Text: Luke 13:31-35
Facebook live: Though you die, yet in Christ you live!
34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
It is possible to live under a delusion?
You think you are kind, considerate and gracious when you are really not.
You think you are building positive stuff into your children when in reality, if
you could check with them twenty years later, you really didn't.
What if you could read your own obituary? Would it say the things you hoped it would say about you and your life?
31 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
Death is a reality of life and a reality of sin.
Here the Pharisees of all people tell Jesus about the intentions of Herod.
Herod, you may remember, beheaded John the Baptist from prison in response to a dance that pleased him and his guests by the daughter of his wife, Herodias.
Herod had bound John in prison because he had told him that it was not lawful for him to have his brother’s wife and now …
Herod, by the nagging of his conscience for the death of John, believes that Jesus is the voice of John, come back from the dead.
The conscience that tears at Herod concerning John’s death, Herod believes will not bother him if Jesus is killed. But we all know too well that the conscience is not controlled by the human will but is the Law of God written on the heart of man.
So Jesus tells them:
32 … “Go and tell that fox, (meaning one being crafty and sly) ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.
Jesus isn’t taking any of it from Herod. He has His work to do and has His sights set on Jerusalem or as He calls, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!
So it is for you and me and in our day as well. Death is the end of this worldly existence. We are battered in this life with sin and its results. At times there are successes but all too often the failures of our lives and the trials we all face seem to be overcome by the stories in the news.
Death in Ukraine … those fighting and those fleeing. Some standing up against invasion and others looking for a place of rescue and peace.
Or, maybe it’s the many faceless people that are fighting cancer and the prospect of good or bad reports.
They live daily wondering; will I live or will I die?
The reality of death comes to both young and old alike. It is not a respecter of persons and no amount of money or status can hold it at bay or have it release its steel like grip.
Death will come by and to whom it will. We will all get there. But where is hope and salvation?
Paul Kretzmann in his commentary poses this warning:
“On the last day those that were Christians in name only will try to frame similar excuses as those from the biblical text, reminding the Lord of the fact that they heard the Word of God in a church where the pure doctrine was proclaimed, that they were baptized, that they were instructed in the Christian doctrine.
‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ Luke 13:26-27
And even those that merely lived in a Christian Community, and occasionally permitted Christian influence to graze them, will come and try to state this fact as an argument.
But all arguing will be too late. The fact remains that all such people did not [receive] Jesus and His Word, but stubbornly remained [bound] in their sins, and therefore will die and be condemned in their sins.”
Popular commentary on the Bible NT Vol 1 Paul Kretzmann pg. 342
Yet … though you die, in Christ you are made alive and live!
34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!
This place, like many places we know, choose to cover their ears at the proclamation of the Gospel and desire to remain in bondage to sin, death and the Devil. However, it is not Christ’s intentions to leave you there!
He laments:
How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
The unwilling, those who cling to their unbelief and refuse the gift of the Holy Spirit and the faith He creates, will push off the saving gift of faith in Christ looking to the pleasures of this world and the joys they bring for a time.
35 Behold, your house is forsaken. (He continues) And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
So where is hope?
Where is life?
Where is peace?
In Jesus, in his word and in his gifts!
Jesus is our hope!
Jesus is our life!
Jesus is our peace!
He has called you and me by the Gospel having written your name in the lamb’s book of life from the foundation of the world!
Through baptism he makes us alive in Christ and gives us by his Spirit newness of life!
We see the working of God through the gift of Baptism in the life of a little child and remember we too have been marked and redeemed by Christ and given faith in him. We remember daily that we are truly his children.
In Him, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we all who believe will be forever in His presence.
The wings of our blessed Lord have gathered you under the pavilion of His rest so that you can truly rest from all your labors and grief trusting in His all sufficient sacrifice for sin and knowing that we who name the name of Christ Jesus will be with Him for eternity
You too can be known, not for the value of who you are and what you do in this life, but in the value that the Son of God has placed upon you by His death in your place.
His love is shown by His sacrifice in your place so that you can be forever loved by him, redeemed, forgiven, forever, so that:
Though you die, yet in Christ you live!
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit
Amen
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