Sunday Nov 20 2022

Last Sunday of the Church Year Prop.20 

 Rev. Arturo Mendez

Sermon Text: Luke 23:27-43

SermonTheme: Following Jesus is a Mourn and Lament? Or Hope and Joy ?

 

     ²⁷ And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. ²⁸ But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. ²⁹ For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ ³⁰ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ ³¹ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Why do we begin to follow Jesus? Perhaps we have begun to follow it because we want to receive some favor from Him or because we are in pain and struggles, a lot of the best thing would be to follow Him for Hope and Joy, which I think is the most difficult thing to do, in this Gospel Passage in the life of Jesus, it is one of the most painful and most difficult passages for many people,    for it marks the end of Jesus' life on earth, and the fulfillment of the law and the prophets in the life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, but in his Death, the laments of the people who followed him and perhaps also despair for those who were left behind watching the lamentable crucifixion of their Master and Leader,    What they did not understand is that also by dying Jesus on the Cross he would give us a New Beginning for all Humanity and a path of Prosperity, we see here how Jesus warns the women who followed him to stop crying and lamenting for him, for the Pain that Jesus was suffering as a result of all our sins.

He called them "Daughters of Jerusalem," and told them not to weep for Him, but for themselves and their children.  A day was coming when those with no children would be called blessed.  It would be so terrible that they would beg for the mountains to fall on them and cover them.

Of what terrible day was Christ speaking?  Firstly, He was prophesying about the horrifying days when the Romans attacked Jerusalem.  People hid in caves, trying to let the mountains hide them.  Those with children were considered cursed, since it was harder to flee with small children. Jesus Christ was warning them on what is going to happen for the day of Judgment. He was saying stop lamenting from me. Instead be aware and lament to yourselves because the day was near and the wrath of God will be upon you if you don’t repent of your transgressions, and he is telling us the same, Repent and turn back, I’m going to lay my life in the cross for all of your transgressions.

The terror of those days is also a picture of the last days.  Then people will try to hide under mountains and rocks from the face of God.  But even the mountains will melt before His wrath.  People will try to flee from the Lord.  But where can they go that He cannot find them?  So they will face that horrible day in great terror, even more so than the Jews when Jerusalem was destroyed.  For many multitudes on the last Day will suddenly know that they must face the final judgment, but they will not be ready.

For all men are dry trees or dry wood, unable by ourselves to bear true fruit or show any signs of spiritual life.  Even we here are by nature fruitless and lifeless.  Our old Adam makes it so.  We deserve to be thrown out into the fire, which is the only good use for dry, withered wood.

Yet we need not feel the terrors of the last Day.  We may feel a  fear at first when we do not know what is happening.  But when we lift up our heads on that last Day and behold the face of God, we will see Christ the Lord at His right hand. As our Lord and savior so the wrath of God the Father is no longer in us because Jesus Christ has rescue us and we are attached in  Him by faith.  He is the Green Tree, the living One, who has given His life to us.  Although our sinful flesh is corrupt and lifeless, in Christ we are truly alive and fruitful trees.  We only bear fruit  because Christ fills us with His life and Spirit.

³² Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. ³³ And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. ³⁴ And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Therefore, the Judgment is not a source of fear to us, but instead Hope and  joy.  We need not hide in terror when the Lord reveals His face, but instead greet His coming with shouts of Hosanna, and welcome His Judgment with eager anticipation. We see a foretaste of that Judgment at the Cross itself.  Christ, so full of grace and mercy, prays to His Father to forgive those who crucified Him.  Here on the Cross, He spoke these words to indicate the purpose of His sacrifice.  He was shedding His Blood to pay the price for all sins of all people of all times.  Yet it does mean that no further price needs to be paid.  The Lord has done all and provided all that we need.  The holy Blood of God's Son is sufficient for us, no matter how serious our sins are.  We cannot and need not add anything to what He has done.

³⁹ One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him,^[c] saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” ⁴⁰ But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹ And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴² And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³ And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

We hear a true absolution in His words to the repentant criminal.  "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."  There is the promise of eternal life.  There is the assurance that Christ does not see the criminal's sins, which are surely great.  Instead, He opens for Him the gates of heaven through His gracious Word.

Why this criminal?  Because he had faith.  He saw his own sins.  He feared God, since he knew that he was rightly under condemnation.  He did not consider his own crucifixion to be unjust, since he had committed sinful deeds that merited death.  Yet the criminal also saw in Christ the only innocent Man, who deserved no punishment.  He saw that Christ was dying to purchase a kingdom.  So the man humbly begs that Christ remember him in His kingdom.

The other criminal was no greater a sinner than the one who was saved.  Yet how he treated and received Christ determined his eternal destiny.  He mocked and insulted Christ.  He even asked Christ to save him, yet not as a repentant and faithful heart begging its Savior for salvation.  No, this criminal could not see that Christ was even in that moment purchasing a kingdom with His death.  If he hoped for anything, the criminal hoped for a display of power by Christ (if He really was the Christ) to get down from the Cross and take the criminals with Him.  So the criminal did not find Paradise, but judgment and eternal death.

The judgment the criminals experienced did not wait for the Last Day, nor does judgment for us necessarily wait that long.  At any moment, we may breathe our last breath in this life and face the same Judgment. Face to face to God our Father and rescued by Faith in Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that he has already paid the price of our Judgement in the Cross, and by Faith we are saved, or without faith will be condemnation in the lake of fire. 

All that remains on the Last Day is the resurrection, when God will declare to all of heaven that you are His saints for whom He prepared His eternal Wedding Banquet.

So the Cross is the visible manifestation of the Last Day, at least two thousand years ahead of time.  Upon the Cross, we see God's wrath against sin, inflicted upon His Son.  That is the same wrath that shall cause God to cast all unbelievers into the lake of fire.  Although the lake of fire is what we deserve because of our sinful heart, so we shall not be so condemned.  The sacrifice of Christ for us has removed the punishment of God from us forever.  We shall not be set ablaze by the Judgment, but rescued for all eternity into God's Paradise.

So Christ prayed to the Father, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."  You can hear the Father's answer whenever you hear the Gospel.  That is the Father's voice, forgiving our sins.

So when we heard the pastor's voice, forgiving sins." In confession and absolution it is the forgiveness that proceeds from Christ, Jesus Said  "He who hears you hears Me, and he who hears Me hears Him who sent Me."  In other words, the voice of the Gospel is the voice of the Father through His Son, speaking through a human representative.

The same voice spoke to the criminal on the Cross.  The same voice speaks to you now: Because of the death of Christ, you will be in Paradise with Him.

For Christ is the Chosen One of God.  He was His Beloved Son from eternity, yet especially chosen and anointed for this special task - to shed His Blood for all mankind.  This is what the true Christ of God does.  He suffers, and is pierced with thorns and nails.  He is stripped of His garments, and they are divided up among strangers.  He is made fun of and insulted by almost all who see Him.  The soldiers offered Him sour wine to mock Him.

None of this sounds like what people think the Son of God should be.  He should be glorious and exalted.  He should be perfect in beauty, untouched by corruption and death.  But the Son of God who is spat upon and tortured and nailed to a Cross is not what people expect.  So they made fun of Him, over and over.

But this is exactly what God chose for His Chosen One.  Christ willingly gave Himself for us, to suffer all these things, so that we would not have to face His Father's wrath when Judgment Day comes.  For so He loved us, even to the point of death.

So He is both the Son of God and the King of the Jews.  We also become Jews by faith and children of Abraham.  We recognize our King as the Man hung upon the Cross.  The world thinks that is crazy, but we hold tightly to Him, who shed His Blood so that we could be saved from eternal death.

Of course we know that this is not the end.  The Man who died also rose.  He was received into Paradise, yet returned again in the body to show His disciples that His sacrifice for them was accepted by the Father.

For the Green Tree cannot remain dead.  He was cut down on Calvary, but He sprouted up again, as a tree sprouts up from a stump.  So Christ and His Cross have become the Tree of Life that bears its fruit of eternal life.  He gives out His fruits and His life to us in this House, through the Gospel.  So everlasting life is yours, and resurrection and Paradise, forever and ever. So we had our Hope and Joy of the eternal Life in Heaven for the Sacrifice that Jesus Christ did for all of Us, Rejoice and be Faithful until the Lord came again in Glory, thanks be to God we had in Faith our Hope and Joy of the Eternal Life in Heaven to God be all the Glory in Jesus Christ Our Lord Amen.

May the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your mind and heart to the life everlasting Amen.