Brothers and sisters,
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and
our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Speculation about the nature of heaven is pretty
common in both secular and Christian pop-culture. Most of us have probably seen
the movie “It’s a wonderful life” and no-doubt remember Clarence talking about
how every time a bell rings an angel gets their wings. Some of the most popular
of Christian books in the last few years are books that re-count alleged
visions that people have had of heaven, whether it is through dreams or
near-death experiences or some other experience. And as interesting as these
ideas might be, as Christians we should stick with what God reveals to us
through His Word. And this morning we are given a glimpse of heaven that is far
more glorious than anything that can be found in un-biblical speculations. In
the Gospel lesson our Lord Jesus declares “..there will be more joy in heaven over one
sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no
repentance.” And He also speaks of angels rejoicing over one sinner who
repents.
Think about
that image of the angels rejoicing over one sinner who repents in light of something
that I read recently. Christians ministering in the middle-east are reporting
that “Muslims are coming to Christ at an unprecedented pace despite intense
persecution of those who leave Islam.” According to Tom Doyle, Middle East-Central
Asia director for e3 Partners, a Texas-based missions agency, "Probably in
the last 10 years, more Muslims have come to faith in Christ than in the last
15 centuries of Islam,". There have even been reports of Muslims having
dreams about Jesus and being told to trust in Him in those dreams. Think about
the rejoicing in heaven among the angels that is takings place as a result all
of these people turning from the darkness of Islam to the glorious light of the
Gospel.
This is a
powerful fulfillment of what Jesus talks about in the two parables from this
morning’s Gospel lesson. Both of these parables are punctuated with images of
great rejoicing among the angels and as such each parable is an invitation for
us to rejoice. These parables are both celebrations of the finding of the lost.
In the parable of the lost sheep there is the
shepherd who is in charge of a flock of 100 sheep who realizes that one of the
sheep is missing and so He leaves the 99 sheep to go after the one lost sheep.
Think about that. Would a shepherd really do that? Would a shepherd really risk
the 99 in order to go after the one? Well Jesus’ point is that He does. He goes
after the one lost sheep and when Jesus finds the lost sheep what does He do?
Does He find the sheep and say “OK come with me if you want.” ? No, He lays the sheep on His shoulders and
carries the sheep back to the flock, rejoicing the whole time.
Then there
is the parable of the lost coin where you have this woman who has ten coins and
loses one and lights a lamp and sweeps the house and seeks diligently until she
finds the one coin. And when she finds the coin what does she do? She calls
together all of her friends and neighbors and invites them to come to her house
and rejoice with her because she has found this one coin that she lost. This is
totally illogical to us. She likely spent much more on entertaining and feeding
her friends than whatever one coin might have been worth. To us this makes no
sense, but it’s an illustration of the abundant nature of God’s grace in
Christ; finding the lost is what He does and the essence of who He is.
And so
this begs the question who then are the lost and who are the found? There are
many type of people who could be considered lost, but the essence of being lost
comes down to being content with your own righteousness. The lost are those who
have been deceived to believe that they don’t need forgiveness, that they don’t
need a Savior. The found are those who have been gathered to Christ Jesus by
the Holy Spirit and realize they need a Savior from sin, death and the
devil.
The
Muslims converting to Christianity in the midst of an environment where simply
being a Christian can get you killed were among the lost but are now among the
found. They have been found by Christ Jesus, He has placed them on His
shoulders and brought them to His flock, and there is great rejoicing among the
angels over this. They are among those that God speaks of through Ezekiel in
the Old Testament lesson: I will rescue
them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and
thick darkness.
On the
other hand, I believe it is very likely that the we- the western church- were
among the 99 found that Jesus has left to seek the lost, but have now become
the lost. Not that He abandoned us. He promises to be with us to the end of the
ages. He still comes to us in Word and sacrament, but there is a spirit of
revival and a hunger and a thirst for the Word in places like Africa, China,
Afghanistan and many other places all across the globe that seems to be lacking
in the west. I believe in the west we are among the fat sheep that God speaks
of through Ezekiel. The western church has, in many ways become complacent in
her own righteousness. The western church does not celebrate the weak and lost
sheep but thrusts at the sheep with horns until we have been scattered. The
Gospel has been thrust aside for social justice, purpose, inclusiveness,
prosperity, and how-to lectures and whatever other church-growth trend comes
down the pike. The western church has, in many ways, forgotten her need for a
Savior. And I believe that this has a
lot to do with why we often hear that the fastest growing segment of religious
preferences are the “nones”; those who have no religious preference.
But there
is no reason to fear for the Good Shepherd comes looking for the lost. The
truth of Christ that God reveals to us in the lesson from 1st
Timothy remains true; the truth that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This leaves only one thing for us to do: be
sinners. If we are sinners then we are among those whom Jesus comes to save. This
is me. This is you. This is everyone. You may have held back your hand and
perhaps even your mouth from some sins but the reality is that your heart and
mind are constantly bent toward sin. Remember how Jesus shows this to us? In
Matthew 5 He tells us that to be angry is the same as committing murder and
that looking upon someone with lust makes us as guilty as if we had committed
adultery.
You are a sinner. And this is good, because
you are among those whom Christ Jesus came to save. We are sinners and we hate
to admit it. But as our Lord reveals to us in Romans 3, “All have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God.” Still,
to confess that we are sinners is to admit that on our own we are powerless to
sin, death and the devil, and we don’t want to do that. But the cure only makes
sense after the diagnosis.
Would you
take a pill that someone told you to take if all they told you about it was
that it had all sorts of side-effects like your hair falling out and loss of
appetite? Of course you wouldn’t. But what if the person is your doctor and
they told you that you had cancer and that taking the chemo-therapy pill was
going to take care of it? It’s a bad diagnosis but you would take the pills.
You would probably rejoice that the pills were available.
We are sinners, but we have to admit it.
Sadly many preachers will not talk about sin. Instead they will talk about
mistakes and say nobody’s perfect, everybody messes up, or maybe they will say
as long as you try your best that is what matters. But you haven’t tried your best have you? And
just because everyone else sins does not make it OK to God. God does not grade
on a curve.
One of the
most comforting of Jesus’ parables is the parable of the Pharisee and the
tax-collector. It’s about a Pharisee and
a tax-collector who go to the temple to pray. The Pharisee says when he prays ‘God, I thank you
that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like
this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; jI give tithes of all
that I get.’.
But then the tax-collector came up and he
would not even look to heaven and he simply said ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ Jesus declares that it is the sinful
tax-collector who went home justified rather than the Pharisee. The Pharisee didn’t think he needed
forgiveness. He didn’t think he needed a Savior. He was content with his own
righteousness. The tax-collector knew he was a sinner and in light of that all
he could do was plead for mercy from God, and he received it. He went away justified-which
is to say his sins were forgiven.
Jesus came to save sinners, and this is exactly what He accomplished for
you when He laid down His life on the cross and paid the price for your sin.
His agony in your place, his death for your life. His blood washes away your
sin, your fear of death and your condemnation and it all comes through His
cross. Your sin cannot stand in the way. Your death cannot stand in the way.
Nothing can separate you from Him. You are a sinner and Jesus is your Savior because
He came to save sinners, He came to find the lost sheep and carry the lost
sheep on His shoulders as He brings them back to the flock. Even when you wander
off and get lost, the good Shepherd will look for you with the same intensity,
concern, and love and He finds you. And for this there is much joy in heaven.
Amen
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