The Day of the Lord
Luke 19:41-48
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus warns His
hearers of what is to come. The holy city, Jerusalem, would be besieged and leveled to
the ground. And the words of our Lord were true: Jerusalem was destroyed in the Year of Our
Lord 70. The Temple
made by hands has been torn down. This is recorded history. In nearly
two-thousand years since its destruction, no Temple
in Jerusalem
has been completed. While the fact of the fulfillment of Christ’s words is
important, what has been torn down warns us of the potential overthrow of our
life and parish. We can be overrun by self-pride or pride for this sanctuary; by
how we cling so fervently to our name and heritage that we will lose our faith.
As our Lord drew near His holy city—the city He Himself had
established with the Temple
He had commanded King
Solomon to build—“He saw the city and wept over it.” His house of prayer had become a den of thieves. His chosen
people had become corrupt. And so He wept. But the truth is, He still weeps. He
looks upon His children who have given into the passions of the flesh. He looks
upon the slaughter of the unborn. He looks upon the electronic idols we have
constructed for ourselves. He looks upon those who call themselves Christians
but who have compromised the Faith for the sake of peace…and He weeps. Sinners
that we are, we ignore the Word of God for the sake of our pleasures; we ignore
the hell which such willful disobedience brings. We cannot see or we refuse to
see the danger our idolatry brings upon us, for we have come to believe that momentary
comfort is better than everlasting consolation.
We must be on guard, then, that we do not live for today, but
for Lord’s Day. Satan can easily seduce us to believe that today is the best
day, that our best life is now. How does he do this? Whenever we live for
earthly gain or fleeting pleasures; whenever we agree with the Truth but pursue
compromise for the sake of peace; whenever we look for honor and praise;
whenever we place convenience ahead of living the Lord’s Word; whenever we feed
our appetites and gratify our desires; whenever we tolerate false teaching by
remaining in communion with it—then the devil has lured us away from the Lord.
However, the Lord’s Day—both now in the Divine Service and eternally in the
heavenly kingdom—that is the day we must live for, the day we must fix our eyes
upon, the day we must desire more than any days that we find comfortable. And
for the sake of this eternal day, we must be willing to forsake all our
self-chosen days.
Our Lord provides us with His mercy in the sacred mysteries.
He does this precisely so that we might not deviate from the Way that He is, so
that we don’t lose His Way by going our own way. Time and again our Lord
extends to us His grace in the Supper so that we might withstand the seductions
of the devil, so that we would live for the day of our Lord. We who have been
washed in the bloody waters of Holy Baptism have been cleansed, for our Lord
has shed His love upon us in holy water and blood. In this He proved and
revealed that He is truly the lover of all mankind.
And where now do we find this love? Our loving Redeemer,
Jesus Christ, is Emmanuel, the new Temple,
the eternal dwelling Place of God among His people. Though we are sinners, unworthy
and ungrateful, reluctant to heed the Spirit and flee destruction, our Lord
does not take away His preaching or mercy, but continues wondrously,
miraculously, inexplicably to bestow on us His rich and soothing and
life-giving sacred mysteries. These are the things that make for your peace;
because these holy gifts, by the Spirit, are designed to lead you in the way of
the Lord, into the peace which the world cannot give, into the life which will
never end. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
The
peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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