Sermon manuscript:
We have come to the last Sundays of the Church Year. At the
end of the Church Year the lectionary directs our attention to the end of the
world. Our readings today are especially concerned with that line in the Creed
that says, “He shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the
dead. His kingdom shall have no end.”
Almost 2,000 years have passed since Jesus died on the cross
and rose from the dead. A person might wonder: “Where is this promised
coming of his?” There is plenty of material available for a person to scoff
at the notion that Jesus will come again. It’s not very hard to scoff. We human
beings have been prone to scoff since almost the very beginning: “You won’t
surely die.” “He won’t see us in these bushes.” “Where’s the water, Noah?” “How
are we going to escape, Moses?” “If you’re really the Christ, then come down
from that cross? Then we’ll believe you.”
With Christ’s second coming we are dealing with an article
of faith. Hebrews says of faith that it is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things unseen. There’s hardly any arguing that can be done for
articles of faith. Either something happens or it doesn’t. Arguing only plays
into our natural tendency to scoff. Arguing, for example, is what convinced the
Jewish leaders that Jesus could not be the promised Christ.
John’s Gospel tells us what the leaders were saying about
Jesus. They said, “He has the audacity to heal people on the Sabbath! He’s a
Sabbath breaker. He even continued to heal people on the Sabbath after we specifically
told him not to. How can the Christ be a Sabbath breaker?” They said, “He is
from Nazareth in Galilee. The Christ has to come from Bethlehem. Plus we’re not
even very sure about who his father is.” Then there were all those people with
whom Jesus associated: “A bunch of sinners—the whole lot of them. No
self-respecting Christ would associate with people like that.”
The ringleaders who put Jesus to death had zero doubt that
he was an imposter and a blasphemer. Their arguments were ironclad. It was the
stupid laymen who were being taken in by him. It was for the sake of the stupid
laymen that he had to be put to death and that right soon, otherwise the whole
world would go after him.
But arguing, and the fear of being scoffed at, finally got
the best even of almost all of the disciples. They also came to point where
they denied him and disbelieved in him—especially after he died. They had
thought that he was the Christ, but now he was dead. You can’t prop up a corpse
on the throne and expect good government or victory over the Gentiles.
So do not imagine that those who scoff at Christ’s second
coming are doing anything new. Ever since the fall into sin mankind has had a
devil of a time believing anything that God says or promises. The one who believes
is blessed. The one who does not believe only discovers the truth after it is
too late. Waiting and seeing is different from watching and praying. Waiting
and seeing is what some of the people were doing at Christ’s cross: “Let’s wait
and see if the does something that is worthy of us bestowing our faith upon him.”
But Jesus did not reveal himself to many skeptics after he rose from the dead.
The notable exception to that was the apostle Thomas. As it says in Romans: “God
shows mercy to whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.”
Regardless of what anybody thinks, the truth must win out.
God will vindicate his people. This is one of the things that Jesus is teaching
in our Gospel reading today. All people and every individual is either a sheep
or a goat. Every individual goes either to Jesus’s right or his left. The sole
criterion for whether a person is on Jesus’s right or his left is whether that
individual believed in him and in the promise of his second coming. We are
justified before God by faith. The value of faith is rather hidden in this
life. It doesn’t appear all that useful. Money, intelligence, and a good work
ethic appear to be more important. But faith is vindicated with Christ’s second
coming.
That is when judgement comes. This is not the first time
that God has judged. Jesus says that it will be like those other times when God
judged. It will come at an hour that no one expects. He says it will be like it
was in the days of Noah, and as it was in the days of Sodom. People were eating
and drinking, buying and selling, marrying and being given in marriage. Life
will be going on like it always has until it doesn’t.
There is no way to sugar coat this teaching without being
wildly unfaithful to the Scriptures and to Jesus’s own teaching. There is a
lake of fire that has been prepared for the devil and all his angels. The goats
will go there too. There is an outer darkness where there is weeping and
gnashing of teeth. There is a place where the worm does not die and the fire is
never quenched. These are all things that Jesus says. You can believe in them
or you can choose not to, but you shouldn’t call yourself a Christian if you
are embarrassed by Jesus and his words. Faith is all important. Fain in Jesus
and his words is all important.
However, this should not be construed to mean that it’s a
matter of having the good sense to believe in Jesus. Faith should not be
understood in merely a utilitarian sense where having faith is some way to get
ahead in life, or in the next life. Such a calculating and self-serving
understanding of faith is not a faith that is worked by God and given as a
gift. Faith like that is the product of man’s shrewd reasoning. It is not
genuine.
That Jesus is talking about true faith is plainly seen by
the way that he describes the sheep and the goats in our Gospel reading. If you
think that faith is merely a matter of hell insurance, a clever trick to escape
punishment, then you will end up among the goats. Notice how the goats simply
cannot endure God’s judgment. They are thoroughly irritated at this fellow who
has the gall to judge them: “When did we ever see you
hungry or thirsty or a stranger or lacking clothes or sick or in prison and did
not serve you?” The implication here is, “We’re good people. Why didn’t you
speak up? If you would have showed up at our door, hat in hand, we would have gladly
given you directions to the Salvation Army. Why didn’t you show some
initiative?”
Or, when it comes to the issue of faith, they might well
say, “I had the good sense to believe in Jesus! I thought it was all true as
true can be! The Bible says it and I believe it. You can’t send me to hell!
It’s against the rules that you yourself have set!”
But this is wrong. Faith in Christ does, indeed, save, but
it must be true faith, not fake faith. True faith is given by the Holy Spirit
to those who repent. Fake faith is a product of man’s reason, where he thinks
that he can beat God at his own game. He makes sure that he plays his cards
right, church-wise perhaps—makes sure he stays on the books, but meanwhile his
heart is full of hatred, lust, greed, and all manner of selfishness. Christ,
for these people, is the get-out-of-hell free card that gives them license to
pursue the evil that they would have pursued regardless. Now, however, they can
do it with impunity.
Nevertheless, all these people that I am talking about believe
with their whole heart that they are going to be saved, because they had the
good sense to believe in Jesus. It is precisely these people who will be as mad
as hell on Judgement Day. Here they went to all this trouble of being a member
of the church and giving offerings and serving on the church board, and all
those hours of sitting through boring sermons, and it is all for naught! The
goats, in general, are proud and angry.
The sheep are very different. They are humble and
self-effacing. Jesus commends them for the good works that they have done, and
they don’t know what he is talking about. They weren’t keeping a ledger of
debits and credits. The idea of making a case for their justification before
God is the furthest thing from their minds, and for good reason. They wouldn’t
have a leg to stand on. During their earthly life they were repentant.
What was vivid in their mind was not all the supposedly good
things that they had done, but the way that even their best works were like
filthy rags. Meanwhile, unawares, the Holy Spirit was at work in their lives
like leaven in a lump of dough. Unawares the Holy Spirit was working love in
their life. Their left hand did not know what their right hand was doing. Just
as a good tree produces good fruit because that’s just what good trees do, so
also God is at work in the lives of those whom he has chosen, those whom he has
given the gift of faith in Christ.
So faith is not some meritorious work that we have done
which deserves the reward of heaven. Faith is a gift from God. Faith is worked
by the Holy Spirit, when and where he chooses, in those who hear the Gospel.
Faith alone justifies, but faith does not remain alone. Faith is followed by
good works, worked by the Holy Spirit, otherwise it is not true faith. Poor,
miserable, sinners, without even a spark of goodness in themselves are given
access to the very righteousness and goodness of God. It is by communion with
God that love is worked, because, as 1 John says, God is love.
And notice for whom the good works were done. They were done
for the least of Jesus’s brothers and therefore were done to him. We can be
pretty savvy about for whom we do good works. We are much more prone to scratch
the backs of those who are more likely to scratch ours in return. Jesus,
however, teaches us that we should love our enemies and not just our friends.
He says that if we are going to give a dinner party we should not invite rich
people who will invite us to their home in return. We should invite those who
cannot pay us back.
Our calculating reason, which is always looking out for our
own welfare, find such advice distasteful: “No thanks. I don’t want to do
anything nice for those who have hurt me.” We might be willing to do “good
works,” but those good works better have a pretty good rate of return,
otherwise you can forget it.
Thus you can see how different the sheep are from the goats.
Thus you can see what a difference there is between true faith and fake faith. The
sheep did their work naturally and without calculation. They did what they did
because their nature was changed by God. They were made to be like their
heavenly Father who makes his sun to shine on the evil and the good. It is a
miracle for anyone to love his enemy, but that is what God works in his
disciples. As disciples, or students, they learn from and follow the works of
their master Jesus. He did not just die for the good (otherwise there’d be no
one for him to die for), he died for the evil. This is the most beautiful and
good thing that has ever happened, and it is a wonderful thing when it is
manifested also in his followers—even though it is noticed by precious few.
So when Christ comes in glory to judge the living and the
dead, it will indeed be on the basis of faith. Realize, however, that we can
fool ourselves into manufacturing a convenient faith for ourselves that is fake
and self-serving. Faith is for those who have empty hands. They know their sins and believe that God
would be right to send them to hell for the evil life that they have lived. But
they believe that God has loved them in Christ and made atonement for their
sins. He is the Savior. They love and trust him.
Thus their lives are changed by God. Jesus is the vine and
we are the branches. Apart from him we can do nothing. In him we produce fruit.
These works of the faithful are not done for the purpose of making our case for
being a good person. This is what the goats do. Instead we do these works for
no other reason than that the works are good.
In preparation for that great and terrible day of the Lord
that is coming, we should not wait and see, but rather watch and pray. He is
coming. In the meantime he is at work in us, making us into the beautiful image
of Christ the crucified.
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