Before reading the sermon, please read the lessons from God's Holy Word.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
So what do you do? Let's say you have an enemy who hates you. He hates you and is always starting rumors about you and turning your friends against you. Now, let's say that one day this enemy suddenly starts to act like your best friend. Do you trust him? When Lex Luther comes to Superman with a helpful suggestion, should Superman say, "gee, Lex, thanks for the tip!" Or should he maybe be extra careful to watch for a trap? If Bin Laden shows up at Army Headquarters in Afghanistan with a suggestion about where and when to send our American troops, should the U.S. general gratefully follow Bin Laden's advice? Or not?
Our Lord Jesus could tell you, for that is exactly what happened to Him, as we read in St. Luke. For Jesus, it was the Pharisees. The Pharisees, who've been testing Jesus and trying to trick Him and trying to discredit Him. The Pharisees, who've been actively scheming and plotting ways to get Jesus killed, suddenly seem to take an interest in His well-being and safety. "Get away from here," Jesus, "for Herod wants to kill you" (v.31). King Herod wants to kill you, they said. Just like Herod's father, Herod the Great, tried to kill Jesus back when He was an infant in Bethlehem. So knowing that one of the Pharisees goals is have Jesus killed, why would they come to Jesus and give him this warning about Herod?
Strangely enough, Jesus doesn't seem worried. "Go and tell that fox," He says, "Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course" (v.32). Not exactly the response we might expect. Not only does Jesus seem indifferent to the news about Herod, He seems even less worried about the fact that His one-time enemies are starting to give him advice! Instead, all we get is this hint about a third day and the resurrection.
Dear friends, Jesus was confident in the face of death. He was confident because He knew His mission— to die and rise again for the forgiveness of your sins. That was why He came and no one could deflect Him from His course, —not Herod, not the Pharisees, not the devil himself.
"Besides," says Jesus, "it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem" (v.33). Jerusalem had a reputation, you see, for stoning the prophets, for killing God's messengers.
Like the story of the people trying to get Jeremiah killed from the Old Testament. But yet this is how it works— when people reject God and His Word, they usually don't reject God directly. No, that'd be too scary. We don't say, "I hate God and His Word." Oh, well, there's always a few, but not many. No, it's much safer to hedge our bets and attack God's message instead. That's safer, a step or two removed from God. They try to poke holes in the Bible and its message, or we find fault with the preacher, or we find fault with the congregation. "We weren't rejecting You, Lord. We just didn't like how things were done there." Or, "we're not rejecting You, Lord, we didn't like the message."
It's kind of like flag burning. You know how sometimes in demonstrations people burn the American flag in protest? It's a lot safer to attack the symbol of a country than to actually attack the country. Right?
It's the same way with God and His means. When we reject God's means, we also reject God. Because He loves us, the Holy God of heaven and earth doesn't deal with us directly. He uses means. He uses messages and messengers. He speaks to us through the preached Word, the "mouthed Word" as Luther put it. He spoke to the Old Testament people through prophets. He spoke to the New Testament people through His Son Jesus. After Jesus' ascension, He spoke through His apostles and evangelists and He speaks to us today through His called pastors. Jesus said to the seventy: "The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me" (Luke 10:16). If a preacher, for example, is faithfully preaching the Word of God then we need to listen to that Word- for it is not his Word, it is God's Word. As Jesus said in Luke 10, it is the Word of Christ Himself.
Conversely, to reject Christ's Word is is to reject Christ. We can't say, "I believe in Jesus Christ my Lord and yet reject the Word of Christ. We can't say, 'I love Jesus, and yet despise all the things Jesus has to say to us. It was the same with the Pharisees vis-a-vis Jesus. They claimed to love God but they wouldn't listen to what Jesus had to say. The Pharisees were sure they were serving God, sure that God was pleased with them.They went to Church without fail. They fasted. They tithed regularly and spoke out against injustice. They were fine upstanding, moral citizens. But then along comes Jesus. The Jesus who teaches that that isn't enough. Then along comes Jesus, who teaches that the way into the kingdom of God? It's not the broad way of commandment keeping; it's the narrow way of death and resurrection. His death and His resurrection.
Do you want to know why the Pharisees hated Jesus so much? Why they wanted Him dead? It's because He was taking their religion away from them. Taking away their good works. Jesus taught that our salvation is achieved solely by God's grace— that it is God's free gift to sinners. It's the total opposite of the Pharisees who trusted in their own goodness. They flat out refused to believe in something outside themselves. They were so focused on EARNING their way into heaven that they totally turned their backs on the one who came to GIVE them heaven.
And it drove Jesus to tears. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!" Unbelief, you see, breaks Jesus' heart. It hurts him. Every time God's messenger was killed. Every time God's servants were stoned to death for speaking God's Word. "It's not you they have rejected," God once told Samuel, "they have rejected, they have rejected me" (1 Sam. 8:7).
The point is this: when we reject God's message, in truth we are rejecting God. When we find things to quibble with the Word, we are doing the devil's work. We are rejecting the Lord... and rejecting His salvation.
And hence, Jesus' grief and sorrow. When we turn aside from Jesus, when we let the devil lead us away from the Lord and his saving gifts, Jesus laments. He weeps over unbelief. "How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (v.34)
It's such a tender and yet tragic picture— imagine there's a hail storm and it's caught out a mother hen and her chicks in the open. The mother hen is desperately clucking after her little ones, trying to gather them under her protective wings, trying to save them from the murderous hail. She's willing even to sacrifice herself to save them, and yet they ruse. They won't come. They won't shelter under her sings. They refuse to let Mom protect them! That's Jesus' love for Jerusalem, for His Church, for us. He longs to gather us under His wings. He calls us again and again to duck under His wing, to find shelter and safety under His outstretched arms.
Those arms which were extended on the cross bearing your sin. Those arms which were extended over you in your Baptism. Those arms which extend over you again when the pastor speaks God's Word, proclaims God's Absolution, and with You the Holy Supper.
The point is: Jesus longs to gather you in. Do not reject His gifts; use them. He gives you His Word in a Holy Bible. He sends you faithful pastors to teach it and proclaim it. He gives you forgiveness in Baptism and Supper. He gives these things to us because He loves us. He loves us even to the cross.
I won't lie to you. If you're looking to find fault with the way the message is taught here, with the pastor or anything else... you'll find it. We are sinners living in a sinful world. The devil, your own worst enemy, loves to pose as your best friend, helpfully pointing out all the things wrong with your neighbors, with your Church, with the message. But know this: the devil has one goal and one goal only, to lead you away from the Word of God which is Christ Jesus our Lord. But who listens to their worst enemy?
Instead, listen to Jesus— Jesus Christ who loves you, who loved you all the way to the cross. Jesus Christ who loves you and always will, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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