Sermon Manuscript:
From almost the very beginning of the world there have
always been two different kinds of people: believers and unbelievers. Adam and
Eve were created as believers. The devil turned them into unbelievers with his
lies. God had mercy on them and came to them again. He brought them to
repentance. He promised salvation in Jesus, the Seed of the woman.
In the first generation after Adam and Eve we see the two
different kinds of people. Cain, the firstborn, became jealous of his younger
brother Abel because Abel was acceptable in God’s sight whereas Cain was not.
Cain was an unbeliever. Abel was a believer. Cain killed his brother. God gave
another son to Adam and Eve named Seth. Seth was a believer.
With the descendants of Cain and Seth we see that communities
are formed. The descendants of Cain were unbelievers. The descendants of Seth
were believers. The descendants of Cain are described as great innovators. They
worked hard to remove the curses that came with the fall into sin. They tried
to make a name for themselves. The Sethites had very different ambitions. They
are described as being people who called on the name of the Lord. They listened
to God’s Word, prayed, praised, and gave thanks.
With both groups of people you have communities, which make
them different than isolated individuals. Within communities cultures develop. People
are raised and confirmed in a certain way. Members of the community support and
encourage one another in their shared objectives. This is true for the worldly
Cainites as well as the believing Sethites. This has been the way that things
have carried on from that point forward up to the present day. Around the world
there are cultures where many things are known and taught. Many things are
believed in. But not everyone knows of and believes in the Savior promised to
Adam and Eve. The community of believers in Christ is small in comparison to
these other cultures. Nonetheless, here, there, and scattered throughout the
world congregations of Christians remain. They are congregated by the Holy
Spirit. They call on the name of the Lord. They hear God’s Word, pray, praise,
and give thanks. Within these little communities children of God are born who
will not die, but have eternal life in Jesus their Savior.
Believers and unbelievers, Sethites and Cainites, have
existed from the beginning. They will exist until the end of the world. But
these communities do not have permanent members. As we’ve already mentioned,
Adam and Eve went from being believers to being unbelievers and back again. Cain
was born into a family of believers, but he became an unbeliever. Some people
have been born into an unbelieving family, but God called them out of darkness
into his marvelous light.
The way that someone is converted as well as the way that
faith is sustained is always the same. Barring some extraordinary miracle, it
is always by coming into contact with individuals and communities who believes
in Christ. The Word of God gets preached by Christians in such a case. The Word
of God is preached to believers so that they can continually repent of their
sins and believe in Christ. The Word of God is preached to those who are not
yet converted, inviting them also to take refuge in the crucified Christ for
their salvation.
These individuals and communities who have the Word of God
are essential for faith. Those places where there are no Christians are
wastelands, haunts of the devil, even if they be sophisticated and rich like it
was with the Cainites or with Sodom and Gomorrah. Even where there has been the
Word of God, however, it can and does and always will happen that the community
declines. “Judgment begins at the household of God,” as Peter says.
God’s people are punished for their chasing after idols, for their
cold-heartedness, for their disobedience.
When God punishes with the loss of property or pestilence or
some other bodily harm, then things are not so bad. But He can also punish by
taking the Holy Spirit away so that people’s ears remain deaf. Eventually, if
God does not relent and have mercy, God’s Word and Sacraments will disappear
altogether because only believers are interested in coming to Church. If there
are no believers, then there will be no Church. Then a place that once was
blessed with a people who loved God by the power of the Gospel will become a
place where there are jackals and screech owls. It will become a haunted
wasteland, spiritually speaking. There is no sadder story that can possibly be
told than this one. It is the tragedy of the Garden of Eden all over again.
Even the Son of God is saddened by this story as we heard in our Gospel
reading.
The setting for our Gospel reading is Palm Sunday. The
people had just hailed Jesus as the Messiah, the blessed one who comes in the
name of the Lord. However, when Jesus looks out over Jerusalem he weeps. Jesus
is not a wilting flower by temperament. He does not cry at the drop of a hat.
He is moved to tears, however, by the spiritual devastation that is laid before
him. That which was so beautiful is ugly, even though the buildings and
institutions still glittered and sparkled. What was missing was not money or
power or programs or buildings. What Jerusalem lacked was faith.
How come? There were a lot of reasons. The Jews had become
externally minded, that is, they only cared for achieving those results that
could easily be seen with the eyes, instead of the true spiritual riches that
can only take place in a person’s soul. Thus the Jews were always courting the Romans
and pulling the levers of power. They schemed to get bigger and richer, bigger
and richer.
At the same time, with all their success, they came to
believe in their own greatness. They honored the great teachers of their past
and made the teachings of men to be more important than the Word of God. This
is why all the higher-ups in the Church bureaucracy were convinced that Jesus
could be nothing other than a false teacher. Jesus had healed people on the
Sabbath. Jesus had cleared the Temple. He had said that he was God’s Son. That
Jesus was no good was as clear to these highly educated men as 2+2=4.
While these churchmen were absolutely convinced of their
infallibility, they also engaged in wicked things. They were full of jealousy,
strife, and covetousness. They went to old widows and convinced them to give
all their money to the church in their slick and slimy ways. They cared nothing
for the souls of people. All they cared about was themselves, their own
comfort, and if there was anyone to blame, it certainly wasn’t them. It had to
be the stupid laypeople who hadn’t learned all their special, manmade rules.
Thus God’s Word was made of no effect. One of the things
that surprised and impressed the people who heard Jesus’s teaching was that he
actually had something meaningful to say. He spoke with authority. Jesus’s
preaching bit into their lives instead of playing it safe and asking for more
money like all the Pharisees and scribes did.
Where God’s Word is transformed into a play-thing for the
clergy it is no longer God’s Word that is being preached. Instead of God’s Word
it becomes the church’s Word. This is a lot more common than you think. The
church, however, should be silent in church. The church has no business
preaching and teaching her own thing. The church is not the Savior of the body.
Only our Lord Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Son of God, is the Savior.
The true Church, therefore, doesn’t want to hear the church’s Word. She only
has one teacher—Jesus. She only has one Shepherd—Jesus. All the rest are
thieves and robbers.
In the Ten Commandments God says that those who misuse his
name will not go away unpunished. There is no worse way to misuse God’s name
than to claim to be speaking his Word, to claim that you are telling people
what God’s will is, but to be telling them something that is not true. This is
what the leaders of the Jewish people were doing. Therefore they are punished. Jesus
says, “If you, yes you, had only known on this day the things that would
bring peace to you. But now, it is hidden from your eyes.” Note the one who
is doing the hiding. It’s God. Therefore, no amount of searching, no amount of
tears, nothing that these people can do can change anything. God won’t let them
see the things that will bring them everlasting peace. God has hardened and
blinded them so that they could not repent even if they should want to.
Every time we sin individually or corporately as a church
body we are inviting God’s punishment upon us, the worst of which is the
hardening of heart that Jesus curses Jerusalem with. This is the worst thing
that can ever happen, for then it becomes totally impossible for people to
achieve the end point of what we have been created to be. What I mean is that it
is impossible for the person without faith to love the Lord our God with all
their heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love their neighbor. Instead they
will be left in sin, in scratching each other’s eyes out, in hating the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
If this can happen to the Jews—that wonderful chosen race,
the apple of God’s eye—then it most certainly can happen to us. The community
of God at that time was the Jews. They had God’s Word. They had God’s promises.
Salvation was received through those people preaching the Gospel. The Gospel
has now come to us, but what is our spiritual state? How are things with us
individually? Have we been obedient or have we sinned against our conscience?
How are we as a congregation? Have we helped one another, encouraged one
another, supported one another? Have we worked to bring about what is helpful
for our faith life and removed from our midst whatever is not? How are we as a
Synod? Have we brushed under the rug what should be dealt with in the light of
day? Have we been filled with fear of the world’s scorn and condemnation? Have
we been concerned with only visible, external success?
Unless you have been hardened and blinded, you must see that
we are as fully deserving of punishment as the Jews were at the time of Jesus.
God already seems to be indicating that he is taking the light of his truth
away from our people. Whole generations have been lost to unbelief and
worldliness. These are our children and our grandchildren. But where are the
hearts that are stirred? Who cries in anguish to our God? The tragedy of
alienation from God makes little impression on us.
Everything is not just fine with us. Do not listen to those
lying prophets who say that we are living in the greatest time that has ever
been. Do not listen to those lying prophets who say that religion is outdated
or unimportant or a private matter or that we all believe in the same thing
anyway. Each in his or her own way is saying “Peace, peace,” but there is no
peace. They are all saying that there is nothing to be upset about. Life is
carrying on as it always has. People are buying and selling, marrying and being
given in marriage. They are all overlooking the way that our hearts are far
from loving God. We love a lot of things, but God, God’s name, God’s Word. This,
of course, is precisely the thing that comes naturally to all of us. Nobody has
to try to ignore God or to love and worship other things besides him. We do
that naturally.
We must therefore become better Christians. Ironically,
becoming a better Christian is to discount and despise one’s self—to disbelieve
in one’s self with all your heart, and to rely entirely upon your God. The
strength of God’s people, the strength of the community of believers, has
always been the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies us
together with Christ in the one true faith. God does not take delight in sacrifices
or whole burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken
and contrite heart God will not despise. Pray for God’s kingdom to come. Pray
for the Holy Spirit to reign and rule in your heart instead of your evil
spirit. Let the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart be
acceptable in God’s sight. Be sanctified in the truth. God’s word is truth.
I’ve told you today that there is no sadder story than the
story of someone who loses his or her faith. It’s the tragedy of the Garden of
Eden all over again. But Jesus tells us something remarkable about the opposite
too. He says that the angels in heaven rejoice when just one sinner repents.
The angels care more about someone repenting than they do about all the biggest
news stories of our day. That is because something divine and eternal is going
on in your heart when you believe that God has raised Jesus from the dead, and
confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.
Therefore I have no doubt that the angels are watching us
today, and surely God is taking notice. You who repent today and lift up your
hearts unto the Lord—this is not without consequence. Repent of your evil ways
and evil deeds. Turn to the Lord and he will heal us.
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