“THE MISERABLE ARE MERCIED IN MERCY”
Saint Luke 16: 19-31
1st Sunday after Trinity: 18 June Anno Domini 2017
Father Jay Watson SSP
If you don’t need to be saved then you don’t need Jesus and you shouldn’t be here right now. If you are not miserable than you don’t need mercy…please leave.
Now to be sure, Lutherans need to have this ^^^ explained to them; that this is not Romanist heterodoxy about your works completing the circuit of saving, or Methodist heresy about…well the same thing really. No, Jesus suffered and died for your sins and His person and work is your Redemption. That is objective truth. It is finished. But not everything is finished. What? Yes, look around, you’re still here. You still sin. Yes, His once for all-time Blood atoning Paschal sacrifice pays for your sins today and tomorrow as well… yes, but you cannot rest on that which was done 2,000 years ago while despising what He does for you this morning and tomorrow and all tomorrow’s mornings. Christians simply do not say, even if they “believe it” thanks Lord for fixing me, and now I’ll be on my way—MY WAY—doing my things. No. True Christians daily drown their ‘old Adam’ and daily repent and believe. They do that by…Repenting, confessing, receiving absolution. They “believe” by being in Christ. By being in Christ through The Word and The Word Sacramental. They do it by receiving His precious Body and Holy Blood all the time…all the time.
You may not feel physically miserable, yet…well good for you. But you need to be miserable over your daily trespasses to the point that you loathe them, seek to be free of them, pray the Spirit that He constrains to help you fight them and put them constantly behind you, that you might serve Christ in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. Or don’t you live in The Creed that you profess? Don’t you live in The Christ that you wear on your forehead and breast?
If Jesus is not a proposition or formula…and He’s not; He is a Flesh and Blood Man, the Second Adam all while being God of God. Then so too His faith, His Kingdom, and His flock, is more than a “rule of faith” or even a Book of inspired truths. His people are the very Book of His Body, inscribed upon His palms, and buried in His heart—rock of ages cleft for you. Be who you are. Your very flesh is seated at the right hand of the Father, because Jesus your Brother and Groom is so seated. Are you not IN HIM?
It’s more than Lazarus good and Rich Man bad. They were both bad. They were both poor, miserable sinners. One rejected that reality and lived in delusion. The rich man did not live in The Word of God…the Word of The Law, Prophets, and Psalms that gave the actual and true Messiah. The rich man despised wearing the clothes of Jesus…the rags of repentance and humility, and love for others. It isn’t so much that he got “what was coming to him…what he deserved” as it is that he got what he wanted.
Lazarus suffered greatly. His physical pains and depredations were intense. Good. When one “knows” the lack of one’s own power, comfort, possessions, and works…because it’s all been taken away by life’s natural ravages (the wages of sin)…or, hopefully sooner than that…when it’s all taken away by The Law of God producing contrition and repentance…than the Mercy of Jesus washes in, on, and through, and covers the miserable with the Mercy of Christ—the Peace that surpasses all understanding.
To be embraced in the arms of Abraham…the bosom, when one dies, means that the person was embraced in the arms of Christ’s Church here and now while living. Living after the live-birth from death from the Church’s womb—the Holy + Font—and then being IN CHRIST in a way that goes beyond mere ascent or mental “agreement” to theological, systematical, doctrinal, synodical, and even catechetical truths on paper or white-boards.
So, stop focusing on “great gulf fixed” and “what does Abraham’s bosom really mean” and be aware that hell exists for those who despise and avoid Moses and the Prophets. Moses and the Prophets testify to Christ. They martyr to Christ. They are Christ, in that they are giving realities that are found only in The Church, the Body of The living God. Laying in the gutter, at the gate, full of sores, the “certain beggar” was in Christ and Christ was in Him.
You are laying in the ravages of sin, and pain, and yes, coming death. But you are at the gate of Paradise. Your sores have been washed + and cleansed. You are in Christ and you must needs have Him in you. Eat His Body and Drink His Blood and know and believe He rose from the dead and so will you.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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