Hosea 10:1-12; St Luke 23:26-43
“Seven Last Words of Jesus” (1-2)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear redeemed of Christ, as we enter into this holy and penitential season of Lent, we follow our Lord Jesus through the valley of the shadow of death, through the temptation in the wilderness, through the upper room and the institution of the Eucharist, through the prayerful night in the Garden and the betrayal, the trial and the flogging. He follow Christ in the manner of Simon of Cyrene, taking up the Cross and walking behind Jesus all the way to the hill; to death.
Our prayer is that of the first communion hymn: “Jesus, I will ponder now on Your holy passion; with Your Spirit me endow for such mediation. Grant that I in love and faith may the image cherish of Your suff’ring pain and death that I may not perish” (LSB 440:1). There is a wrong way and right way to mediate on the suffering and passion of Christ. The first is to consider only the brutal pain and agony; the morose nature of man who could inflict such cruelty upon another. To consider the physicality of it all and mourn for Jesus.
This is wrong. This is the mediation of the crowds and women who followed after Jesus, mourning and lamenting for Him. To them He spoke, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and your children. This word is also for you, daughters of Jerusalem and sons of Israel. Do not weep for Him. Do not mourn His death. Rather, and this is the correct way, weep and mourn for your sins, for which the Lord Jesus dies. Sorrow for your children, who have inherited your sin and death.
It is in that vein we shall engage what the Medieval theologians called the ars morendi, the art of death. Not focusing on the physicality of the death of the Son of Man, but rather upon His purpose and greater desire with which He willingly lays down His life we shall open the Cross like a medieval prayerbook and shall examine the seven last words of our Lord Christ; His final utterances from His cruciform altar of sacrifice. Tonight we consider the first two words of Jesus recorded by St Luke.
Look there an see, beloved, not only the icon of your salvation, the trophy of His love, but behold the cost of your redemption. See the holy Son hanging on the Cross and behold the judgment of the Holy and Just God. It ought to render us weak with terror. The cruel nails are your sins with which you have pierced His hands and feet. Those horrible thorns are your sins with which you have crowned His holy head, the head worshipped and honored by angelic powers. Those sharply pointed lashes are your sins with which you have scourged His faultless body, the permanent temple of divinity. A terrible beast has torn to pieces this heavenly Joseph and stained His robe with blood (Gen 37:33). We, poor, miserable sinners, are that terrible beast because our sins rushed en masse against this beloved Son.
In holy fear we ought to say to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the hills, “Cover us.” If He, the obedient Son, suffers because of the sins of another, what will be meted out to the disobedient and wayward children? Truly the disease of our souls must be great and deadly is it can only be cured because the heavenly Physician, Life itself, dies on a cross. And if the weight of another’s sin strikes down the all-powerful Son of God, how unbearable the wrath of God and His furor will be against the unprofitable servant? O dry and unfaithful wood, sold to the fires of eternal hell, what will be your lot if this is what happens to the green wood?
For Christ is the green tree of life. Christ is the vigorous tree, rooted in divinity, part and parcel of humanity, famed for His virtues, possessing leaves of Holy Words, and yielding the fruit of good works. But if the fire of wrath burned against this green wood, the tree of life, because of sins of others, how much more completely will is consume the sinner as a dry tree of unfruitful works?
Mourn and lament your sins, o man, for they are real and they are many. Confess to God Almighty, before the holy company of heaven, and to your brothers and sisters, that you have sinned in thought, word and deed, by your fault, by your own fault, by your own most previous fault. Repent and despair of yourself. Despair of your arrogance and pride, of your self-destructive and loveless ways. Despair that you have reveled in your ungodliness and indulged in your lusts.
But despair not of God nor of His Christ. Forget not His promises, but hear His first and abiding word to you, as He bears the totality of your iniquities in His flesh: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He speaks this absolution to you, dear ones. He is stripped naked and brought to shame in order that you may be clothed with the robe of His righteousness that washes away all your sins. He saved others and He saves you, not by coming down from the Cross, but precisely by enduring, despising its shame, and enduring for the sake of the joy set before Him: you. Your salvation. Your hope. Your future. Your enteral life with Him.
For here, in these words, Christ Jesus opens up the interior life of the Blessed Holy Trinity. It was the Father’s will to crush Him. The Spirit remains with Him until the end. And it is the self-same Spirit who gathers you to the Cross of Christ Jesus, by which you are crucified to the world and the world to you. It is the Spirit who preaches this Word of forgiveness into your ears and presses it into your heart that you hold it fast in faithfulness and joy, partaking in the very divine life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This, beloved, is your catechesis as you hang there beside He who is crucified as King of the Jews. This is your instruction not only in how to die, but how to live. Be no longer a thief or criminal. “A criminal?” you protest. “A robber and a thief?” Is it not robbery and theft to live your life as though it were your own possession, when it is the Lord who made you, and not you? Is it not criminal to horde the things that God has entrusted to your stewardship, and to use them as though they were your own by right, instead of using those treasures and talents to love and serve your neighbor and to support the Lord’s Church?
But now, fear the Lord your God, your Maker and Redeemer. Fear God, who willingly suffers the punishment that you justly deserve. See in His Body on the Cross the wages of your sins and the prince of your Redemption. Though He suffers unjustly, He suffers in mercy, for you; for your justice and righteousness. Hear His Word to you, His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of all your sins. Despair of yourself, yes, but do not despair of Him. Rather, hope in Him, in His Cross, in His Body and Blood, in His Church and Ministry, His Gospel and His Spirit.
The wicked will not always prevail. The righteousness shall not be forgotten. He does indeed remember you as He has entered into His kingdom. “Amen,” I say to you, “today you will be with Me in paradise.” Jesus remembers you, beloved, even unto death. Do not be ashamed to become a Christian after the manner of the thief, for he was the first saint n the New Testament through the Passion of Christ. He was with Christ that day in paradise, not after his death according to the flesh, but already in his death according to the spirit. He confessed his sins; acknowledged his wretchedness, and recognized his temporal and eternal punishment was deserved and just. And moreover, this repentant thief, plead for mercy in the innocent sufferings and death of Jesus the Christ. He enjoyed the inheritance of paradise which comes through the flesh of the Crucified One. To be with Jesus is to be in paradise. Both now and not yet.
Behold, then, paradise brought down to earth in the Divine Service. Trust our Lord Christ to feed and clothe you, to shelter and protect you, to open up His generous hand and to pour down the abundant blessing of all of heaven, His Spirit, His grace, His mercy and peace.
Trust Him to do this, because He has already done so, and is doing so for you here and now. Here, you are with Hm in Paradise, with the full and free forgiveness of your sins. Here the fruits of the Tree of Life are freely given without cost, and the waters of life are generously poured out for your cleansing and refreshment. This is not because you are so faithful, but because He is.
Jesus remembers you - always and forever, and here and now - as He comes to you in and with His Kingdom. He remembers you with His Word of Peace, His Gospel of forgiveness spoken from His Father. He remembers you with His Body and His Blood, given and poured out for you to eat and to drink. By these fruits of His green Tree, He is with you and today you are with Him in Paradise. That is His Word and promise to the poor, miserable sinner who is crucified and dies with Him. And that is His Word and promise to you, who have been crucified and died with Him in Holy Baptism. You are forgiven, beloved. You are and shall be raised with Him in His Resurrection.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Seven Last Words of Jesus” (1-2)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear redeemed of Christ, as we enter into this holy and penitential season of Lent, we follow our Lord Jesus through the valley of the shadow of death, through the temptation in the wilderness, through the upper room and the institution of the Eucharist, through the prayerful night in the Garden and the betrayal, the trial and the flogging. He follow Christ in the manner of Simon of Cyrene, taking up the Cross and walking behind Jesus all the way to the hill; to death.
Our prayer is that of the first communion hymn: “Jesus, I will ponder now on Your holy passion; with Your Spirit me endow for such mediation. Grant that I in love and faith may the image cherish of Your suff’ring pain and death that I may not perish” (LSB 440:1). There is a wrong way and right way to mediate on the suffering and passion of Christ. The first is to consider only the brutal pain and agony; the morose nature of man who could inflict such cruelty upon another. To consider the physicality of it all and mourn for Jesus.
This is wrong. This is the mediation of the crowds and women who followed after Jesus, mourning and lamenting for Him. To them He spoke, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and your children. This word is also for you, daughters of Jerusalem and sons of Israel. Do not weep for Him. Do not mourn His death. Rather, and this is the correct way, weep and mourn for your sins, for which the Lord Jesus dies. Sorrow for your children, who have inherited your sin and death.
It is in that vein we shall engage what the Medieval theologians called the ars morendi, the art of death. Not focusing on the physicality of the death of the Son of Man, but rather upon His purpose and greater desire with which He willingly lays down His life we shall open the Cross like a medieval prayerbook and shall examine the seven last words of our Lord Christ; His final utterances from His cruciform altar of sacrifice. Tonight we consider the first two words of Jesus recorded by St Luke.
Look there an see, beloved, not only the icon of your salvation, the trophy of His love, but behold the cost of your redemption. See the holy Son hanging on the Cross and behold the judgment of the Holy and Just God. It ought to render us weak with terror. The cruel nails are your sins with which you have pierced His hands and feet. Those horrible thorns are your sins with which you have crowned His holy head, the head worshipped and honored by angelic powers. Those sharply pointed lashes are your sins with which you have scourged His faultless body, the permanent temple of divinity. A terrible beast has torn to pieces this heavenly Joseph and stained His robe with blood (Gen 37:33). We, poor, miserable sinners, are that terrible beast because our sins rushed en masse against this beloved Son.
In holy fear we ought to say to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the hills, “Cover us.” If He, the obedient Son, suffers because of the sins of another, what will be meted out to the disobedient and wayward children? Truly the disease of our souls must be great and deadly is it can only be cured because the heavenly Physician, Life itself, dies on a cross. And if the weight of another’s sin strikes down the all-powerful Son of God, how unbearable the wrath of God and His furor will be against the unprofitable servant? O dry and unfaithful wood, sold to the fires of eternal hell, what will be your lot if this is what happens to the green wood?
For Christ is the green tree of life. Christ is the vigorous tree, rooted in divinity, part and parcel of humanity, famed for His virtues, possessing leaves of Holy Words, and yielding the fruit of good works. But if the fire of wrath burned against this green wood, the tree of life, because of sins of others, how much more completely will is consume the sinner as a dry tree of unfruitful works?
Mourn and lament your sins, o man, for they are real and they are many. Confess to God Almighty, before the holy company of heaven, and to your brothers and sisters, that you have sinned in thought, word and deed, by your fault, by your own fault, by your own most previous fault. Repent and despair of yourself. Despair of your arrogance and pride, of your self-destructive and loveless ways. Despair that you have reveled in your ungodliness and indulged in your lusts.
But despair not of God nor of His Christ. Forget not His promises, but hear His first and abiding word to you, as He bears the totality of your iniquities in His flesh: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He speaks this absolution to you, dear ones. He is stripped naked and brought to shame in order that you may be clothed with the robe of His righteousness that washes away all your sins. He saved others and He saves you, not by coming down from the Cross, but precisely by enduring, despising its shame, and enduring for the sake of the joy set before Him: you. Your salvation. Your hope. Your future. Your enteral life with Him.
For here, in these words, Christ Jesus opens up the interior life of the Blessed Holy Trinity. It was the Father’s will to crush Him. The Spirit remains with Him until the end. And it is the self-same Spirit who gathers you to the Cross of Christ Jesus, by which you are crucified to the world and the world to you. It is the Spirit who preaches this Word of forgiveness into your ears and presses it into your heart that you hold it fast in faithfulness and joy, partaking in the very divine life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This, beloved, is your catechesis as you hang there beside He who is crucified as King of the Jews. This is your instruction not only in how to die, but how to live. Be no longer a thief or criminal. “A criminal?” you protest. “A robber and a thief?” Is it not robbery and theft to live your life as though it were your own possession, when it is the Lord who made you, and not you? Is it not criminal to horde the things that God has entrusted to your stewardship, and to use them as though they were your own by right, instead of using those treasures and talents to love and serve your neighbor and to support the Lord’s Church?
But now, fear the Lord your God, your Maker and Redeemer. Fear God, who willingly suffers the punishment that you justly deserve. See in His Body on the Cross the wages of your sins and the prince of your Redemption. Though He suffers unjustly, He suffers in mercy, for you; for your justice and righteousness. Hear His Word to you, His preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of all your sins. Despair of yourself, yes, but do not despair of Him. Rather, hope in Him, in His Cross, in His Body and Blood, in His Church and Ministry, His Gospel and His Spirit.
The wicked will not always prevail. The righteousness shall not be forgotten. He does indeed remember you as He has entered into His kingdom. “Amen,” I say to you, “today you will be with Me in paradise.” Jesus remembers you, beloved, even unto death. Do not be ashamed to become a Christian after the manner of the thief, for he was the first saint n the New Testament through the Passion of Christ. He was with Christ that day in paradise, not after his death according to the flesh, but already in his death according to the spirit. He confessed his sins; acknowledged his wretchedness, and recognized his temporal and eternal punishment was deserved and just. And moreover, this repentant thief, plead for mercy in the innocent sufferings and death of Jesus the Christ. He enjoyed the inheritance of paradise which comes through the flesh of the Crucified One. To be with Jesus is to be in paradise. Both now and not yet.
Behold, then, paradise brought down to earth in the Divine Service. Trust our Lord Christ to feed and clothe you, to shelter and protect you, to open up His generous hand and to pour down the abundant blessing of all of heaven, His Spirit, His grace, His mercy and peace.
Trust Him to do this, because He has already done so, and is doing so for you here and now. Here, you are with Hm in Paradise, with the full and free forgiveness of your sins. Here the fruits of the Tree of Life are freely given without cost, and the waters of life are generously poured out for your cleansing and refreshment. This is not because you are so faithful, but because He is.
Jesus remembers you - always and forever, and here and now - as He comes to you in and with His Kingdom. He remembers you with His Word of Peace, His Gospel of forgiveness spoken from His Father. He remembers you with His Body and His Blood, given and poured out for you to eat and to drink. By these fruits of His green Tree, He is with you and today you are with Him in Paradise. That is His Word and promise to the poor, miserable sinner who is crucified and dies with Him. And that is His Word and promise to you, who have been crucified and died with Him in Holy Baptism. You are forgiven, beloved. You are and shall be raised with Him in His Resurrection.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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