✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum
Matthew 22,33-46; Mark 12,1-12 5015
20. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 065
Luke, physician, Evangelist, Colossians 4,14. Martyr 84
18. Oktober 2015
1. O Eternal God, Thou Source of all life, we praise You, for You created us by Your Will, shaped by Your Love, enlivened by Your Breath. We pray: Hear our prayers. (VELKD Prayer for 20. Trinitatis § 1). Amen.
2. Jesus said: „Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying: ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves: ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?“ They said to him: „He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.“ Jesus said to them: „Have you never read in the Scriptures: »The Stone that the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes«? [Psalm 118,22-23] Therefore I tell you, the reign of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this Stone will be broken to pieces; and when It falls on anyone, It will crush him.“ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they perceived that He was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest Him, they feared the crowds, because they held Him to be a prophet.
3. Both the Pharisees and the crowds didn’t get Jesus. Most of the Pharisees rejected Jesus outright. He healed on the Sabbath, ate with tax collectors and sinners, failed to uphold the traditions of the elders and forgave people like He was God. It was clear to the Pharisees that Jesus was a blasphemer who claimed to be Divine. He thus deserved to die, but the Pharisees were afraid to arrest Jesus because the crowds esteemed Him to be a prophet.
4. At least the crowds perceived Jesus to be a prophet sent from God. Truly He is a prophet but He is so much more than a prophet; such a realization went over the heads of many people in the crowds. They also had a nostalgic view of the days of the prophets. They looked back on the good old days when the prophets spoke the Word of God to His people. They forgot that the prophets were sent when Israel rebelled against God and refused to keep His covenant. The days of the prophets were not the good old days but the wicked evil days and a time when judgment would befall Israel unless they heeded the prophetic word, repented and worshipped God alone.
5. If God was sending His people a prophet, then it meant the time was dire for the nation and judgment was close at hand. And so it was: »In those days John the Baptizer arrived preaching in the wilderness of Judea: „Repent, for the reign of heaven is at hand!“ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them: „You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is arriving after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire“« (Matthew 3,1-2.7.10-12). Shortly after telling His parable against the Pharisees, Jesus went to the hills outside the city and prophesied: »O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!« (Matthew 23,37).
6. What had happened that Israel had fallen so far away from God? He had given Israel a land, a vineyard, for them to enjoy. Historically, Israel squandered this gracious gift. When God sought His first fruits of the harvest, Israel refused to give up what they perceived as their hard-earned labor. God sent them prophets to remind them that His vineyard was graciously given as a gift and His first fruits a joyous tithe with all the rest for them to enjoy. Things had gotten so bad by Jesus’ time that the traditions of the elders took priority and many were burdened by their failure to keep the covenant. The vineyard has ceased to be a gift and had become a tedious chore with over six hundred laws to be meticulously followed. God had had enough, and so He sent Israel His Son.
7. Jesus arrived and taught His people new ways. His words began to win over the crowds and the old teachers became threatened. Jesus broke the old rules steeped in tradition and questioned those in powerful positions. Then to those who prided themselves on hammer of the law, Jesus gave them the anvil to strike them with their precious law: »Have you never read in the Scriptures: The Stone that the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?« (Matthew 21,42). Jesus is that Cornerstone: you can either believe and be built upon His foundation or you can reject Him and be crushed by Him when He builds His reign. Or in the image of today’s parable: new wine must be put in new wine skins otherwise it would burst the old wine skins (Matthew 9,17). The Pharisees and the Mosaic covenant were the old wine in old wine skins; Jesus and His New Testament are the new wine in new wine skins. Jesus had arrived to fill the Mosaic covenant and the Pharisaic approach was simply unable to handle who Jesus is and what He gives.
8. The Apostle Paul exhorts the supremacy of this new testament over the old in his Epistle to the Galatians: »I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the Holy Spirit who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. For we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but is justified through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because no one will be justified by works of the law. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons and daughters of Abraham. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written: Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them [Deuteronomy 27,26]. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for The righteous shall live by faith [Habakkuk 2,4]. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree [Deuteronomy 21,23]. To give a human example: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. For the inheritance does not come by the law but by the promise for God gave the inheritance to Abraham by a promise. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ arrived, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has arrived, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons and daughters of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise« (Galatians 1,6-7; 2,16.21; 3,7.9-11.13.15.18.21.24-27.29).
9. It is clear why the scribes and Pharisees vehemently opposed Jesus: He was a radical who taught that He was going to fulfill the old testament and its law, and furthermore that this was His plan all along when He established this testament with Israel through Moses. Jesus fulfilled this at His crucifixion where He became the Paschal Lamb who took away the sin of the world. With this redemption complete, He tore the temple veil that separated the people from the presence of God.
10. This judgment chastised the exceptionalism that the Pharisees prided themselves in as keepers of the old law. Jesus opened up the mercy of God to all the other nations, and this mercy is received by faith just as Abraham and others under the old testament received it. We are one story built upon this foundation with Christ the Cornerstone a foundation that traces back all the way to Adam and Eve. The Apostle Paul teaches that this promise is far superior to the law that was given to Israel hundreds of years later for this promise is received by faith and is founded upon Christ Jesus Himself. St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Colossians: »Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to arrive, but the substance belongs to Christ. With Christ we died to the elemental spirits of the world and therefore we do not submit to regulations such as do not handle, do not taste and do not touch things that the old testament forbid as unclean. These regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.« (Colossians 2,16-23).
11. God gives us the vineyard as a gift, and we receive it by faith. God gives us forgiveness of all our sins, and we receive it by faith. God gives us eternal life, and we receive it by faith. God gives us all these things through Jesus, His Only Son. Jesus has done it all and we receive His grace and mercy through faith. Amen.
12. Let us pray. O Lord, teach us the way of Your statutes, and and will observe them to the end, for therein is judgment and promise so that we are convicted of our sinfulness and confess our forgiveness through Your law and gospel. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Soli Deo Gloria
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
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