Life given [Trinity 26; St. Matthew 25:31-46]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

So, Jesus speaks to us today in His Penultimate Gospel and says,

“Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”

Penultimate is the word used for “second to last”, following of course, the word for last: ultimate. And what we are to take away from today, especially as we continue to circle around this text year after year, is that the Lord is Coming and He is coming soon.

As we discussed last week, the thing that keeps us on the straight and narrow towards the Lord’s Return is Confession and Absolution within the Divine Service. We need that Confession of our sins, because Jesus came to forgive sinners and if we say we have sin, Jesus then absolves us and we know He is there, as He promised.

In the Divine Service then, we examine ourselves after Absolution and determine that, in Christ, we are worthy to receive the Sacrament and stand before God’s judgment of us to be declared blessed and not declared condemned.

Thus, when our Collect of the Day:

"O God, so rule and govern our hearts and minds by Thy Holy Spirit: that, being ever mindful of the end of all things and the day of Thy just Judgment, we may be stirred up to holiness of living here and dwell with Thee forever hereafter; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the same Holy Ghost: ever one God, world without end. Amen."

it urges continuous study and meditation on the end of all things and the final judgment, we are stirred to holy living and a “forever after” with our Lord. Here, of course, study does not just mean reading your Bible at home, neither does holy living simply mean going out and being a nice person.

The Collect calls us to be mindful. This includes study, but also includes a life lived IN holiness. They go together. And a life lived in holiness is nothing more than receiving the holy Sacrament from the hand of Christ Himself. For Christ has promised to dwell with us where we gather around His Name and it is here that His name is proclaimed in Gospel purity. Being baptized into Christ we are placed in holiness Himself.

So when we begin to digest our Introit from Psalm 54, we are not crying out in despair against those who are after our soul, but we are crying out in the midst of mercy; in the midst of the Divine Service; in the midst of this holy life Christ gives us for free. “Save me, O God”, “Hosanna”, we cry out, and He is right there saying take and eat and drink for your salvation.

So we have a pre-judgment party! A foretaste of the Last Day. This is every Sunday in the Divine Service. In today’s world, everyone is worried about finding the date and time for when the Lord will return and the Lutheran’s are all like, “Hey. He’s been coming to Church ever since we’ve been here. Why the fuss?”

Repent! Why is it that all that comes to mind when you think of rescue from God is that you want Him to make your lives easier? All you value God’s salvation for is how comfortable your lives may become. When things go bad, you call on God. When things go well you leave Him alone. Sin becomes just a few mistakes you make along the way, asking for help to correct them and prevent them in the future.

Praying to God to rule and govern your hearts and minds is saying that you don’t do it, more to the point, that you can’t do it. Begging God to stir up our hearts to His way of living is saying that we weren’t living that way to begin with. Shouting “Hosanna”; pleading for salvation is saying that sin is so much more than a tiny mistake.

When Jesus tells us that His purpose is to seek and save that which is lost, He doesn’t mean that He’s looking for a little lamb who lost their way or made a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Jesus came to seek and to save that which is lost, meaning something that has gone away and is not coming back. Whenever we read the word “lost” in the Bible, it is important to remember that this word means death.

It is no small thing then, that we see the Lord of all Creation come down in the flesh and rescue humanity by way of the cross. A mistake can be corrected. A wrong can be righted. A sin cannot and does not go away. Sin is an infection. A corruption on the genetic level with no hope of a cure.

No hope, until Christ purchases and wins a cure: His own sacrifice and death. It is in His life of suffering that the holy way is opened for the possibility of redemption from our sin. He does not say “try harder” or “you can do better next time”. He says in Matthew 20:

“See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

Jesus is saying that He doesn’t just want simple obedience in your life, He wants you to believe Him. Believe that He suffered and died for you. Believe that He created a life of holiness, for you. Believe that He has come to rescue you from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Believe that He dwells with you in Word and Sacrament.

In dividing the sheep and the goats today, Jesus is making a distinction. He is defining who the sheep are and who the goats are. Not because inherently there’s a difference, but because of what He says about them. He wants the sheep to believe they are sheep, because of what He has done for them and He wants the goats to believe they are goats because of what they think they have done for themselves.

Jesus does not lay out a plan for a fulfilling life in describing His sheep. He lays out the plan of His life. For Jesus feeds the hungry and the thirsty in Communion. Jesus calls the unloved stranger, loved with His Gospel. Jesus clothes the sinful in baptism. Jesus comes to the sin-sick and sin-shackled and visits them with forgiveness and freedom.

In faith, the sheep, those who believe, take on a Christ-like character without even knowing it and through no merit or worthiness in them, they live and work. In faith, the sheep live their lives and are surprised when Jesus declares that such sinful creatures as themselves do and have done works that are pleasing to God. In faith, the sheep die and are wakened to the sound of the Shepherd’s voice praising them for all the things He did in their lives.

Will there be such faith when the Son of Man returns to earth, Jesus asks (Lk. 18:8). Will our holy living take on a character of our own making or will we continue to live the Life Jesus gave us in His Church? In these final days of earth, Jesus has already given us all we need to prepare and survive until He returns.

He has given us faith. He has given us His holy life of faith, to be lived out in the Church. He has presented Himself and His Service in such a manner that all hearts are moved to belief in His salvation.

So that when we hear, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” (Gal. 2:20-21), our own hearts and minds are taught to conclude that we too are blessed by our Father in heaven and stand to inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world.