Last week, you heard me paraphrase the synodical president, Rev. Matthew Harrison. “Jesus lives in the hearts of sinners, so you better be one.” The idea, as I used it, was that Jesus came to save sinners, something that St. Paul once wrote (cf. 1 Timothy 1:15), so if you’re looking for salvation or hoping to be saved, then you had best be a sinner. The Good News is that Jesus has come for you, dear sinner. But there are those who have no need for Jesus. If you say you have no sin, you only deceive yourselves (cf. 1 John 1:8); in this state of self-deception, you would believe that Jesus is unnecessary.

Shortly after last week’s text is today’s Gospel. Jesus is still teaching at tables. This time, He’s eating with tax collectors and sinners, the people for whom He came to earth. The Pharisees and scribes grumbled, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.”

Jesus is in the home of the enemy. He is eating at the table of a Pharisee, surrounded by many of this Pharisee’s friends—more Pharisees. They were watching Him intently. A man walks in with dropsy, and Jesus asks them, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” They are silent. Jesus heals the man, then asks the Pharisees, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” They are unable to answer Him. (cf. Luke 14:1-6)

Being at the table, Jesus then teaches them proper table etiquette. When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, don’t take the first seat, take the last. It’s better to be told to move up than to be told to move down. When you give a dinner or supper, do not invite those who can repay you, but those who are unable to repay you; then, you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just. There are eschatological implications in what Jesus is teaching them, for the wedding feast to which He is referring to is ultimately the Feast of Victory of the Lamb in His Kingdom which has no end and the dinner or supper is ultimately the Lord’s Supper where those who are unable to repay Jesus for His body and blood are stooped at His table receiving from Him forgiveness, life, and salvation which prepares them for the resurrection as the just. (cf. Luke 14:7-14)

They are both the same feast, for in taking the Lord’s Supper, you are partaking of the Feast of Victory. It would seem one of the Pharisees understood this, if only in part. “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him. And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.” (Luke 16:14-17)

Jesus had just told the crowd the parable of The Prudent Steward of Unrighteousness. It’s a story demonstrating mercy and forgiveness, where a steward, fearing for his job, has his master’s debtors reduce the amount they each owed to his master. Now, the steward, if he were to be kicked out of his master’s service, would have made friends of those debtors to the point where his mercy toward them would be repaid, or he would have saved his hide by giving them a more favorable opinion of his master. “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” (Luke 16:9)

The Pharisees heard this and, naturally, heard it as a condemnation against them. They and Jesus were constantly at odds, not the least of which was that they followed the commandments of men as if from God (cf. Matthew15:9)—their doctrine was not that of God. In addition to this point of contention, Jesus also nails them on being lovers of money, and if lovers of money, then not ones who loved God and their neighbors—He tells them the parable of Dives and Lazarus.

It was several generations after the flood that the people, who all spoke with one voice, decided to make a name for themselves. On the plains of Shinar, the began to build a great city—a tower reaching into the heavens at it center. Concerned at what was happening, YHWH came down to see what the children of man were building.

Now, it has to be an eerily ominous thing when God descends to see what is going on. In the Garden, God was taking His walk in the cool of the day, and asks where Adam was. As if He didn’t know, He asks as if to give the man a chance to reveal and explain himself. Things take a turn for the worse from there. Adam blames the woman; the woman blames the serpent—all three received a curse; to mankind, it is the promised curse of death, which, having now fallen into sin, is something of a blessing: man does not have to live forever under the sting of sin. (cf. Genesis 3:8-19)

In today’s Old Testament reading, God did not have to come down to see what the children of man had built. But His condescending that day resulted in punishment for sin. The people on the plains of Shinar thought too highly of themselves. It’s the same sin of Adam and the woman, who thought that they could be like God—maybe better than God—simply by eating the fruit that He had commanded them not to eat. These people thought themselves God’s equal or superior by the might of their hands and handiwork. “[N]othing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.”

Once again, God’s condescending results in the condemnation and punishment of sin. The people were scattered from Shinar. Their language was confused. One day, neighbors could speak to each other; the next, there was confusion, and neighbors were separated, perhaps they even became enemies. From there, God dispersed the people over the face of the earth.

“Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When thou saidst, ‘Seek ye my face;’ my heart said unto thee, ‘Thy face, LORD, will I seek.’ Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.” (Psalm 27:7-9, KJV)

For the past two week and today, we have jumped around St. John’s 16th chapter. We even had a little look into the 15th chapter. In these chapters, Jesus is preparing His disciples for His departure.

Now, it would seem that the departure He’s preparing them for His crucifixion and death. It’s the day of Jesus’ betrayal, after all. He had just washed their feet after supper, knowing that “His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father.” (cf. John 13:1) Up to this time, Jesus had spent about three years with them, catechizing them, giving them their seminary education, so to speak, even though their minds would not be open to His instruction until after His resurrection. On at least three occasions, Jesus had told them that He would be betrayed and delivered to death, and on all three times He was not understood. (cf. Matthew 17:22; 20:18; 26:24)

On the night of today’s text, however, there is something else going on. Jesus’ tenor is different than in His Passion predictions.

“A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father.”

With these words, Jesus sought to comfort His disciples. Up to this point, He had been telling them that the world would hate and reject them. This is the case because the world hates and rejects Him, and, “A servant is not greater than his master.” (John 16:20a) Jesus continued, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you...all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake because they do not know Him who sent Me.” (John 16:20b-21)

The way of life will be difficult for the disciples, but first, “a little while,” and they will not see Jesus. Jesus is making His way to the cross. There He will be crucified. There He will die for the sins of the world—the propitiation, shedding His blood for the remission of sins. He will be taken down from the cross and placed in a grave. And the disciples will cower in fear and sorrow, hiding from those who hated Jesus because they will come after them.

“Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.”

Jesus is dead and buried. The disciples weep and lament and are sorrowful. The world rejoices.

The open tomb, the empty bench, the unoccupied grave cloths, the folded handkerchief—these are all negative evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. They don’t necessarily prove that Jesus rose from the dead. They merely prove that Jesus is not in the grave.

It is finished! (John 19:30) Jesus commended His spirit into the Father’s hand, breathed His last, and died. The work of your salvation is accomplished, completed, finished. Christ has died, and in His death is the remission of all of your sins.

Now, the nails are removed and the corpse is taken down from the cross. His tattered body, full of holes, is cared for. A man named Joseph was given the task to care for the boy Jesus; another man named Joseph assumes the task to care for the body of Jesus. (cf. John 19:38)

His body is spiced and wrapped by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, to whom Jesus said that he must be born again by water and the Spirit. (cf. John 3:1-8) They place the body of Jesus in Joseph’s new tomb; no one else is buried there yet—it’s empty. The stone is rolled in front of the tomb, closing in the lone corpse.

The Jews, claiming to be afraid that Jesus’ disciples would rob His grave and claim that Jesus had risen, as He claimed He would, petition Pilate to secure the grave. Pilate gives them a guard to place at Joseph’s tomb. One must wonder, though, were they really afraid of people going into the grave or that Jesus might actually rise from the grave?

Up to the top of the mountain the pair trudged. Fire in hand, the father leads the son. On the son’s back, a bundle of wood. “Father, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering,” the father replies.

The father must have had a frog in his throat as he said that. The son might just be getting an idea of what is going on. Nevertheless, onward and upward they go. Along the way, there is no lamb. What was the father thinking, then? What images were going through the son’s mind the whole way up?

They get to the place. The father builds an altar and puts the wood in place. Then, the heartbreak really begins for the pair: the father binds the son. A coil of rope keeps the boy’s hands together; a coil of rope his feet. He’s not going anywhere but on the altar. The father must have been fighting back tears. The son’s screams must have been hard—nay, impossible—to ignore. But this is the Word of the Lord.

The father unsheathes the ceremonial knife. The son is pleading for his life. A deep breath, and the knife goes up. The son screams again. The father was just about to strike the killing blow when a voice calls out to him—the Angel of the Lord: “Abraham! Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

Tears of sorrow and screams of fear and mercy are turned in the wails of joy and relief.