To you all who are beloved of God in Rensselaer (Monticello) called as saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Who speaks to you today as always, only through His Gospel
saying,
“For I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners.”
In
the Old Testament reading from Ezekiel, you hear the prophesy of the Four
Gospels to come and proclaim the favorable year of the Lord
(Isa.
61:2) by the forgiveness of sins. To follow the Holy Ghost handing out and
proclaiming whatever He gives and says, these four living creatures are
representing what the Gospel does. The fire is the Light of the World speaking
His Gospel through them. Speaking of mercy and not sacrifice. Preaching the
truth in Love and the fullness of Christ.
For
it has been since Apostolic times that the Church has associated these four
living creatures in Ezekiel with the Four Gospels. The human face with the
Gospel according to St. Matthew whose feast day we celebrate today, the lion
with St. Mark, the ox with St. Luke, and the eagle with St. John. Each animal representing a unique
aspect of the Gospel associated with it.
For
St. Matthew, it is the human face, or literally, the face of a man. This is
because a recurring phrase in St. Matthew’s gospel is
“the
man” when talking about and referring to Jesus. The sad part is that it doesn’t
come through in English translations, but St. Matthew is known for emphasizing
the man-ness of Jesus and focusing on the human nature of Jesus.
Not
that St. Matthew forgets or neglects the divine nature, but that we hear more
of how God was made man and what sort of things He spent His time doing, as a
man. Meaning they are important for us men. This comes out in our Gospel
reading, though again not in English.
In
v.12, the Greek says,
“But
The Man, hearing
[them],
said…”
And
it happens all over St. Matthew’s gospel.
“The
Man” did this or
“The
Man” did that. Jesus is The Man and as Man He lives a life of perfection, He
suffers, dies, and is buried just as men are. It is in this part of the mystery
of
“God
made flesh” that St. Matthew keeps our attention on throughout his gospel book.
Even
though it is St. John’s
gospel that holds the phrase
“Behold
the man” uttered by John the Baptist, the first 2 chapters of St. Matthew
are not in the other gospels. This includes the genealogy of the man, Joseph,
Jesus’ earthly father, that same man giving Jesus His Name, and the wise men,
flight to Egypt,
and the murder of the Holy Innocents.
So
it is that the Man, Jesus, does hear, as the gospel said He heard the
Pharisees. He hears the Pharisees cries of self-righteousness, their
self-proclaimed wellness as the gospel says, and He also hears the
tax-collectors’ and sinners’ cries for mercy, those who are sick or evilly
afflicted with a worldly lifestyle. Jesus hears even when all parties have no
idea they are praying for those things.
For
whether you think you are well or think you are sick, Jesus passes in front of
us and calls out. But He calls out in a rough way and St. Matthew uses himself
as an illustration for us. You see, at the beginning of the gospel pericope, it
is Matthew being called and spoken to by Jesus. At the end, Jesus says that He
has come to call and speak to sinners. St. Matthew, in his own hand, is calling
himself a sinner.
Now,
you would sinfully think that since St. Matthew is writing this gospel to be
heard by the whole world that he would take the time to make himself look good.
Maybe he would be the first one Jesus called, or the beloved disciple, or the
most devoted. This would be the time to do just that and other writers have
done it and continue to.
In
the Koran, Mohammed is continuously promoted as the
“model
for all men” and is given the most
“blessings”
from Allah. In Mormonism, John Smith had the secret knowledge and all the best
stuff from everyone. Even in the eastern religions, you are the best if you
live life virtuously and to be copied by everyone else. And any book by a
politician, well, you know.
Instead,
St. Matthew knows John the Baptist’s words well,
“He
must increase and I must decrease”
(Jn.
3:30). There is something bigger than St. Matthew happening and St. Matthew
is very much aware of this something. We are made aware of his awareness in the
very first verse of his entire gospel book and in one other place, for
example.
When
St. Matthew says,
“The
book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham”
in 1:1, he literally says in the Greek,
“The
book of the genesis of Jesus Christ…”. Meaning, St. Matthew knew he was writing
scripture, as in, finishing or completing what Moses’ book of Genesis started.
In
another place in St. Matthew’s gospel
(24:14,
26:13), he records Jesus saying
“wherever
this gospel is preached” and
“this
gospel will be preached” throughout the whole world.
“This
gospel” meaning this book that St. Matthew was writing.
But
that didn’t matter to St. Matthew. He didn’t try to paint himself rosy. He knew
that God knew his sins. He knew that he was already exposed to the Almighty and
that every single one of his thoughts, words, and deeds was known. He also knew
that they would be revealed to everyone on the Last Day, so why try to hide
them now?
No,
St. Matthew’s trust was not in how well he did things in Jesus’ eyes neither
was it in how well he wrote about those things that Jesus did. St. Matthew’s
trust was in the Man.
The Man, come down from the heavens in order to hear sinners and call them to
follow Him to Confession and Absolution.
Jesus
says,
“Follow
me” and tax-collectors and Pharisees follow Him. Like moths to a flaming torch,
all creation cannot help itself around God’s Word. When God says,
“Follow
me”, St. Matthew rises as if from a deathly, sinful sleep to follow. Man to
man, God stands in front of you and speaks to you.
Jesus
stands in front of you, calling you a sinner, but He does so from His cross. He
may have the face of a man that you can grab hold of and scourge, but He is
also the face of God. And, in St. Matthew’s gospel, He is the God-man come to
call sinners to follow Him where His Body and Blood is to be a ransom for the
many
(Mt.
20:28).
He
makes the demand of you, from our Introit, to speak wisdom, talk of judgment,
and hold the law of God in your heart. But instead of extracting that tax from
you, He taxes Himself and suffers and dies in order to purchase and win
you.
Neither
does He wait for you to write the perfect confession or vow. Instead the wisdom
and righteousness He wants is His own words which He conveniently pens down on
paper, through the Apostles, for you. In His mercy, Jesus gives us His
righteousness found in the gospel that St. Matthew wrote, through the Holy
Ghost. Holy Wisdom is found only in speaking God’s Word, which you find in the Gospel
according to St. Matthew.
Thus
it becomes St. Matthew’s priority to get his gospel book to all people. He does
not just write, but he preaches. Legend has it that he wrote the gospel as a
sort of catechetical, farewell letter to the Jews before leaving and being
martyred in Persia,
some years after.
We
know that he not only carried his gospel and shared it, but that he did so in
the context of the Divine Service, for all the Apostles and pastors
“devoted
themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of
bread and the prayers”
(Acts
2:42).
It
is this gospel and Divine Service light that opens our minds to comprehend just
how the four living creatures of Ezekiel represent the Gospel. Four faces, four
gospels. Wings of the angel messengers that carry the message of God. And the
Light of the World, unchanging, not turning to the left or to the right, and
flashing for the world to see as we hear Psalm 97:4 say,
“His
lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.”
In
Christ Crucified, St. Matthew’s gospel book brings salvation and faith by
hearing, in the light of Christ. Christ gives us His Apostle’s teachings to
hear and read that we might be equipped, build up His Church, and finally
attain the
“unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God”…”so that we may no longer
be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of
doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” as our
Epistle teaches us today.
This
is the kind of God you worship. This is the kind of Savior you have, that the
power of His salvation and redemption is stored in the gospel written by a man,
a sinner, a tax-collector no less, and revealing the Son of Man to you, that
you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
We
rise for the Gospel reading during Service, just as St. Matthew rose at our
Savior’s words to follow Him. Not because they are pretty, but because in them
we hear of mercy, of peace, and of forgiveness from God. We rise from our
deathly slumber of our own sin, death, and the devil to once again shout
“Amen”
and
“I
believe” upon hearing it.
We
follow Christ through His Church Year, going again and again to the cross
through Advent, to Easter, to the Last Day. We look around our own church in
faith and see our Lord reclining with us at the Supper Table and know that His
Word is for us. That when we hear His Word, we know that we are sick and we
know that our God comes with mercy to call sinners to His healing waters, especially
in His Gospel.
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