Grace, mercy, and
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Did you
hear what Jesus said? Where’s the good news? He says watch out! It isn’t easy
to find the way. The gate is narrow and the way hard. Few go there, few seek
there. True, the Gate is as broad as
God’s infinite love and wide open, but from our view it looks narrow as tomb,
slippery with blood on a wooden beam. What makes it worse is there are false
teachers, wolves in sheep’s clothes, searching for you, to eat you. Jesus tells
us this because we need to be warned, to watch out. Wolves are not sheep, even
if wearing designer wool overcoats. In
last week’s reading Jesus pointed out some wolves, well dressed in piety and
good works. Do you remember last week’s word “corban” and the hypocrisy of
scribes? Jesus warns us against those who blaze a broad path away from the
narrow gate in the name of God. His words are shocking. The scribes, the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, the men of the Sanhedrin are the spiritual rulers of Israel Israel
Believing these folks are wolves is
difficult, especially when some of them acknowledge Jesus’ name. Jesus points out some will prophesy in His
Name, cast out demons and do mighty works in His Name, but bear bad fruit. It
makes you wonder, what is good fruit? What’s it look like if not speaking for
Jesus, casting out demons, doing miracles? That doesn’t sound wolfish. How can
we avoid bad fruit, and not fall in a compost pile of rotten apples, including
the one Eve and Adam ate? How can we
bear good fruit? Jesus’ claim is hard,
that some who do outwardly good and spiritual things reject the Father’s will.
Despite looking good, they are lawless. The Scribes are workers of lawlessness!
But they dedicate their entire lives to work on the law, and among the best of
them, even try to obey it. When you see the high morality of the scribes, and
if you overlook “corban,” Jesus sounds nuts. No wonder they crucified Him, that
immoral, lying, lunatic, they said. When they crucified Jesus under a pretext
of lawfulness, the hungry wolf is unmasked. That’s one fruit of lawlessness.
They crucified God’s Son. That’s a universal mark of lawlessness, rejecting Him
who is the narrow gate. Another mark is that they want to live by the law to
please God. They made the law their master. But doing so, they had to modify
the law a little. While I guess I still want my neighbor to be a scribe, that’s
another mark, what they did with the law through the traditions. Like building
department officials handing out red tags to every un-permitted project but
exempting their own; like elected officials who swear to uphold the
constitution then pass contradictory laws saying “for the good of the people;”
the scribes made rules to rule the Son of man on the Sabbath, and every other
day of the week. Even when they kept their own rules, it was still lawlessness.
So too is everyone from scholar to dummy who hears the Word of God and then
says, “This is what I say it means…”
Playing with the Word of God is
cross-dressing in sheep’s clothing. It is bad fruit despite pious language and
even good intentions. So examine yourself. Skin the sheep fleece of God-talk
and ask “what in corban is really going on?”
We ask ourselves, our church and
our Synod such questions, because the closer to home it is, the harder to see stitches in the fleece. For example, can you believe God will condemn
a scribe if his or her personality is warm, friendly, persuasive and generous? For example, can you believe God will condemn
unbelief, especially if it comes in a winsome or productive package? For
example, do you want to impress God by obedience, do you play around with the
law, do you take grace with a “ho hum”? Let
us confess our sins to God the Father.
Do note Jesus was the prophet,
exorcist, miracle worker par excellence. Such works in themselves are not bad any more
than obeying God’s law is wrong. Christians are to obey the law, although we
are not under the law; and while the law is everywhere, the fundamental issue
is not about it, but about faith. What is good fruit? What is the opposite of
the lawlessness of the scribes? Does it not include a right use of the law and
faith that the gospel is true? As for the law, what is its proper fruit? Is it
not the word “repentance?” Is good fruit
a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart the Lord will not despise? Compare
the Pharisee who prayed, “I thank God that I am not like other men” to the tax
collector who beat his chest praying, “Lord, have mercy!” Only the tax
collector went home justified by God. That
way is a hard way. It is hard on us, or at least it feels hard on us. Repentance is the path to the gate showing
what’s inside so that we confess. It’s like a jeep trip over boulders
re-arranging the insides. The law shakes us, not to make us obey harder, but
quite the opposite. It breaks us so that we look to Jesus for mercy. The humble
and contrite heart the Lord will not despise. That person is prepared for the
narrow gate, wide as God the Father’s love.
Here is where our text carries us to
the gospel, to words where we hear good news, but only after one more pang,
like a jolting heart attack. “Whoever does the will of my Father will enter the
kingdom of heaven.” Did that phrase pain
you? If we take it as just another command it will kill us. Jesus already made
plain who actually does the will of the Father. What is the will of the
Father?” The law asks, “Who obeys the first commandment? Who loves God with all his heart,
mind, and strength?” There is only one;
there is the Son, the un-begotten,
eternal Son of the Father made man. There is only one who loves the Father
purely, truly. He is the Gate, the narrow gate wide as the Father’s infinite
love. He is huge despite our nearsightedness that sees Him narrow as the beam
of a cross. Sinners can’t enter heaven by the law. We’ll end up playing with
the law so that it doesn’t kill us…
but that’s its job. It is the Son who is the gate, He who fulfilled the law for
us, and calls us to the Father. Jesus didn’t add or subtract from God’s word to
get to the Father, nor does He want you to seek Him outside His gift of word
and sacraments. You don’t need to flagellate yourself for wicked desires that
spring out of nowhere. You are bid to confess them and be absolved. You don’t
need to intensely babble in tongues, save 25 souls weekly, or give to the
church beyond your means. That’s a human command. You don’t have to prove your
love for God by a rigid prayer life or some other self-appointed
discipline. Jesus obeyed the law for you.
Therefore God the Father declares you righteous for the sake of His Son, Jesus
Christ. For you Jesus Christ suffered the curse of our disobedience to the law.
He did it all to give the credit of His all to you and me. He tells us what the
acceptable will of the Father is: whoever believes
in the Son has eternal life. The irony is scribes cannot enter heaven because
their lawfulness is lawlessness. But those who know their lawlessness enter
without the law, looking to Jesus. The irony is those not trying to please God
by works, God the Father regards their works as good, because of faith, for the
sake of Christ. He is our lawfulness. He is our perfection. He is our
justification. He is our sanctification. He is our salvation. He is our all in
all because He did it all for you.
Jesus Christ justifies sinners. Jesus
rose from the dead by the will of the Father to give eternal life. Jesus is
coming again so that you may live with Him. Because the Son did the Father’s
will, the Father honors the Son and declared this word to the lawless:
pardoned. If you’ve been killed by the
law and dumped at the narrow gate, you have the password. We can all say it,
although it is a hard sentence: “I’m guilty.” This is how we enter the kingdom of God
A chapter or two before today’s text,
Jesus said to those who did not work but sat at his feet, “Here are my mother
and brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and
mother.” (Mk 3:35) What were they doing
but sitting at his feet? The will of God is to hear and believe Jesus. Through
Jesus we too receive pardon and the pardoned receive adoption as sons of God. What
is the way to recognize wolves and bad fruit? Whoever rejects Christ, who chooses
to live by the law and modifies the use of God’s law. What is the will of the
Father except to believe in the Son, in the Son’s forgiveness of lawlessness
and in the Father’s adoption through the Son? You who believed have all you need to keep
from being eaten alive. Let us now eat of the Living One who made us His sheep.
This is good news, the will of God for us in Christ Jesus.
The peace of God that
passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Amen.)
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