Sermon for the Last Sunday of the Church Year: "Hope in Jesus Crucified"

+ Last Sunday of the Church Year - November 24, 2019 +

Series C: Malachi 3:13-18; Colossians 1:13-20; Luke 23:27-43

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

10.9 earthquakes and towering tsunamis. Nuclear winter or World War 3. Alien invaders, a zombie apocalypse, or apes taking over the planet. That’s what we usually hear when people talk about the end of the world. Lots of hype and hysteria. But far too little hope.

We live in a hopeless world: pessimism over politics on every side of the aisle. Despair over illness in our own lives and those of our families and friends. Worries over family members and finances. Doubts about whether or not Jesus is even going to return some day, much less take care of me today.

The antidote, some would say, is simply to be more optimistic. Turn that frown upside down. Don’t worry, be happy. It’ll get better. Hakuna Matata, and so on. 

Reminds me a little bit of the old joke, or some variation of it. The optimist says his beer mug is half full. The pessimist says his beer mug is half empty. The realist says his beer mug needs a refill.

There’s a difference though isn’t there, between optimism and hope, at least when it comes to God’s Word. Optimism isn’t the same thing as hope. Optimism (or pessimism for that matter) is often about how you perceive things. Hope for the Christian, however, is the way things are even if you don’t see them. Take ourselves for example. When we look at ourselves – honestly, through the lens of God’s Word – we join Paul in confessing “oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. And yet when God the Father looks at us through the cross, he no longer sees me the sinner, but the blood of his Son Jesus crucified for me, and for you. This is why seeing isn’t always believing. But hearing is. Hearing the Word of Christ. That anchor holds. 

Today on this last Sunday of the Church year, Jesus speaks and delivers his sure and certain hope into our hopeless world. Hope anchored in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Hope as we long for Jesus’ glorious return. Hope as we await the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting. 

When the Scriptures speak of hope, it’s not in the form of wishful thinking or wistful daydreams, but in sure and certain promises. The kind of hope God gave Israel and gives us through the prophet Malachi, “They shall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts, “On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them As a man spares his own son who serves him.”

The kind of hope God gives us through St. Paul’s words in Colossians 1. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,  in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

The kind of hope Jesus gives to the criminal on the cross next to him as he is crucified for the life of the world. Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.” But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

No one in the ancient world would’ve looked at that scene and described it as hopeful. Darkness and thick clouds. Three men suffering the horror and anguish of crucifixion. Beaten. Weary. Dying. And yet, this is the where the thief found true and lasting hope, in Jesus crucified. 

Here’s a man whose life did not merit the Kingdom. He’s utterly hopeless were it not for Jesus. And yet, when Jesus speaks, the thief is born anew to a living hope where all human hope and optimism had perished. 

Hope to a dying thief pinned on a Roman cross for his crimes who cried out: “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”. The Lord meets that prayer with a sure answer: “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.”

The same is true of us. When we look at the world around us, when we look at ourselves, we find no hope. We have nothing to cling to. Along with the faithful criminal, we confess that we’re under the same condemnation. For the wages of sin is death.

But here’s the important difference. In Jesus, we do not receive the due rewards of our deeds. We don’t get what we deserve. Just the opposite in fact! In Jesus crucified we get what we don’t deserve. Jesus takes our punishment and we go free. Jesus who knew no sin is made sin for us. Jesus dies our death and we live. Jesus takes all of our depravity, doubt, despair, disease, death – everything that causes us such hopelessness – and he delivers us hope in his death and resurrection. Jesus saves others by not saving Himself. Jesus saves sinners by dying for them. Jesus justifies the ungodly. Jesus saves the unsaveable and redeems the irredeemable.

In the waters of your Baptism, Jesus joins you as surely as he did that thief on the cross – with all the saving power and grace of his dying and rising – and he says to you the same words. Today you will be with me in paradise. In his word of absolution, resounding from the cross and the Last Day to our ears in this very today. Today you are forgiven all your sins. In the Lord’s Supper, we receive Jesus’ body and blood that fill us and feed us with hope in the forgiveness of sins. And that cup is not half empty, or half full, but spilling, running, and flowing over the brim with the faith, hope, and love of Jesus crucified for you.

In the changes and chances of this mortal world, our hearts are fixed where true joy and hope is found. For the criminal on the cross. For you and for me, and for all. The cross of Jesus is where our hope is found.  

On this, the last Sunday of the church year, we live in the hope that prayed earlier in the collect of the day, “Lord Jesus Christ, you reign among us by the preaching of your cross.” In these last days, surrounded so often by pain and pessimism, by sin, suffering, and death, Jesus gives us hope in the midst of death. Hope that our Savior rules not in spite of the cross, but through it. 

The cross of Jesus is where our hope is found.  Today, on the Last Day, and every day until our Lord returns. Amen. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

A blessed Last Sunday of the church year to each of you…

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.