“JESUS: YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS”
Saint Matthew 5: 20-26
6th Sunday after Trinity: 8 July Anno Domini 2018
Father Jay Watson SSP
“In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ”…that means Jesus is speaking these words to you through me… “I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
Note well that it doesn’t matter that you know your Bible, have memorized great chunks of the Gospel narratives and Psalms; daily recite The Small Catechism, and regularly attend Thursday Night Theology to read and discuss the “Symbols.”
You heard the commandments of God. They are commands not suggestions. You must do them all, all the time, and do them perfectly, or you will burn in hell forever. The point is not to turn you into “let’s get ‘doing’ kind of people” but to kill you and your sense of self help and self-justifying. Scribes go to hell. Pharisees go to hell. Those then, and those now, who think their mastery of Moses…rules, regulations, loop-holes, test curves, participation points, and constantly improving and getting better…go to hell. Those who hypocritically think God cares for surface minutiae and appearances, “white-washed tombs,” go to hell.
The “righteousness,” being right with The Holy Trinity, that Christ credits to Scribes and Pharisees is the rightness one has with one’s own ego and works. It is an anti-righteousness. There is no one that does good no not one. Live by The Law and die by the Law.
There is no righteousness if you try to view it, to understand it, as a “force,” an impersonal deposit or quantity of stuff. Righteousness is not within you but outside of you. Righteousness is not a medicine but a resurrection from the dead. Righteousness is The God/Man Christ Jesus, and Him Crucified for the forgiveness of your sins.
To rely on your works and your goodness, or attempts to be good—better, is to be unrighteous, that is, un-Jesus, without Jesus, not needing Jesus. That one, is truly a “fool” and will stand condemned by Moses and will go to hell with the rejecting scribes and Pharisees.
Do not be angry with your brother. Do not call your fellow man intemperate, hateful, and hurtful words. Do not leave your brethren by themselves when there are things unresolved between you and them. Be reconciled to your brother.
Be perfect you sinful and unclean miserable…..
Now, you will understand and appreciate…that is, grasp tightly, the sweet release and pardoning Presence of The Righteous One.
You need a Righteousness that exceeds the anti-righteousness of the Pharisees. You need The Righteous One. He knows. He comes to your infant enemy self and washes you from the gore of old-Adam death and raises you dripping from His Blood, in His Blood, into His eternal heart.
Be righteous? Be in Jesus. Be in Jesus is not Law because He, Jesus, has already placed you into Him. He has gathered you here today by The Holy Ghost. He has absolved you of your trespasses. He has read the Word, (Old Testament, Epistle, and Holy Gospel) into your ears. He preaches His keeping of Moses’ Law, and His suffering and dying for your non-love, non-righteous lives.
“In Luther’s Galatians commentary, justifying faith is not autonomous (does not stand alone). It is Christ Who justifies, not faith.” That, Jesus, is the Righteousness of God. That Jesus covers you, passes over death by becoming death & dead for you, that is Christ’s righteous activity for you.
The Righteous One left the only gift that matters before the altar…not the Jerusalem Temple of Moses, but the New Testament Altar of the Cross, then at Calvary, now at this very Altar. And because Jesus did not leave the gift on the Tree, but brings it here, right now, the Fruit of the Tree of Life, here is the gift, GRACE, Salvation, Life, Peace, here is the gift of Righteousness.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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