LAST SUNDAY of the Church Year (Pent.26) “Faith Sees Jesus”
November 26, 2023 Matthew 25:31-46
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Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ
The Parable of the Sheep & the Goats, of Matt.25, is one of the most recognizable teachings of Jesus. And it is the last of 3 parables Jesus uses, as He taught the disciples about the End Times. So, after He said, ‘no one knows that day and hour,’ He tells the parable of the Ten Virgins, the parable of The Talents, & concludes with sheep & goats. He uses some earthly pictures to teach heavenly realities & spiritual truth.
One truth is that these 3 stories reveal Him as the Bridegroom we are waiting for: the Master whom we serve, & the King =to whom we are accountable. Jesus wants our faith to see Him for all He is, so we are secure. We need security, because there is another truth here: anyone who is not prepared for Him when He comes, they will be shut out of the kingdom, scolded for being wicked & lazy, and sent away ‘into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’(his words)
According to this last parable, a couple of things are clear: there is no avoiding the Son of Man when He comes again. On that Day, all nations will be gathered before the King, the Judge, & every eye will see Him. Every person will be held accountable for their life & life-of-faith, or lack-of. But people wonder about a couple of things: 1= why does it sound like the sheep are saved by what they do? 2= Jesus says: we should be seeing Him now, hidden in the needs of those around us.
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When the OT prophets spoke from God about future things, they saw the world waiting for God’s One representative, the Messiah. That One would come with mighty power to put all things right, and to finally save & restore a broken world. Then when Jesus came & talked about the future, He declared that all the OT prophecies were fulfilled in Him, & said, All the Scripture bear witness to Me; all authority in heaven & earth has been given to Me. And to His disciples He said: I’m going away, but I will come back.
There are 2 arrivals of the Messiah spoken of in Scripture. With Advent & Christmas we celebrate His first coming, & we rejoice that the Messiah was clothed in our flesh & blood. We celebrate that the very Son of God came in lowliness, as a human being & a servant.
It means He knows what it is to be like us who have needs & pains, & sorrows & temptations.
He also came to plead our case in the heavenly court & under the holy law. He came to stand with the repentant law-breaker, the sinner; to defend us by using His own holy life as collateral. His sinless life is the exact price needed to lift our condemnation, and to restore us to be God’s people again. At the cross, on that Friday, He literally opened his heart & his hands to us – to bring us back to the Father.
This humble & serving & gracious first arrival is so central to our saving faith that we confess it in all of our Creeds, that we “believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was /conceived, /born, /suffered, /crucified, /died, &/ was buried.” Ever since God’s promise to Adam & Eve, the world has waited; and finally He arrived the first time; eye-witnesses saw Him & the Bible records it. And by that Word & faith – WE have seen Him.
That Word & faith is wonderful; BUT it does leave us wanting more than blind-faith; we want to see Jesus in the flesh. And we will. Because there are TWO advents; & they are very different. His first arrival was quiet, His second will be loud; the first was gradual, the second will be sudden; He once came in mercy, but now He will arrive in judgment. All of those things reflect the powerful promise & glory of God for our salvation.
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So, the Bible shows Jesus as BOTH Savior and Judge; but not at the same time.
When Jesus first came, His purpose was to bring mercy from God; he came to befriend sinful humans & to shield us with forgiveness; he came to be our heavenly advocate before the Holy God; our mediator. This is the Gospel message that is the root of our life-in-faith.
The sin of Adam & Eve threatened to destroy God’s good creation. Instead of allowing sin to do that, God would give himself a reason to restore creation: He himself would offer the atoning sacrifice. A perfect Lamb & sinless life would atone for the sin of the whole world. Since only ‘man’ could substitute for ‘man’, so the Son of God also became the Son of Man. He came to us as an ‘every-man’ = so as to identify with all of us in our standing before God.
That’s why Jesus lived a common life, lowly, a carpenter – not a king; a teacher with simple disciples, not as a general with an army of soldiers. That’s why people were drawn to him; and still are. He is our brother, the friend of sinners, the mediator between God & man, the One who can help. If Jesus had first come in his Divine glory & power, no one would’ve dare approach him. Like Adam & Eve, we would hide from God for fear of punishment.
So, for our sakes, God-the-Son concealed his power & glory, and came in the form of a servant. This was not just an act! Our Creator IS kind & good, gentle & patient; but that’s not ALL he is. He is also holy, and He does punish evil, and His anger burns against all who sin & disobey Him. BUT, God found that one way to delay that judgment for a time; His anger & punishment is redirected toward The One on the cross. Our Savior’s first coming has brought to the world mercy & forgiveness, until the Day when He returns.
On that day, Jesus will not come in the form of a lowly, ordinary man, but will come as the true & righteous Judge, and King over all creation. He will arrive in full, visible, heavenly glory with all His angels. If our faith IS certain now that we see Jesus as our Savior, we are just as certain that the Day is coming when we will see Him as Lord & Judge of all.
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One of the things we often refer to, esp. around Reformation time, is that we are not saved by our works. Eph.3 makes clear that we are saved by the grace of God alone, & thru faith alone, in Christ alone. Even that faith is not a work we do, it’s a gift God gives; and the Holy Spirit gives & applies that gift thru The Gospel, by the Word, and even in Holy Baptism.
So, in Matt.25, when Jesus gives us a picture of that Day of Judgment, at first glance it sounds like we will be judged by our works. It seems like Jesus is saying to those on his right, “I was hungry & thirsty & a stranger, and as you helped those in need, you were serving Me. Therefore, come into the kingdom!” And to those on his left he says, “you had your chance to do good works to Me by helping those in need, and you didn’t. Therefore, away with you.” So, are the sheep saved by their works? No. The sheep are still being saved by grace & thru faith.
We notice that before Jesus begins to list those works, or lack of works, He has already separated the sheep from the goats. On what basis has He separated them? On what the Bible declares: on the basis of their faith in Him as their Savior from sin; and faith is a gospel-gift, a baptismal gift, & gracious work of the Holy Spirit. Only then does He mention the works = those words & deeds born of faith. On the other hand, where there was no fruit-of-faith shows there was no faith. This is consistent with how Jesus taught that ‘good fruit’ does not make a good tree; first it’s a good tree, and then it bears good fruit. A thorn plant does not bear figs.
We also learn that the sheep have not kept track of their works, as if they would benefit themselves; they simply cared for others. They were just living in their faith, doing what their Lord Jesus said to do. The sheep did not bring their works with them to show to the Judge, and so get their ticket into heaven. The Good Shepherd Jesus is their ticket. Of course they did those helpful, kind things for others, that’s how this Christian faith lives. Jesus warned the pharisees about doing things just to ‘look good’; but that’s a selfish motivation. God sees our hearts, & He can’t be fooled.
This is how it will be on the Day of Judgment for those at the Lord’s right hand.
They live in kindness & service simply because that’s how Jesus lived, & how he taught us to live. On that Day, their good works don’t come to mind; their faith has turned to sight, & they are relieved to finally be with their Shepherd, just as He promised them. He had made them wait a while; and while they were waiting, they put into use the time, talent, & treasure God gave them to serve others.
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Some people don’t want to hear about Judgement Day; it scares them. They say they believe in Jesus, but they’re not looking forward to that Day. Why? They might say it’s because they haven’t gone to church enough; they don’t give a proper offering to God, or give to charities like they should. They’re not as kind or helpful to others like they should be. And yes, we all should be. People should be scared to be judged by our works.
So, it is good news for all of us to learn that it’s not too late to look forward to meeting Jesus on the Last Day. God isn’t looking for us to present our long list to Him of all the things we think are the good works we did. He is still looking for repentant sinners, who are trusting in His promise of the Savior He sent. Our Savior has taken our failures to His cross, and HIS good work has been counted in our favor by the Father. That’s why all of us can look forward to seeing Jesus with our own eyes on that Day.
And now until that Day, we have His other assignment; belonging to Him, & trusting Him, we now follow Him. In this ‘in-between-time’, His Word & Spirit are living in our daily lives. We can’t see our Savior yet with our eyes, but with our faith we can see that Jesus has hidden himself in the needs & troubles of our relatives & friends, in our co-workers & fellow students, and in the poor stranger we see.
Our faith is serving our Lord in the kind & helpful things we say & do for others.
That’s how the Judge sees things. The sheep don’t worry about ‘doing enough’; when the opportunities present themselves, the sheep do what needs to be done. And that’s what daily life is like for those who trust their Savior, and are looking forward to that Day when He comes again as the King.
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A man was once arrested on a criminal charge, and he sought the help of a friend,
who was a very good & experience lawyer. He asked him to plead his case in court. But just the day before, this lawyer friend had been appointed to be the County Judge. He said to his accused friend: “Yesterday I would have been your lawyer & advocate. But my lawyer days are done; today I can only be your judge.” For that criminal, it was too late.
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Today, the world still has God’s own Divine Advocate, & Friend, & Savior; He’s the one who gave His life for us on the cross. Today is still a day of mercy & forgiveness for ALL people; it’s the time to be sheep who trust Him, / follow after Him, / & do what He directs. It’s the time now to be faithful sheep, because Jesus is our Shepherd.
But that’s NOT ALL He is. One day soon Jesus will finish that role, and return as the Holy Judge; and only His sheep will enter with Him, and inherit His kingdom; no matter whether they’ve done one good work or thousands. On that Day, we will fully see Jesus as our faith is turned to sight.
In the meantime, look at those around you, & you will see Jesus. The Lord has put them there so that you will exercise that faith given to you. They are there so that your faith will bear good fruit in kind words & helpful actions. God put people around us so that our faith has something to DO now besides just looking forward to the future kingdom.
And, besides that, our good fruit toward others will make people wonder what our motivation is; who is teaching us & leading us to do good, right & kind things. When they wonder, we get to tell them about Jesus = who is also their Advocate & Savior, their Judge & King.
Amen