veil. And by
exposing us, He also reveals the gold and silver of the Body and Blood of
Christ, which passes through the trial of the furnace. Jesus covers us, as He
says, “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins
are covered” (Romans 4:7).
“Within His wounds I find a stay”, we sing in LSB 716. The
Body and Blood of Jesus is now the True Veil. Thus, the last veil to be removed
is our own meat-suit. Remember, Jesus has taken our flesh into Himself. He has
assumed our human nature, that is, purified it and it now sits at God’s Right
Hand, awaiting the Final Day where we will be unveiled, not as frauds, but as
true sons.
So we sit in this fleece, though it is Christ’s, and not our
own. We sit and await the True Last Day, with trumpets and shouts and
lightenings. Not the fake armageddon of lies and military strength. But the
True appearing of the Lamb, Who’s voice we shall hear and know and follow with
our own shouts of Hosanna, to His Wedding Feast.
