The dead live and the lost are found. . .

Sermon preached for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Sunday, March 27, 2022.

Luke 15 is filled with stories in response to what was meant as a rebuke: “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”  Jesus was not at all shamed by their remark and by these parables says that they have it exactly right.  Jesus receives sinners and eats with them but He does not leave them in their sins.  At the end of the chapter is the theme for all the parables.  The dead live and the lost are found.  For this Jesus came into the world and because of this all the prodigals find welcome here in the Lord’s House and at the Lord’s Table.

The first parable talks about the foolish shepherd who leaves the 99 in order to seek the one lost sheep.  The second talks about the foolish woman who turns her house upside down for one lost coin only to spend it celebrating with her friends.  Both of these parables were directed at the grumbling Pharisees who said exactly what the Gospel is but refused to believe it.  Jesus has come for lost sheep and lost coins and for prodigal sons and embittered ones.  He comes to where they are in their lost condition, dirty with the stink of sin, and marked for death.  He receive sinners and He eats with them, as He will do here with you and me in a few moments.  

Luke gives us these three parables of Jesus but the best is the Prodigal Son, better named the waiting Father.  As with any parable, it is good to find ourselves in this story.  None of us will admit to being the rebellious son.  We are Lutherans.  We never do anything exciting.  The last thing we would ever do is to bully our parents into giving us what is theirs, waste it all on wild living, and then come back stinking like pigs.  No, we are not that kind of son.  Or are we?

The Lutheran in this story has to be the older son, the dutiful son who did all the right things for all the wrong reasons.  After all, we are here, right now, aren’t we?  Maybe we don’t’ want to be here but we know we should be.  So we come.  We have done what we thought we were supposed to do.  We were baptized, went through catechism class, were confirmed – heck, even go to Bible study.  It is not because we love these things.  These are our duty.  And we have been brought up to believe that those who do their duty will finally be rewarded.  Until our kid brother got a wild hair, took the money and ran while we had to stay and work.  The cry of Lutherans is always we did our duty, we did the right thing, so why do bad things still happen to us?

The person nobody can understand is the waiting father.  He gives the unworthy son what he asks and still loves him when he piddles it all away on nothing worth anything.  He lives with the tension of a dutiful son who is not there for the duty but for the end – for the inheritance he feels he is due and he thinks he has been promised.  Who in their right mind would act like this?  Who would welcome the son who took you for all you had back into the family?  And who would love a son who resents his father and acts only out of duty and not love?  Who indeed?  Could it be the one who receives sinners and eats with them?

The only currency that counts in heaven is mercy – not good works and not even sins but only mercy.  That is the shock of Jesus.  The Pharisees are like you and me.  They thought that it was only fair that they have a little better life than the scum of the earth who gave into their sinful desires and squandered their legacy from God.  They thought that going to church, praying, and doing good works ought to be worth something when it came time to barter the kingdom from God.  But Jesus lumps them in with the worthless sinners who may feel bad but they still screwed up.  That is because God did not come for the righteous, the well, the holy, the upright, or the good but for sinners.  

God does not pretend like we do.  He does not pretend we are not sinners or that our sins are not bad or that He does not notice those sins.  Jesus receives sinners but He does not join them in sin or condone their sin or excuse it.  No, indeed.  Jesus eats with sinners but He does not accept their sins as normal or justify the wrongs they do.  He receives them to forgive them.  He eats with them not to celebrate their shame but to feed them the flesh of the Lamb, His flesh, for the life of the world.

My friends Jesus is not here to pat you on the back and say you are okay.  He has come to where you are in order to bring you to where He is.  For that, He had to suffer and die and rise again.  His goal is not to win your approval but to rescue your lost lives.  God knows we are not worthy.  He waits for us to realize it.  And then the focus is no longer on our unworthiness but upon His grace and favor, goodness and mercy.  There is the source of our new birth, our absolution, our ears that hear with faith, and our lips that taste the flesh and blood of Christ.  Mercy!

Jesus comes to you, where you are.  But He does not leave you there.  He brings you that you may be where He is.  No apology can make us worthy of what He has suffered to redeem us.  No good works can fix our sin.  No intentions of the heart can excuse or justify the mess we have made of our lives, our souls, and our world.  Nobody works their ways into God’s good graces.  In fact, it’s just the opposite.  We seem to rather adept at insulting Jesus with our half baked righteousness.

But Jesus refuses to be offended.  Instead He pleads with us, wins us over to Him the way man might woo and win the woman of his dreams.  We run and He runs after us.  We are lost and He finds us.  We are dirty and He washes us.  We are hungry and He feeds us.  We are guilty and He takes our shame on Himself.  We are dead and He gives us life.  You bet!  Jesus receives sinners and eats with them.  What the Pharisees saw as an insult, Jesus wears as a badge of honor.  But the fruit of His love comes only to the repentant, to those who plead only Christ and His blood, and to those who by the Spirit’s guidance want nothing more than to be the obedient sons and daughters the Father desires.  With us it is impossible but with the Holy Spirit working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight, there is hope.  Love is obedience and obedience is love.  Don’t forget that.

So come you rebellious children.  Come you grumbling Pharisees.  Come you resentful elders.  Come and meet the Shepherd who will not rest until He finds you. Come, and meet the woman who will do whatever it takes to make the lost her own.  Come and meet Jesus, still receiving sinners and eating with them until they are no longer just sinners but the sons and daughters of God.  The dead live.  The lost are found.  In Jesus’ name.