We Go Up to Jerusalem

In Nomine Iesu!

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Sermon Text: St. Luke 18:31-43

“And He took unto Him the twelve, and said unto them, ‘Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets shall be accomplished unto the Son of Man. For He shall be delivered up unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and shamefully treated, and spit upon: and they shall scourge and kill Him: and the third day He shall rise again.’”

Prayer in Pulpit before Sermon:

Lord God, Heavenly Father, Who through Thy Son + Jesus Christ didst mercifully open the blind man’s eyes, restoring his sight, we beseech Thee, with Thy Word so enlighten our hearts that knowing Thee through Christ, Thy Son and our Redeemer, we may in all temptations and afflictions look only to Thy mercy, and at all times find comfort and deliverance; through + Jesus Christ, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior + Jesus Christ. Amen. 

My dear friends, with this Sunday we prepare to transition into another season of the Church’s year. Throughout this current season, Gesimatide, our Triune Lord God has shown His abundant mercy and compassion for us. He has shown that He does everything for us poor, miserable sinners in order that we might be with Him in His heavenly Kingdom. And this has been a work of the entire Holy Trinity. On Septuagesima, the first Sunday of the Gesimas, our heavenly Father went into the marketplace of the world to call workers into His Vineyard of the Church. He called us to come away from the false religions of the world, to stop standing idle in the marketplace of the world, and come and join Him in the harvest of the Vineyard. He showed that He desires for us to be His dear children, and give us the reward of the shilling—of an eternal life in Heaven with Him and all the saints and angels.

On Sexagesima, last Sunday, it was the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the heavenly Father’s Only-Begotten and Beloved Son, Who was with Him from eternity. Our Lord + Jesus is eternal just as our heavenly Father is eternal. The heavenly Father willed that His Son, the Lord + Jesus, come down from Heaven and be born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He became Man. This is where we met our Lord + Jesus at the beginning of the Church’s year. We met Him being born in our flesh to redeem us from sin, death, and the power of the devil. He came to fulfill His threefold office of High Priest, King, and Prophet. It was in His office of Prophet, that we heard from our Lord and Savior last Sunday. He was the Sower Who went out with the Seed of the Word of God into all the world.

As our heavenly Father called us out of the world, as He invited us into the Vineyard of the Church, so too does our beloved Redeemer cast out His Word into all the world. He catechizes and instructs us with the Seed of the Word of God, so that we might produce fruit an hundredfold. Through the Word we are gifted with faith. It is this faith in our Lord’s promises found in the Word of God that gives us comfort and strength in this world to face all of our enemies: the enemies of the devil, our sinful flesh, and the world. This faith is gifted to us through the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Ghost. This is Who is at work in today’s Gospel reading from the Evangelist St. Luke.

We have been called and catechized. We have been invited and instructed. Today, we are confirmed in our faith, and enlightened with the eyes of faith to trust solely in our Lord + Jesus and His works and merits on our behalf. It is His works and merits to which our faith clings. Our Lord + Jesus in the beginning of the Gospel pericope draws His Apostles alone by His side to tell them the things that are about to happen. It is His office of Prophet by which He foretells the things that are about to happen to Him. He is going to be delivered over into the hands of the Gentiles by the Jews, and He will suffer many things, being spit upon, being shamefully treated, mockery, scourging, and then death. All of this He does for our benefit. It is these historical facts to which our faith clings. But we do not cling to them for the sake of them being historical. No, we cling to them because by these historical facts, our redemption is accomplished through the Son of God. 

He suffers and dies on our behalf. He Who is perfect and without sin, takes upon Himself our punishment. He stands in our place, and endures what we rightfully deserve on account of our manifold sins and trespasses. In this He shows His great love and compassion for us. This is the kind of love that St. Paul writes about in His First Epistle to the Church at Corinth. It is His love that never fails. Our love often fails, for we are full of sin. We let jealousy, anger, and stress get in the way of our love. But our beloved Lord and Savior never lets His love fail. He shows this by offering up His life as a ransom for ours. Scarcely would someone die for those who love him. Our Lord + Jesus dies for those who rejected and scorned Him. He died for those who daily and often break His Law of love. He loves us enough to endure shame, mockery, spitting, scourging and death on our behalf.

This is the Savior to Whom we cling to in faith. It is to the promises that this Man + Jesus, the Son of God, to which we cling to in faith. For, our eyes of faith clearly see what He has done for us, and for all mankind. We see in Him a Savior; a Savior from sin and death; a Savior from the slings and arrows of our spiritual enemies. Those enemies would have us remain like the rest of the unbelieving world. They would have us spiritually blind, unable to see the love that the Christ has for us, unable to see the love that our heavenly Father has for us. They have invited us and instructed us, and now they bestow faith upon us to enlighten our blind eyes.

The Evangelist St. Luke makes a contrast in today’s Gospel reading. Our Lord + Jesus tells His Apostles what is about to happen, and they do not understand a single word that He said. St. Luke repeats it in three different ways. They really did not understand what the Lord + Jesus was saying. They remained blind to the truth of why the Lord came down from Heaven to this earth. Their spiritual blindness is contrasted with the physical blindness of Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. He may be physically blind, but he is not spiritually blind. He knows Who the Lord + Jesus is. He is the Son of David. He is the promised Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One sent by the heavenly Father to draw all men unto Him.

The blind man, Bartimaeus, knows Who the Lord + Jesus is, and he knows from Whom he can get the help that he seeks. He desires to have his physical sight restored to him. He may be physically blind, but spiritually, with the eyes of faith, he sees clearly who and what the Lord + Jesus is. He is the One come to redeem Israel from all their sins. It is sin that blinds and leaves us in darkness. Without the light of the Christ, we remain in darkness and blindness. It is this light of the Christ by which our eyes of faith are enlightened to see our Savior, and the love that He has for us. 

This is all the work of the Holy Ghost. It is His work to enlighten us with the Gospel promises. He does this through the pure preaching of the Word of God, and the right administration of the Blessed Sacraments. Through the means of grace, the Holy Ghost works in the Vineyard of the Church, to enlighten us with faith through the planting of the Word of God into our hearts. Therefore, all three Persons of the Holy Trinity are at work in our redemption. The heavenly Father sends His Son into the world to redeem the world through His perfect obedience to the Law of God, and by His taking our place upon the tree of the holy cross to suffer and die our punishment. The Son of God, as the Man + Jesus, obeys His Father’s will, and endures spitting, mockery, scourging, being treated shamefully, and death. The Father and the Son, after our Lord rose again from the dead, and ascended into Heaven to sit on the right hand of the heavenly Father, send forth to the Church, the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost enlightens our eyes of faith to see all that the heavenly Father and the Son have done for us poor, miserable sinners. He enlightens our eyes to see that their love never fails for us.

Therefore, my dear friends, let us give thanks to our loving Triune Lord God. For He has called us out of the world into His Vineyard of the Church. He has implanted the Word of God into our hearts. And He has given us the sight of faith to see all these good things that He has done for us. He has chosen to be our only Lord God. He desires that we would have Him as our only True God. For He is our Rock and our Redeemer. He is our Fortress, a strong defense against all our foes. He rescues us from sin and shame. He rescues us from death and the devil. This is why this Sunday also bears another name besides Quinquagesima. It is also called Esto mihi, that is, be mine. The Triune Lord God desires us to be His. Let us be His, and let us cling to Him in faith, so that He is ours, too. In the Name of our Lord + Jesus, the Christ. Amen.

Prayer in Pulpit after Sermon:

Almighty God, be pleased to accompany Thy Word with Thy Holy Spirit and grant that Thy Word would increase faith in us; bring into the Way of Truth all such as have erred; turn the hearts of the unrepentant; and for sake of Thy Name grant succor to all heavy hearts and those who are heavy-laden, that they may through the mercy of the Lord + Jesus Christ be relieved and preserved so that they succumb not to the temptation of despair but rather that they gain the victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil; through the same + Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with the Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.

The Votum:

The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ + Jesus. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!