The Second Last Sunday in the Church Year

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The Second Last Sunday in the Church Year

St. Matthew 11:25–30

Prayer: O almighty, eternal and merciful God, by Your beloved Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ You established the kingdom of grace for us in Your holy Church here on earth, that we might believe the forgiveness of our sins, for You are a God who has no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live: we beseech You, graciously forgive us all our sins; through the same, Your Son, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.

In the Name of our Returning King, who sits on the right hand of God the Father and will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, dear fellow redeemed;

The lessons that we read on Sundays, [or Mondays] are supposed to coordinate around a theme. For the most part we can see that today, how the lessons and prayers revolve around the theme of Jesus’ Second Coming; the day – as we just finished confessing – “He shall come to judge the living and the dead”. But the lesson used for the sermon doesn’t seem to fit in well with the others. We hear the lesson from 2Thessaloniansabout the day when the Lord Jesus “is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel” (2Thessalonians 1:7-8), and we hear the lesson from St Matthew 25 of Jesus telling a parable illustrating the last day, how on that day the Son of Man will come in glory and “will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (St Matthew 25:32). And then we hear the sermon text, which has Jesus speaking the familiar words“Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (St Matthew 11:28). We understand the idea of Jesus giving rest and how that fits with the Last Day, with eternal rest in heaven, but that tone of the StMatthew 11 text doesn’t seem to mesh with the tone of the others. The other readings don’t seem to promise rest, but almost seem designed to create anxiety, to say, “Jesus is coming, and if you are good He will take you to heaven. But if you are bad….” Even the prayers for the day seem to reinforce this idea. We pray that we might be “ever mindful of the end of all things and the day of Your last judgment, [so that] we may be stirred up to holiness of living”. And then you have the Athanasian Creed, in which we not only confess that Jesus is coming to judge the living and the dead, but that at His coming “all will rise again with their bodies and will give an account of their own works. And they that have done good will enter into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire”. Those words do not put us at ease. They do not give us rest. If anything, when we hear these prayers and lessons paired with Jesus’ words from St Matthew 11, they make it sound like there is an “if” at the end of Jesus’ promise in St Matthew 11, as if what He meant to say was, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… if you deserve it. If you have earned it. If you have been good.”

We know how this “if” looms over us; it doesn’t take a theologian to tell you about it. We have all heard enough jokes about people dying and standing at the pearly gates with St Peter deciding if they are good enough to get in. Or lived with the idea of how at your death or at His coming Jesus is going to playback the movie of your life, and after thorough review then decide what your ultimate, eternal fate will be. Those jokes, those ideas make sense to us because they rely on this popular understanding of what the second coming is and how the rest promised by Jesus is earned.

So is it any wonder that the idea of goodness creates some anxiety in us, to the point that we can become so obsessed with our goodness?“Obsessed” may seem like a strong word but think about how quick we often are to call attention to any good that we do, how important it can be for us to receive credit and praise for it.Think of how offended we are when people do not recognize our good deeds, or even worse, when someone else receives credit or praise for good that I did? How offended we are when someone else’s work, someone else’s deeds are praised as better than mine; when I know that I put more effort, more time, more sacrifice, more sincerity into my work than they did? Is it any wonder that we find ourselves competing with those around us, trying to show ourselves better and more righteous than our neighbors, as if we were competing for God’s recognition?

Think of how quick we are to vilify others and claim to know the evil intentions of their hearts, meanwhile justifying ourselves and our faults, even our sins, under the guise of “I had good intentions”, or “I know this looks bad, but you have to know the whole story,” or “I just didn’t see as I had any other choice”; making sure the message is sent that I am better, more virtuous than my enemies, and even my friends. How often have you sounded like those placed on Jesus’ left in the parable, pretending that your sindid not exist, vainly asserting “How dare you accuse me! When have I ever done anything so terrible? Why, have you even bothered to look at all these people standing around me? For shame, Jesus! For shame!”

We like to think these little self-righteous lectures allow us to exit the field the victor, having captured the moral high-ground.But even as we maintain our right to stand there with our pure motivations and good intentions neither God’s Law nor our conscience rest from reminding us that our actions toward our neighbor were not about justice, they were about hatred and revenge. Our use of pornography was not about appreciation of beauty, it was about lust. Our gossiping was not about sharing information; it was about delighting in evil and rejoicing in the misfortunes of others. Holding on to the moral high-ground is a lot of work, and there is no rest to be found there.

Which is why Jesus calls you to Himself and to His rest. It is not a bad thing to want to be good or to want to do what is right in the eyes of God. As was already pointed outthis desire was part of our prayer for this morning, to be “stirred up to holiness of living”; and there are certainly many passages in the Bible that encourage us to live good lives. But we make a mistake, in fact we sin greatly, when we see our goodness as something separate or distinct from Jesus’ goodness, as if Jesus’ goodness was little more than a goal for us to shoot for, or an example to follow. As a Christian your life, your goodness, is bound up with the life of Jesus; or as St Paul told the Colossians “your life is hidden withChrist in God” (Colossians 3:3). This truth is what allows us to hear Jesus’ promise of rest and to find comfort in it. The Jesus who exhorts you to goodness, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (St Luke 10:27) is the same Jesus who was good for you. Who never vilified His neighbors, or gossiped about them, or took revenge upon them; but fed the hungry, healed the sick, comforted the suffering. Who washed you clean in His Baptism and hid your life with His so that all your acts of revenge, all your lustful desires, all your hurtful and evil speech could be washed away and your self-righteousness replaced with His true righteousness, true goodness. And it is clothed in that goodness that you stand before God now, and that is how you will stand on the Last Day. Jesus joins Himself to you in Baptism so that He can say to you, “When you hear me speaking about those who fed the hungry, I’m talking about you. Here, take My rest.

“When you hear me speak about those who welcomed strangers, I’m talking about you. Here, take My rest.”

“When you hear Me speak about those who visited and comforted the suffering, I’m talking about you. Here, take My rest.”

“When you hear Me speak about those who did good for the least of these, I’m talking about you.”

When you hear me speak about those who have done good entering into life everlasting, I’m talking about you, for… [in Me,] you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (St Matthew 11:29-30).

It is very likely that when Jesus spoke those words He was alluding to the story of Rehoboam. Rehoboam was the son of Solomon, and in 2 Chronicles 10 we read how when Rehoboam comes to power the people come to him and say, “Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you” (2 Chronicles 10:4). It wasn’t that Solomon was a cruel or unjust ruler, but under his reign the people of Israel had labored for years and paid increased taxes for the building of the Temple. Rehoboam, probably wanting to assert his authority, responds by saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to it. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions” (2 Chronicles 10:14).

We often fall into the trap of thinking of Jesus as if He were like Rehoboam. That He comes saying “Yeah, Moses gave you the 10 Commandments, and now I’ve got some more rules for you, and if you don’t follow them you’re not getting into heaven!” But in this text from St Matthew 11 Jesus is telling us He is the opposite of Rehoboam. He calls you to His service, but lays on you a yoke that is easy, a burden that is light, because it is a burden He already bore for you. And now He tells you of His return, not to heap guilt upon you, but so that you might know that just as He bore your burden of obedience, so now He will return to bear you to Himself in heaven, to His eternal rest.

Gloria Patri…

SDG