2 Chronicles 28:8-15; Galatians 3:15-22; St Luke 10:23-37
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail. To a lawyer, everything is legal. Presenting briefs, mounting evidence, establishing fact, winning arguments. This is the legal profession. And philosophically this approach can be helpful to testing the truth claims of Christianity. Lawyers are in a unique setting in which reason and evidence rules the day; not emotion and subjectivity. Lawyers deal with the precision and interpretation of words, their definitions and meanings, and the precise parameters of the law. In some instances this is life and death stuff.
Such is case here. A lawyer asked Jesus, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? How am I saved? This is the question. The big question. This is an eternally life or death question.
Now this lawyer isn’t like your pal Harvey Specter or the other litigators from Suits. This lawyer is well versed in the Torah, the Law of Moses. We call him lawyer because he deals with the Law, not only the Ten Commandments, but all 613 Levitical commands concerning food and clothing, daily action and religious ceremony. He deals with the Old Testament. He could just as easily be called a theologian. He concerns himself with the Word of God, with the things of God, with sin and grace, Law and Gospel, works and faith, life and death. He is concerned not only with the truth of Holy Scripture, but with the salvation of his own soul.
You probably don’t want to hear it, but he’s not that much different than you. If you are concerned about the interpretation and application of God’s Word, than you are a theologian. You don’t need seminary training, Biblical languages, a Ph.D. in Church History, you’re not called to be a Pastor, but you are a theologian. You read and study not only what the Bible says, but also what it means. This is not preparation for some big quiz, this is truly life and death. How am I saved? What must I do to inherit eternal life.
Well, you ask a Law question of Jesus you get a socratic Law answer; that is, Jesus answers a question with a question. And as we would expect, this guy answers correctly: You shall love the Lord your God with your all; and love your neighbor as yourself. That’s an excellent summary of the Two Tables of the Law. Its the answer I expect from the catechumens. Its nearly word for word the answer Jesus gives in Mark 12.
If there was a way to be saved by the Law this would be it. Love God with your all, all of the time. Love your neighbor as yourself, all of the time. Keep the Law with everything you’ve got, always, for your entire life, and you’ll be saved. The problem is you can’t. You know you can’t. But that doesn’t stop us from trying.
We are all lawyers at heart. We all argue and attempt to justify ourselves, our actions, our motives. We try to give reasons and evidence for what we have done, even when we stand guilty, condemned by our own conscience and before God’s court. But the Law cannot save; it cannot bequeath the inheritance of eternal life. For if inheritance comes by the Law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise (Gal 3:18).
To shake us out of trying to justify ourselves by the deeds of the Law Jesus must take the Law and this lawyer and flip them on their ear. By the natural opinion of our flesh, by the default theology of our old Adam, we keep asking, Who is my neighbor? because we desire to justify ourselves by our works. To hold ourselves up above others, like the Pharisee over the tax collector from the parable two weeks ago.
And like the statement given by our Lord at the end of that parable: Everyone who exults himself will be humbled, but the One who humbles Himself will be exalted, so too here, Jesus shifts the question to narrow the answer. The answer to, Who is my neighbor? is, as you were taught in Sunday school, everyone. Everyone the Lord puts in front of you and near to you in your daily vocations. Are you a husband? Then your neighbor is your wife. Are you a mother? Then your neighbors are your children. Are you a worker? Your neighbors are your coworkers, boss, and customers. Are you a widow? You still have neighbors - friends, family, literal neighbors. Everyone.
But thats not the question Jesus asks at the end of the parable. Rather, Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? The answer is not everyone. But the One. The One who showed him mercy. And that’s the right answer. To his credit, the lawyer got it right. But Jesus’ response to him, You go and do likewise is not meant to through him back on the Law and salvation by works. Rather, it is along the lines of Jesus statement, Go and learn what this means,”I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners (Mt 9:13).
You see, dear Christian, you are not the Samaritan in this parable. Neither are you the priest or the Levite. You are the man who fell among robbers, stripped and beaten and left half dead. For the Law and your conscience have attacked and pummeled you. You have been stripped of all your good works, which are but filthy rags anyway before God. You are battered ad bruised in heart and mind over the things you have done and the things you have left undone. The only reason you’re half dead and not all dead is solely by the grace of God in Christ Jesus who has used His Law to bring you to such desperation and need. But perhaps even this is too kind, for St Paul writes, You were once dead in the trespass and sins in which you once walked (Eph 2:1).
So as you lie there, being passed over by the Priest and Levite who represent the ineffectual helpers and all the law orientated advice of pop Christianity - do better, try harder, pick yourself up - when all hope seems lost along comes a Samaritan coming to where you are, coming down to meet you in the ditch, covered in blood and dying, He has compassion.
He is moved with pity; a deep visceral, guttural mercy that moves Him to action. He dismounts His animal, stoops down into the gutter to tend to your wounds, pouring on the healing oil of His mercy and the wine of His loving kindness. He lifts you up, sets you on His own animal, and brings you to the inn, caring for you. He sets the innkeeper in charge of your recovery, but will Himself be back the day after tomorrow, leaving two days worth of money to cover the cost.
Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? Which of these three kept the Law perfectly, inwardly and outwardly? How do you How are you saved? Who is the Samaritan?
The answer to all these questions is the same. It is not everyone, but the One who showed him mercy. It is the One telling the parable: our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the sum and substance of Holy Scripture, the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, who keeps the Law in perfect obedience, actively and passively.
He is the Samaritan, One who is not encumbered by the accusations of the Law, but is free to help. He showed tremendous mercy and compassion upon you, when He stooped down from on high, dismounted His throne, setting aside His honor and glory, and took the form of a lowly and despised Servant. He got down into the gutter with you; climbed not only into your flesh and blood, but also your grave. (And by His death He sanctified all graves, even as He has for our dear sister Millie, who fell asleep in Christ.)
And in an allegorical way, Christ Jesus is not only the Samaritan, but also the Man. He is beset upon by the devil and death. Beaten and bloodied, not half dead, but completely, totally, utterly killed. But on the day after tomorrow, having paid the complete sum, the total ransom, the Father raised Him from the dead, back to life, never to die again.
This is the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: the Seed who has come and removed the power of death and the devil, who has silenced the accusations of the Law, and has enacted the New Covenant in His Blood, to be put forward as a propitiation for sins.
Beloved, He has brought you to the Inn of His Church and gives the inn keeper, His pastors, the Oil of His Absolution and the Wine of His Gospel to be poured out generously upon you for the full and free forgiveness of all of your sins. How are you saved? In the promise by faith in Jesus Christ given to those who believe. In Him you have a clean conscience and a renewed spirit. The joy of His salvation is restored to you and you are upheld with His Spirit by His Word.
Why then the Law? Well, the Law always accuses, but it doesn’t only accuse. Unlike the lawyer who tries to trick Him, Jesus puts the Law in its proper place: first to kill your attempts at self-justification. For only the Gospel of the full and free forgiveness of sins in the shed blood of Jesus Christ can and has accomplished your salvation. As it is written, In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19).
But then secondly, the Law comes back around as a guide. Having been set free from the condemnation of the Law, out from under it in the One who joined you under the Law you are now set to walk around in the Law, living in faith toward God, but in love and good works toward your neighbor.
You go and do likewise is the exhortation of the Law, motivated by the Gospel. It is a call to be merciful as your Father is merciful. To freely forgive as you have been and received free forgiveness. So that you, like the men of Israel, do not take captive your relatives, not just your blood, those who share your humanity, those for whom Christ died, but instead use the spoil our Lord has graciously bestowed upon you to cloth those in need, to provide food and drink to them, to bring them the Inn-City of Jericho, under the restful shade of the Palm Tree of Christ’s crucifixion.
Blessed are your eyes and your ears through the preached Word of His Law and Gospel, for you have the fullness of the Desire of the Nations. You have the Christ promised to prophets and kings. You have the promised Offspring of Abraham, who is not only the end and fulfillment of the Law, but the One who has done the Law fully for you in order that you may live. And behold, you have the New Covenant, ratified and sealed in the Blood of Jesus Christ. What is written in the Words of Institution, how do you hear them? Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Believe this and you shall live.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail. To a lawyer, everything is legal. Presenting briefs, mounting evidence, establishing fact, winning arguments. This is the legal profession. And philosophically this approach can be helpful to testing the truth claims of Christianity. Lawyers are in a unique setting in which reason and evidence rules the day; not emotion and subjectivity. Lawyers deal with the precision and interpretation of words, their definitions and meanings, and the precise parameters of the law. In some instances this is life and death stuff.
Such is case here. A lawyer asked Jesus, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? How am I saved? This is the question. The big question. This is an eternally life or death question.
Now this lawyer isn’t like your pal Harvey Specter or the other litigators from Suits. This lawyer is well versed in the Torah, the Law of Moses. We call him lawyer because he deals with the Law, not only the Ten Commandments, but all 613 Levitical commands concerning food and clothing, daily action and religious ceremony. He deals with the Old Testament. He could just as easily be called a theologian. He concerns himself with the Word of God, with the things of God, with sin and grace, Law and Gospel, works and faith, life and death. He is concerned not only with the truth of Holy Scripture, but with the salvation of his own soul.
You probably don’t want to hear it, but he’s not that much different than you. If you are concerned about the interpretation and application of God’s Word, than you are a theologian. You don’t need seminary training, Biblical languages, a Ph.D. in Church History, you’re not called to be a Pastor, but you are a theologian. You read and study not only what the Bible says, but also what it means. This is not preparation for some big quiz, this is truly life and death. How am I saved? What must I do to inherit eternal life.
Well, you ask a Law question of Jesus you get a socratic Law answer; that is, Jesus answers a question with a question. And as we would expect, this guy answers correctly: You shall love the Lord your God with your all; and love your neighbor as yourself. That’s an excellent summary of the Two Tables of the Law. Its the answer I expect from the catechumens. Its nearly word for word the answer Jesus gives in Mark 12.
If there was a way to be saved by the Law this would be it. Love God with your all, all of the time. Love your neighbor as yourself, all of the time. Keep the Law with everything you’ve got, always, for your entire life, and you’ll be saved. The problem is you can’t. You know you can’t. But that doesn’t stop us from trying.
We are all lawyers at heart. We all argue and attempt to justify ourselves, our actions, our motives. We try to give reasons and evidence for what we have done, even when we stand guilty, condemned by our own conscience and before God’s court. But the Law cannot save; it cannot bequeath the inheritance of eternal life. For if inheritance comes by the Law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise (Gal 3:18).
To shake us out of trying to justify ourselves by the deeds of the Law Jesus must take the Law and this lawyer and flip them on their ear. By the natural opinion of our flesh, by the default theology of our old Adam, we keep asking, Who is my neighbor? because we desire to justify ourselves by our works. To hold ourselves up above others, like the Pharisee over the tax collector from the parable two weeks ago.
And like the statement given by our Lord at the end of that parable: Everyone who exults himself will be humbled, but the One who humbles Himself will be exalted, so too here, Jesus shifts the question to narrow the answer. The answer to, Who is my neighbor? is, as you were taught in Sunday school, everyone. Everyone the Lord puts in front of you and near to you in your daily vocations. Are you a husband? Then your neighbor is your wife. Are you a mother? Then your neighbors are your children. Are you a worker? Your neighbors are your coworkers, boss, and customers. Are you a widow? You still have neighbors - friends, family, literal neighbors. Everyone.
But thats not the question Jesus asks at the end of the parable. Rather, Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? The answer is not everyone. But the One. The One who showed him mercy. And that’s the right answer. To his credit, the lawyer got it right. But Jesus’ response to him, You go and do likewise is not meant to through him back on the Law and salvation by works. Rather, it is along the lines of Jesus statement, Go and learn what this means,”I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners (Mt 9:13).
You see, dear Christian, you are not the Samaritan in this parable. Neither are you the priest or the Levite. You are the man who fell among robbers, stripped and beaten and left half dead. For the Law and your conscience have attacked and pummeled you. You have been stripped of all your good works, which are but filthy rags anyway before God. You are battered ad bruised in heart and mind over the things you have done and the things you have left undone. The only reason you’re half dead and not all dead is solely by the grace of God in Christ Jesus who has used His Law to bring you to such desperation and need. But perhaps even this is too kind, for St Paul writes, You were once dead in the trespass and sins in which you once walked (Eph 2:1).
So as you lie there, being passed over by the Priest and Levite who represent the ineffectual helpers and all the law orientated advice of pop Christianity - do better, try harder, pick yourself up - when all hope seems lost along comes a Samaritan coming to where you are, coming down to meet you in the ditch, covered in blood and dying, He has compassion.
He is moved with pity; a deep visceral, guttural mercy that moves Him to action. He dismounts His animal, stoops down into the gutter to tend to your wounds, pouring on the healing oil of His mercy and the wine of His loving kindness. He lifts you up, sets you on His own animal, and brings you to the inn, caring for you. He sets the innkeeper in charge of your recovery, but will Himself be back the day after tomorrow, leaving two days worth of money to cover the cost.
Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? Which of these three kept the Law perfectly, inwardly and outwardly? How do you How are you saved? Who is the Samaritan?
The answer to all these questions is the same. It is not everyone, but the One who showed him mercy. It is the One telling the parable: our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the sum and substance of Holy Scripture, the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, who keeps the Law in perfect obedience, actively and passively.
He is the Samaritan, One who is not encumbered by the accusations of the Law, but is free to help. He showed tremendous mercy and compassion upon you, when He stooped down from on high, dismounted His throne, setting aside His honor and glory, and took the form of a lowly and despised Servant. He got down into the gutter with you; climbed not only into your flesh and blood, but also your grave. (And by His death He sanctified all graves, even as He has for our dear sister Millie, who fell asleep in Christ.)
And in an allegorical way, Christ Jesus is not only the Samaritan, but also the Man. He is beset upon by the devil and death. Beaten and bloodied, not half dead, but completely, totally, utterly killed. But on the day after tomorrow, having paid the complete sum, the total ransom, the Father raised Him from the dead, back to life, never to die again.
This is the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: the Seed who has come and removed the power of death and the devil, who has silenced the accusations of the Law, and has enacted the New Covenant in His Blood, to be put forward as a propitiation for sins.
Beloved, He has brought you to the Inn of His Church and gives the inn keeper, His pastors, the Oil of His Absolution and the Wine of His Gospel to be poured out generously upon you for the full and free forgiveness of all of your sins. How are you saved? In the promise by faith in Jesus Christ given to those who believe. In Him you have a clean conscience and a renewed spirit. The joy of His salvation is restored to you and you are upheld with His Spirit by His Word.
Why then the Law? Well, the Law always accuses, but it doesn’t only accuse. Unlike the lawyer who tries to trick Him, Jesus puts the Law in its proper place: first to kill your attempts at self-justification. For only the Gospel of the full and free forgiveness of sins in the shed blood of Jesus Christ can and has accomplished your salvation. As it is written, In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:19).
But then secondly, the Law comes back around as a guide. Having been set free from the condemnation of the Law, out from under it in the One who joined you under the Law you are now set to walk around in the Law, living in faith toward God, but in love and good works toward your neighbor.
You go and do likewise is the exhortation of the Law, motivated by the Gospel. It is a call to be merciful as your Father is merciful. To freely forgive as you have been and received free forgiveness. So that you, like the men of Israel, do not take captive your relatives, not just your blood, those who share your humanity, those for whom Christ died, but instead use the spoil our Lord has graciously bestowed upon you to cloth those in need, to provide food and drink to them, to bring them the Inn-City of Jericho, under the restful shade of the Palm Tree of Christ’s crucifixion.
Blessed are your eyes and your ears through the preached Word of His Law and Gospel, for you have the fullness of the Desire of the Nations. You have the Christ promised to prophets and kings. You have the promised Offspring of Abraham, who is not only the end and fulfillment of the Law, but the One who has done the Law fully for you in order that you may live. And behold, you have the New Covenant, ratified and sealed in the Blood of Jesus Christ. What is written in the Words of Institution, how do you hear them? Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Believe this and you shall live.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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