TEXT: St. Luke 13:1-9, Lent III 2007
THEME: Unless You Repent, You Will All Likewise Perish
In the Name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The bombing of
Having spoken about the signs to come at the end of
time, some of those present relate to Jesus the story of the Galileans whose
blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. Was this too a sign of the coming end? Or was divine retribution being visited upon
them for some unknown sin? Jesus
responds with another story, the eighteen upon whom fell the tower in Siloam,
killing them. Were those specific
Galileans worse sinners than all other Galileans? Were those eighteen worse offenders than all
others living in
Our Lord responds emphatically that those Galileans were not worse than all the others nor were the eighteen crushed by the tower nor are we. We are all dirty, filthy, and corrupt sinners. In the sight of the Most Holy and Blessed Trinity, sin is sin; only arrogant men would seek to assign a ranking system to sin. Left in our sin, we are like the fig tree in Jesus’ parable; we do not produce fruit, and when we do, it is rotten and stinking. We deserve to be cut down, destroyed, and cast into eternal and unquenchable fire. We too should perish, worse than the Galileans, worse than the eighteen; in our sin, we deserve to die eternally, cut away from God’s presence for all eternity. But Jesus does not leave us as such; He desires for us to produce the sweet and pleasing fruit of good works and so He calls us to repent.
Jesus calls for us to repent, but what does this mean? Our Lord calls for us to have a complete and total change in all of our thoughts, words, and deeds in what we have done and what we have left undone. But, repentance is more than just sorrow for sin; it is faith in the One who has come to free us from our sins by His bloody death; it is Jesus Himself who has come to be the propitiation for our sins. All human sin and suffering flow from the disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve. Suffering is a consequence of sin in this world. The trials, struggles, and temptations of this life will always be with us until, at last, we are brought into Christ’s Kingdom. When tragedy befalls us, our sinful human nature immediately thinks that we are being punished by God. With microscopic vision, we begin looking for our own sin or the sin of others; looking for where we might place the blame. But Our Lord’s call is not to do so; yes, He calls us to see that we are sinners, but He calls us to turn and look to Him, battered and bloody, hanging upon the cross. For upon the cross, every single last ounce of the Father’s wrath for sin was poured out upon His Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Dead in our sins, we produced no good fruit, but Jesus is our Advocate who mercifully intercedes on our behalf as the Vinedresser that we not be destroyed. In Him, and in Him alone, do we find our release from sin and death.
As our eternal and loving Vinedresser, Christ has watered us with the water which flowed forth from His pierced side on the cross, the water of Holy Baptism. At the font, the Holy Spirit planted in us faith in Christ, grafting us to Him. In repentance, we daily drown the old sinful nature and live as a child of the Heavenly Father. The Vinedresser speaks His holy and loving Word to us, telling us how much He cares for us and how precious we are. In His Word of Holy Absolution, He tells us that our sins are gone, done away with.
So too has the Vinedresser fed and nourished us. As we humbly come to His altar, with fear and trembling, He nourishes us with the Blood which also poured out from His side; the Blood of the cup and the food of His Body. Here He makes our faith grow, strengthening it, preserving it, and keeping us in Him. In this Feast, He gives to us the strength to endure the struggle of this life with all of its temptations, tragedies, and trials. But He also prunes away all that is harmful to us, forgiving all of our sins, and granting to us eternal life and salvation. By His loving care and nurture of us, He enables us to produce the good, sweet, and pleasing fruits of faith.
The all-merciful Vinedresser, Jesus Christ, does not leave us dead and unfruitful. Through His perfect life and His innocent sufferings and death, He has made intercession to the Father on our behalf that we not be destroyed. Suffering and tragedy are not divine punishments handed out to sinful men; Our Lord swallowed up all of the Father’s wrath upon the cross. Christ has called us to repent, not only in this holy season of Lent but throughout the entirety of our lives. As the loving and attentive Vinedresser, He has fed and nourished us with His water of Holy Baptism and the Feast of His holy Body and His precious Blood. Because He has cared for us in such a wonderful way, He enables us to repent, and by our repentance, He has enabled us in faith to produce the good and pleasing fruits of good works. It is through the working of the Holy Spirit that we shall produce good and pleasing fruits not only this year, but the next, and the next, and the next, and so on. On account of Christ’s sufferings and death, we shall no longer die, but we shall live for all eternity. Do you think that we are worse sinners than all other people, because we suffer in this life in this way? By no means. But that is the Lenten mystery: that the One who is truly innocent and pure suffered the rightful punishment, as His Blood mingled with sweat and dirt, as the great Sacrifice in the place of all of us who truly are the worse sinners and offenders.
In the Name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.