+ 11th Sunday after Pentecost - August 25, 2019 +
Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton
Series C: Isaiah 66:18-23; Hebrews 12:4-29; Luke 13:22-30
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Long before Pinterest decorations and coffee cups bore these famous words, Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “It’s not the destination; it’s the journey.”
To be sure, there’s wisdom in those words. Enjoying the gifts of God today, and so on.
But Emerson missed something important. The destination matters too. A family road trip to grandma’s house makes lasting memories because both the journey and the destination matter. Lewis and Clark’s expedition Westward was important because of their journey and their destination. Dorothy’s journey along the yellow brick road through the Land of OZ is thrilling and adventurous, but in the end, there’s no place like home.
Both the journey and the destination matter.
Luke reveals Jesus reenacting the greatest journey of the Old Testament, the Exodus. Remember that at his transfiguration, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah talked about Jesus’ coming exodus to be accomplished in Jerusalem. An exodus of freedom from sin and death, liberation from the devil’s tyranny, rescue and redemption in Jesus crucified for you. For Jesus, both the journey and the destination matter.
He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.
Jesus also gives us a glimpse of the destination along the way; the marriage feast of the Lamb in his kingdom which has no end. His table and feast of forgiveness prepared for us after the greatest enemy of death is defeated. People will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the reign of God.
And on his journey to Jerusalem, someone asked Jesus, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”
It’s a question many have asked. Pondered on a personal level. Debated by theologians and academics. Whatever the motivation, if we get hung up on the question, we’ll miss the main point in this Gospel reading. Notice that Jesus doesn’t really answer the question. The closest he comes is at the end where he says not how manywill be saved but that those who are savedwill come from every language, people, tribe, and nation. And that those saved will be the last, the least, and the lowly - those who have no claim on the kingdom of God, save by grace alone.
Jesus quickly redirects the conversation from examining the “few” out there, to examining the questioner, the disciples, and those gathered around Jesus.
Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
As it goes for Jesus, so it goes for us. In our baptized life of daily repentance and forgiveness of sins, both the journey and the destination matter. Strive, Jesus says, like a wrestler agonizing and struggling with his opponent.
Strive, Jesus says. For he knows life will not always be easy. Our enemy, the devil, is well-trained, well-equipped and battle-hardened. And he will fight savagely. He is a thief, come to steal, kill, and destroy. He is a liar, come to sow discord, deceit, and despair. He wafts our guilt, shame, and sin in our face like someone holding a dirty diaper to our nose. Through trial and temptation, he hopes to lead us on a very different journey, to an altogether different destination.
Be vigilant, Jesus warns. Keep our eyes on the journey – to live in God’s gift of daily repentance and forgiveness. And also to keep an eye on the destination. Look for the coming of Christ and his gracious reign. Thy Kingdom Come, we pray. Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In our Lord’s church. School. Our homes, families, and lives. On the one hand, the journey is done and the victory is ours. And on the other, we strive. Struggle. Wrestle. We live in repentance and forgiveness confessing that this too is the work of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in you and in your life. Jesus calls us here to be who he declared us to be: his holy, baptized, beloved Christians.
Jesus admonishes us this way, not because we enter the narrow door by our own our own striving and struggling, but because you belong to Jesus who has strived, struggled, and wrestled sin, death, and the devil for you. You are baptized into Jesus who journeyed to the cross to save you. And He invites you to join him this day, and on the Last Day, in a never-ending party, the marriage supper of the Lamb who has conquered death.
And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
This is not what the world, or our sinful flesh expects. When we’re told to strive, we’re told to be stronger, faster, bigger, better. That’s the way of the flesh, but not the cross.
Strive to do nothing, for God has done it all for you. Strive to see that everything we have - our wisdom, strength, gifts, abilities, or possessions - it’s all gift from God. Strive to be last, Jesus says. Least. Nothing. For it is Christ who makes us first. In Jesus, we who are last have become first because He who was first became last for us. Least. Nothing. For us.
To get to the narrow door, we first pass through the city gates of Jerusalem, where Jesus passes as the true king of Israel.
To sit at the table of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the prophets, we first marvel and believe as Jesus sits with the disciples at a table prepared with his body and blood to sustains us on the journey.
To enter through the door of life on the last day, we first gaze at Christ who was shut out for us, who was numbered among the transgressors, and who was treated like a sinner, like sin himself, for he bore our sins in his body, and he took them away and died for you. And then the Father raised him from the dead.
This is what sustains us on our pilgrimage, today and every day until we reach our journey’s end.
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempestand the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them...But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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