“WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE CHRIST?”
Saint Matthew 22.41-46
Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity: 10 October Anno Domini 2004
Fr Watson
He wasn't asking for a theoretical, philosophical, hypothetical detached musing. He wanted to know what they believed about Messiah. "What do you think of the Christ?" It's a good question. It's a great question. What is your belief? What is the faith into which you have been catechized? In what is your trust? Who is your Lord? Is it the Christ? Who do you say that He is? Who is this Jesus person?
The Pharisees were all gathered together. These works-righteous self-centered enemies of Grace were scampering around the "Light" trying to "put it out" so they could get back to their darkness. They were gathered together as they will be at the end of time, as all of us will be, before the Throne of Judgment. The question at the final separation of sheep from goats will essentially be the same: "What do you think of the Christ?" Only then, it won't be something that can be answered on the spot. The answer is something that a person makes only during their earthly life. And even then it's not an answer that an individual "makes" "decides" or "chooses" by intelligence, family connections, purity of motives, pious life style, razor sharp reasoning and superior scriptural head knowledge. Jesus once told Peter: "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father Who is in heaven ." [Mt. 16.17]
So, to the Pharisees and to the "old Adam" Pharisees in us: "Whose Son is He?"
The world's answer is always wrong. Your sinful nature's answer is always wrong. Society will say He was (and that's the key word isn't it? WAS) either a holy, good and wise man, a political and social revolutionary, a powerful wonder-working mystic, an angel, a devil, a cult-leader, or an illegitimate bastard son of a teen-age whore who duped and conned the people with his veiled messianic messages. These are all wrong answers.
The sinful self, yours and mine, will answer that He is a Sovereign and Awesome God, Who reigns in heaven above; that He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present; that He wants to be Lord of your life not just your belief; and that good things will happen to you if you just have enough faith, if you just walk righteous enough, work hard enough at those commandments, pray enough, and always vote for the Pro-life Republican candidates. These are all misguided answers, incomplete.
The Pharisees didn't think Jesus was the Messiah. He was only a wandering trouble-maker who became a blaspheming Samaritan in their eyes. They incorrectly "believed" that the Christ was only the "Son of David." They imagined that the long waited for "anointed one," the deliverer sent by God, would only be a man, a king, a warrior, a leader like Moses, Joshua, and King David. Their God was their belly; their faith was in what they wanted, not what the Word had said. They were sincere and civilly righteous fellows. That won't save anyone from damnation. Having heartfelt faith is worthless. Only true faith in the true "object" of that Faith is saving Faith. The Messiah is Jesus. Jesus is God. Jesus is Lord. But even a faith which can acknowledge this would be deficient if one didn't know what kind of God, what kind of Lord. Jesus is not only true Man, son of David, born of Mary. Jesus is also true God the very Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. God is Triune. Not only are Jews tragically wrong about who Messiah is, but so too are all the Unitarians, Mohammedans, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Arians, Tri-theists, Hindus, and everyone else who rejects the Truth that He gives to the world in vv 43-45: "...David in the Spirit calls Him Lord, saying 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.' If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his son?" What Jesus is saying in these difficult verses is this, if King David was inspired by the Holy Ghost to write these words why don't you believe them? And the words which God the Holy Ghost had David pen were these "The Lord God, the Father, the First Person, said to the Lord Jesus, the Son, the Second Person, sit at My right hand..." The Lord Holy Ghost, the Third Person had David record it.
The Faith which saves is the Faith in Jesus the Son of God who is only begotten by The Father from eternity. The same Son of God Who is Himself, God of God, Light of Light, and Very God of Very God. The Same Son Who with the Father sends the Holy Spirit to be the Lord and Giver of life by making the Son known (believed on) through the Word of God: the Scriptures, the Sacraments of Baptism, Repentance, and Altar.
This you believe, this you have been given as a gift to trust. This faith is part and parcel of the Messiah Himself. The gifts of Jesus' Body and Blood, given and shed on the Cross for the forgiveness of your evils, the perfect obedience of the Law in His Body and Blood for the daily rule-breaking of your hearts, hands and tongues...these gifts are held by you not with sight, and forensic evidence; not with science, logic and media clarity, but only by Faith. The Faith which you grasp, believe and confess with your lips in Jesus as Savior, in the Holy Trinity as God, gives you remission of sin, life in abundance and eternal comfort in heaven's perfect bliss.
"What Do You think of The Christ?" You all just spoke it once again before the hymn.
Let us all say it together in "short-hand" form as we acknowledge in faith our Savior Christ Jesus as true God and True Man, Suffering Redeemer, Resurrected Servant. The Christ confesses us as we confess Him in our own baptismal family names. Make the sign of the most holy and precious cross with me, and speak together with me: "In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost."