Daniel 7:9-14; 2 Peter 3:3-14; St Matthew 25:31-46
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Jesus came to gather. The Gospels make this quite clear. He is born and shepherds gather around Him. As a toddler even Persians came a great distance to gather to Him. Near His bar mitzvah age He remained in the Temple, scribes and teachers gathered around Him. Often times He preached saying, Come unto Me, drawing more and more weary and ruined people into His Kingdom.
He says of Himself, I am the Good Shepherd, a job where one makes his living gathering. He compares Himself to a mother hen desiring to gather Jerusalem to Himself as a brood and give them shelter. He calls Himself the Teacher, gathering disciples, that is catechumens too Himself. He actually makes some of them gatherers too. Fisherman who made a living gathering fish would now be gathering men alive into the Kingdom. Even the Psalmist sings today, The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons - gathers - the earth. Gather to Me My faithful ones. Jesus came to gather.
It must be something very offensive, then, that would turn the Great Gatherer into the Great Separator today. Something very wicked that causes Jesus - who wants everyone to be His sheep, who is patient, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance, who desires everyone to be placed on His right, desires all to inherit eternal life - it must be something very wicked that causes Jesus to call people goats and place them with the damned on His fiery left.
And it is! And where the world divides itself into endless groups, races, languages, cultures, causes, genders, numerous ivtersectionalities, Jesus divides everyone into only two groups: the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.
Before we say anything about these two groups - and only two groups - note that this is how it is with religions, too. Men don’t want to put Christianity and all other religions into diametrical opposition, don’t want religions divided into two different classes. Instead they search for some “general concept of religion.” A definition of religion so wide and all embracing that it expresses the nature of all pagan beliefs and Christianity into one genus, one class. Look closely, though, and you will see that a definition this broad is meaningless. There are but two different religions in the world: Christianity and all others. The former is alone the religion of grace. The latter, all others, are religions of works. Every other world religion, all -isms are works righteous (Cf. Christian Dogmatics I:10, 13).
Consider, then, the blessed ones on the right. Blessed by the Father to inherit the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. This text teaches eternal election unto salvation by grace apart from works of the Law. And because they are elect, the sheep do sleepy things. That is, they do the same kinds of things their Good Shepherd does. They feed the hungry. They give drink to the thirsty. They welcome strangers. The cloth the naked. They visit the sick.
Note that. It’s not that the sheep had no recollection of these works. They don’t ask, When did we do these things? Rather, When did we do these things for You, Jesus? The Christian remembers his good works. This foolish notion that good works “just happen,” and that if a Christian realizes he’s done them than they’re somehow no longer good works is nonsense. It is as dangerous to the Christian faith as thinking one is saved by works.
What did St Peter exhorts us today? What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the Day of God. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish and at peace. The sheep took the opportunities to live as people who are free, not using their freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God (1 Pt 2:16), as he says elsewhere. Sheep do sheep things. They live like their Good Shepherd. And on the Last Day Christ will reveal that in serving your neighbor, you are serving the Lord.
But the goats blew it. These are “goats” like the kids now use it: Greatest of All Time. They’re not even “goats” like we used to mean - someone who lost the game for their team. This is no game. Today Jesus teaches us that hell is real. Eternal punishment is real. We can’t say we believe in Jesus and then live however we want. We cannot say, “I love God,” and hate our brother (1 Jn 4:20).
For to be a goat on the Last Day is to be someone who didn’t actually live by faith in Jesus. But by faith in their works. The goats blew it. By refusing to love their neighbor the goats showed they didn’t actually love God. They didn’t trust in Him. “When did we see You Lord and fail to help? If You had been sick or naked or imprisoned, we would’ve done something.” Amen I say to you, “As you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”
We are tempted to think like those goats. Compare your interest in feeding the hungry with your interest in feeding yourself. Compare your interest in clothing the naked with your interest in stuffing your own closets. Compare your interest in visiting the sick, or even anyone, with your obsessive interest in “staying healthy.” Repentance is needed, my friends. Repentance for thinking like those goats. Repentance for believing that we can confess one thing and do another.
Do not despair, however. You are not a goat. And today Christ is not here as the Great Separator, but as the Great Gatherer. His Holy Spirit has called and gathered you here this morning. So that you may hear that despite your goat-like tendencies, you are one of His beloved sheep, blessed by His Father. On the Last Day He will come in all His glory, and all the angels with Him, and sit on His glorious throne. But today He comes with His angels in lowliness. In mercy. And is placed on this Altar to feed you, His sheep, with what you most need - forgiveness, eternal life, and credit for all the good Jesus has done.
But that only happens, my friends, because Christ once came in the Flesh as the Shepherd who not only gathered sheep, but gathered all your offenses into His holy Body and died for them, blotting them out with His Blood from God’s memory.
This only happens this morning because Christ once came as a Mother Hen who did more than just stretch out His wings to gather. He stretched out His wings on the Cross and absorbed the Father’s condemnation, so that you might have shelter from the punishment you deserve; so that you might be blessed by the Father.
This only happens because Christ still comes as the Teacher whose Word gathers more than just fishermen. He gathers all who know they’ve failed and blown it in so many ways, so that He can absolve you and cover you with His righteous deeds.
Today’s Gospel scares the hell into us. We can’t help but hear it and wonder it we’re a goat. Wonder if we’ve only been hearers of the Word and not doers, deceiving ourselves (James 1:22). And yes, according to God’s Law you are a goat. It’s all your fault. You’ve passed up so many opportunities to serve Jesus in your fellow Christians. In your spouse, your kids, your parents. We deserve to go away into eternal punishment prepared for the devil and his angels.
But then let this Gospel scare the hell out of you and onto Jesus. Because you’re no goat. He is the Goat. Jesus desired to be our Scapegoat. All the sins of the world were gathered into one and pushed on Him until He became a Curse. Until He was driven outside the gate, raised up on a Tree, and took our place in hell there on the Cross. He died and was buried. All that so that He might rise again and bestow on us a place in heaven.
So let Him be the Gatherer that He is. Are you weary thinking you have to save yourself and earn your worthy before God? The Gatherer says, Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Mt 11:28).
Are you worried that you’ll be cast out like a goat because you haven’t done enough? Listen to the Gatherer: Whoever comes to Me I will never cast out (Jn 6:37).
Are you hungry and thirsty for a righteousness you can’t seem to muster? Come, says the Gatherer, come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come buy and eat! Come by wine and milk without money and without price. Incline your eat, and come to Me; hear, that your soul may live (Is 55:1, 3a).
Come. Eat and drink. Believe and live. Here, dear sheep, He seats you at His Table and gives you to fellowship in eternal life.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Jesus came to gather. The Gospels make this quite clear. He is born and shepherds gather around Him. As a toddler even Persians came a great distance to gather to Him. Near His bar mitzvah age He remained in the Temple, scribes and teachers gathered around Him. Often times He preached saying, Come unto Me, drawing more and more weary and ruined people into His Kingdom.
He says of Himself, I am the Good Shepherd, a job where one makes his living gathering. He compares Himself to a mother hen desiring to gather Jerusalem to Himself as a brood and give them shelter. He calls Himself the Teacher, gathering disciples, that is catechumens too Himself. He actually makes some of them gatherers too. Fisherman who made a living gathering fish would now be gathering men alive into the Kingdom. Even the Psalmist sings today, The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons - gathers - the earth. Gather to Me My faithful ones. Jesus came to gather.
It must be something very offensive, then, that would turn the Great Gatherer into the Great Separator today. Something very wicked that causes Jesus - who wants everyone to be His sheep, who is patient, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance, who desires everyone to be placed on His right, desires all to inherit eternal life - it must be something very wicked that causes Jesus to call people goats and place them with the damned on His fiery left.
And it is! And where the world divides itself into endless groups, races, languages, cultures, causes, genders, numerous ivtersectionalities, Jesus divides everyone into only two groups: the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.
Before we say anything about these two groups - and only two groups - note that this is how it is with religions, too. Men don’t want to put Christianity and all other religions into diametrical opposition, don’t want religions divided into two different classes. Instead they search for some “general concept of religion.” A definition of religion so wide and all embracing that it expresses the nature of all pagan beliefs and Christianity into one genus, one class. Look closely, though, and you will see that a definition this broad is meaningless. There are but two different religions in the world: Christianity and all others. The former is alone the religion of grace. The latter, all others, are religions of works. Every other world religion, all -isms are works righteous (Cf. Christian Dogmatics I:10, 13).
Consider, then, the blessed ones on the right. Blessed by the Father to inherit the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. This text teaches eternal election unto salvation by grace apart from works of the Law. And because they are elect, the sheep do sleepy things. That is, they do the same kinds of things their Good Shepherd does. They feed the hungry. They give drink to the thirsty. They welcome strangers. The cloth the naked. They visit the sick.
Note that. It’s not that the sheep had no recollection of these works. They don’t ask, When did we do these things? Rather, When did we do these things for You, Jesus? The Christian remembers his good works. This foolish notion that good works “just happen,” and that if a Christian realizes he’s done them than they’re somehow no longer good works is nonsense. It is as dangerous to the Christian faith as thinking one is saved by works.
What did St Peter exhorts us today? What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the Day of God. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish and at peace. The sheep took the opportunities to live as people who are free, not using their freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God (1 Pt 2:16), as he says elsewhere. Sheep do sheep things. They live like their Good Shepherd. And on the Last Day Christ will reveal that in serving your neighbor, you are serving the Lord.
But the goats blew it. These are “goats” like the kids now use it: Greatest of All Time. They’re not even “goats” like we used to mean - someone who lost the game for their team. This is no game. Today Jesus teaches us that hell is real. Eternal punishment is real. We can’t say we believe in Jesus and then live however we want. We cannot say, “I love God,” and hate our brother (1 Jn 4:20).
For to be a goat on the Last Day is to be someone who didn’t actually live by faith in Jesus. But by faith in their works. The goats blew it. By refusing to love their neighbor the goats showed they didn’t actually love God. They didn’t trust in Him. “When did we see You Lord and fail to help? If You had been sick or naked or imprisoned, we would’ve done something.” Amen I say to you, “As you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”
We are tempted to think like those goats. Compare your interest in feeding the hungry with your interest in feeding yourself. Compare your interest in clothing the naked with your interest in stuffing your own closets. Compare your interest in visiting the sick, or even anyone, with your obsessive interest in “staying healthy.” Repentance is needed, my friends. Repentance for thinking like those goats. Repentance for believing that we can confess one thing and do another.
Do not despair, however. You are not a goat. And today Christ is not here as the Great Separator, but as the Great Gatherer. His Holy Spirit has called and gathered you here this morning. So that you may hear that despite your goat-like tendencies, you are one of His beloved sheep, blessed by His Father. On the Last Day He will come in all His glory, and all the angels with Him, and sit on His glorious throne. But today He comes with His angels in lowliness. In mercy. And is placed on this Altar to feed you, His sheep, with what you most need - forgiveness, eternal life, and credit for all the good Jesus has done.
But that only happens, my friends, because Christ once came in the Flesh as the Shepherd who not only gathered sheep, but gathered all your offenses into His holy Body and died for them, blotting them out with His Blood from God’s memory.
This only happens this morning because Christ once came as a Mother Hen who did more than just stretch out His wings to gather. He stretched out His wings on the Cross and absorbed the Father’s condemnation, so that you might have shelter from the punishment you deserve; so that you might be blessed by the Father.
This only happens because Christ still comes as the Teacher whose Word gathers more than just fishermen. He gathers all who know they’ve failed and blown it in so many ways, so that He can absolve you and cover you with His righteous deeds.
Today’s Gospel scares the hell into us. We can’t help but hear it and wonder it we’re a goat. Wonder if we’ve only been hearers of the Word and not doers, deceiving ourselves (James 1:22). And yes, according to God’s Law you are a goat. It’s all your fault. You’ve passed up so many opportunities to serve Jesus in your fellow Christians. In your spouse, your kids, your parents. We deserve to go away into eternal punishment prepared for the devil and his angels.
But then let this Gospel scare the hell out of you and onto Jesus. Because you’re no goat. He is the Goat. Jesus desired to be our Scapegoat. All the sins of the world were gathered into one and pushed on Him until He became a Curse. Until He was driven outside the gate, raised up on a Tree, and took our place in hell there on the Cross. He died and was buried. All that so that He might rise again and bestow on us a place in heaven.
So let Him be the Gatherer that He is. Are you weary thinking you have to save yourself and earn your worthy before God? The Gatherer says, Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Mt 11:28).
Are you worried that you’ll be cast out like a goat because you haven’t done enough? Listen to the Gatherer: Whoever comes to Me I will never cast out (Jn 6:37).
Are you hungry and thirsty for a righteousness you can’t seem to muster? Come, says the Gatherer, come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come buy and eat! Come by wine and milk without money and without price. Incline your eat, and come to Me; hear, that your soul may live (Is 55:1, 3a).
Come. Eat and drink. Believe and live. Here, dear sheep, He seats you at His Table and gives you to fellowship in eternal life.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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