Grace Mercy and Peace be unto you from God our
Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
Amen
When the Son of
Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him,
then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations
will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a
shepherd divides his sheep from the
goats.
In the name of Jesus
We love drama. Maybe we love to hate it. What we have been witnessing in Ferguson
Missouri over the last few months seems to have become the new norm in the
world. As a country, we attach ourselves
to an injustice, or maybe the better term to use is a “perceived injustice”, as
we don’t rest until it has been rectified in our eyes, justly or not. Whether it has been a teenage boy, a politician,
or even a popular sports star, we want justice, and we want it now.
In our court system we have this thing
called the presumption of innocence.
That is all are innocent until proven guilty. Until we have a case made against us, all
evidence has been shown, and a jury of our peers finds us guilty. But that does not keep people from forming
opinions of the person on trial.
We are constantly preparing for our
day in court, our final judgment on the last day, what we talked a bit about
last week. Innocent until proven
guilty. Wouldn’t that be nice? Turn that phrase around and that is what we
deal with in our spiritual lives. We are
not innocent until God finds us guilty.
We are already guilty. There is
no case to present and defend. We are
flat out, without a doubt, finger print on the weapon guilty. Already back in the book of Genesis, at the
fall of man, the punishment is handed down and the life of innocence is gone.
The serpent came to Eve in her weakest time
and convinced her to eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. She then shared with Adam and their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves loincloths.
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day, and
the man and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to
him, "Where are you?" And he
said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid
myself."
He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten
of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The
man said, "The woman whom
you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." Then
the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
The sin which we inherited
from Adam, have convicted us. The sins
which we have committed since our conception convict us. Knowing or not knowing God’s laws does not
change anything. The law of God is
written on our hearts. We have a moral
compass, or at least it seems as though we do.
We know right from wrong, and yet we daily go against it. We daily sin.
You are guilty, I am guilty.
On the last day, which is
our focus on this the last Sunday of the church year, you and I deserve to be brought
to the throne of God, and we deserve to be ushered to the left with the goats,
with the evil ones to whom he says I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty
and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did
not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did
not visit me.' Then they also will answer, saying,
'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or
in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, saying,
'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal
punishment.
And the
eternal punishment is so great. For not
doing this to the least of these, our Father tells us Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. We
should be expecting nothing less on our judgment day. We know the facts, we can hold up our lives
to the 10 Commandments and see how we have failed miserably. We know there is no way for us to be
presented innocent, we are just plain guilty.
We can read for
ourselves the list of things which are Adam and Eve’s, and therefore our,
punishment because of the fall into sin.
Labor pains, working the ground for food, and death. Even before the punishment of man, God
punishes Satan. Because you have done this, cursed are you above all
livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall
go, and dust you shall eat
all the days of
your life.
But right after
this, in between Satan’s punishment and man’s punishment, the first promise of
the Gospel is given. I will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. Through
sin we are joined together with the evil forces. God promises the devil that he will put
enmity between Eve’s offspring and Satan’s offspring. He will cause there to be hatred, bad blood,
bitterness, hostility and separation the human race and Satan. But what pulls us away and fills that gap to
keep us apart? What is the driving force
behind this?
Jesus. The one little word that felled the devil. Jesus is the one who broke the chains of sin,
the bondage of sin for us. Yes we are
sinful, yes we oppose the will of God daily.
Yes we deserve to have our Father looks at us in our sinfulness and say Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his
angels.
It is no longer
innocent until proven guilty, we are guilty.
Instead it is guilty until made innocent. Guilty until we are claimed by the Father and
made innocent in the blood of the lamb, in the waters of Holy Baptism, and
through the forgiveness of sins. Jesus
did what we could not. He was
obedient. He took the punishment for our
sins and made us perfect. He has taken
the goats and made them his lambs.
Because of this
our judgment day is not something which should scare us or frighten us. It should be a time of celebration knowing
that Christ has made us to be the sheep seated at the right hand of the Father
who will be ushered into the kingdom of heaven with the words 'Come, you who
are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I
was thirsty and you gave me
drink, I was a stranger and you
welcomed me, I was naked and you
clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then
the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and
feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and
welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in
prison and visit you?' And the
King will answer them, 'Truly, I
say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.
We have
read of the last day in Amos, Zephaniah, and now we read of the last day in
Ezekiel, and hear of the gathering of the sheep by the One true Shepherd. Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will
search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is
among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I
will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds
and thick darkness. And I will bring
them out from the peoples and gather them
from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed
them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited
places of the country. I will feed them
with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing
land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture
they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be
the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will
make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the
lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and
I will strengthen the weak.
We are
graciously spared of eternal damnation, of the eternal fire prepared for the
devil and his armies. We are spared of the
eternal agony and brought into the presence of the Almighty God. We did not do it, we couldn’t do it. It is purely God’s divine mercy. And now we live in the light of his most
precious grace.
Praise God
he has taken such guilt-filled sinners like us and made us his precious possession. May all that we say and do, until the second
coming of Jesus Christ, bear witness to the great work he has done for us.
Amen
+SDG+
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