As I said last week, today our liturgical color has changed to green the color of growth. We now commence the Pentecost season and the non-festival portion of our church year calendar. We began our current church year back in December of last year and we moved to series A of our Lectionary or our Bible reading series. Let me remind you that in series A of our Bible readings we will for the most part be hearing Gospel readings from the Gospel of Matthew meaning that we will be growing in our Christian faith and life through the writings of the Gospel writer Matthew, as he was inspired to write by God Himself. This Matthew is the one who was a tax collector called by Jesus. He is Jewish and he is writing in particular to a Jewish audience. And with his accounting background you may notice his writing often include numeric references. So, let us get to today’s text.
The idolatry of our society has reached epoch proportions. That sounds like it would make a great newspaper headline, but what in the world do I mean? We are now, and have been, living in what sociologist call a pluralistic society. The ideologies, the philosophies, the theologies, the ideas and concepts of our world suggest that “broad is the way to heaven,” that there are many ways to the same god and the same heaven. How narrow minded are we Christians who believe, what the Bible says, that there is only one way to heaven and that way is through faith in Jesus. And unfortunately, many, too many, people, even some, which is too many, Christians, and I would suggest that even some among us here at St. Matthew have bought into this idolatry. This idolatry makes it easy for us to sit on our grace and do nothing, because if everyone is saved, why bother confronting others and showing them they are doomed. This morning I want to tell you some history. I want to tell you His story, that is, Jesus history.
Jesus is unlike anyone else who ever was or will be. Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that He is truly God. He was born of a woman, Mary, so that He is truly human. Throughout His time on this earth, Jesus showed Himself time and time again to be God. The gospel writer John talks a lot about Jesus performing signs, wonders and miracles and that it is through these signs, wonders and miracles that Jesus shows Himself to be who He says He is, God in flesh, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. This fact, that Jesus is God in flesh, flies right in the face of many religious groups, non-Christian cults and sects today, especially those such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, the Muslims, and many others.
As true God, Jesus was able to see the real needs of humanity. I say the real needs because today we hear a lot of talk about meeting what are called the “felt” needs of people. You know how it is, a child comes and asks for candy because he is hungry. His “felt” need is candy. His real need is not candy, but real food to fill his hunger. Likewise, we often think we know what we need, after all, we can “feel” what we need, but that may not always be what we really need. Thanks be to God that Jesus can see into our hearts and lives and He knows what we really need.
We have a felt need. We are sinful human beings. We are born with a void. We are born in sin and we are in need. On our own we could and would search to have that need filled, but our filling that need would be to fill it with any of the philosophies or false theologies of the world. Again, we would fill the void in our lives with something comparable to a child who is hungry filling themselves with candy that is the type of “religion” we would find to fill the void of our lives. Jesus gives what we really need. He gives us His law which shows us our sins. One quick trip through the Ten Commandments reminds us of just how sinful we really are. But Jesus does not stop there, He also gives us His Gospel which tells us of our forgiveness. Jesus gives Himself. He has given His life for ours. He suffered the eternal death penalty for us in our place. He gives us forgiveness of sins and with forgiveness He gives eternal life. He also gives authority as we said last week. He does not give authority for lording it over others. He does not give authority for being bossy. He gives authority for sharing the good news of salvation with others. He gives authority for doing good, being kind, loving others and the like.
What is more, Jesus also gives special instructions. He gives instructions to His disciples and to us. We are not to stay safely in our homes, but we are to venture out into the hard, cold, cruel world and share our faith with others. And we do not do that alone, because we have His authority and His added promise that He will be with us always, even to the end of the world.
And Jesus gives us the message which we are to share. The message is that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. In Jesus’ day the Kingdom of heaven was right there, it was Jesus Himself. In our day, the Kingdom of Heaven is here, Jesus is with us and, at the same time He is seated at the right hand of the Father where He is watching over us, ruling over us, and interceding for us. This is Jesus’ history.
There is another history which goes along with this history and that is our history. Our history is that, although we are born in sin and daily sin much, adding to our sinfulness, yet, at our Baptism Jesus makes us a part of His Kingdom. He gives us faith, forgiveness, life and salvation. Today He continually gives us His means of grace, confession and absolution, His Holy Word and the Sacraments, Holy Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. He gives us these means through which He comes to give us all His good gifts and blessings.
It is His Word which shows us that Jesus is who He says He is, that is that He is Yahweh, God. It is His Word which tells us what we are to do and not to do, what is sin and what is not sin. It is His Word which tells us what He has done for us. How He has given His life for ours. How He has created all things and still takes care of them. How He has purchased and won us, not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. How He sends His Holy Spirit to bring us to faith, strengthen us in faith and keep us in faith until He comes again to take us to be with Himself in heaven.
Jesus sees the real need of humanity today and our real need is the forgiveness of sins. We confess that we are by nature, that is we are born, sinful and unclean. We confess that we have sinned against God by thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, what we call our sins of commission and by what we have left undone, what we call our sins of omission. Again, one quick trip through the Ten Commandments would be enough to shame us into knowing how sinful we really are. Without Jesus there is no forgiveness. With no forgiveness there is no hope. No hope for the world to come and, really, no hope for this world. Jesus meets our real need. He has given His life for us. He lived, suffered, died, rose for us, for you and for me. Jesus gives us forgiveness of sins and with forgiveness we have life, life in this world and life in the world to come, even eternal life in heaven.
Jesus gives us authority and a mission. The authority He gives is His authority. The authority He gives is to forgive sins and to proclaim the gospel. The mission He gives is to be loved by Him so that we can live our lives to His glory. And even more, Jesus gives us gifts, talents and abilities to carry out the mission He gives us. And He promises that He will be with us every step of the way, even to the ends of the earth.
The message He gives us to proclaim is the same message He gave His disciples to proclaim, that the Kingdom of Heaven is near, that Christ will come again, sooner than we know, sooner than we expect. He may wait another two thousand years. He may come next year. He may come next month. He may come tomorrow. We do not know when He will come, we simply know that we need to be ready. And understand this, we will see Him, either when He comes, or when we die, which also may come at any time. Again, the key is this, we need to be ready at all times to meet our Lord. Perhaps each morning as we get up we might look in the mirror and ask ourselves, are we ready if we are to meet Jesus today?
Jesus’ history and our history, are really only one history, at least for us Christians. Today we continue to celebrate Pentecost and God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. We celebrate that the Holy Spirit gives us faith, strengthens our faith, and keeps us in faith until Christ comes again.
We continue to make regular and diligent use of the Means of Grace, confession and absolution, the Word and the Sacraments, remembering that it is through these means that the Holy Spirit works in and through us. We also remember that, even though the Lord works through these means that does not mean that He is bound by these means, because He can and sometimes does work directly with us and through various other means when and where He chooses.
God gives and with His help, we respond to His glory. And our response is Gospel, because without His help we would not be able to respond. God gives. He gives life at conception, new life at Holy Baptism, faith, forgiveness of sins, life in this world, eternal life in heaven, gifts of talents and abilities, physical, social, emotional and spiritual blessings even beyond our counting, the sun and the rain, the moon and the stars, the seasons for planting and sowing, indeed, God gives us all things. Our only action, the only thing we do is respond and the only way we respond is through His giving us to respond. What a great God we do have.
Again, our liturgical color will remain green. Green is the color of growth. The idea is that during these Sundays we are to grow in our Christian faith and life. We do that through regular, diligent, daily reading of God’s Word. We do that through reading and rereading Jesus history. We do that through joining and combining His history with our history so that we have one history. My prayer for each one of you is that you will continue to make use of the means that God has given and that He will continue to work through those means in order to shape and mold you; in order to give you and strengthen you; in order that you might “freely give,” as you have freely been given to. To God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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