Invocavit Mid-week – Wednesday 21 February A✠D 2024
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 91:15a, c, 16;91:1-2, 9-10, 13;91:11–12;91:1, 2 4a
✠ Lection: Exodus 24:12–18;1 Kings 19:3b–8;St. Matthew 12:38–50
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
When we gather around the Table of Christ to taste forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, to receive into our own person eternity, let us not take even a singular moment for granted. Repent for any moment that you take God and His gifts for granted as He brings heaven to earth in His Divine Service. Turn and ever lift up your hearts to Christ in Whom you have forgiveness. Resist the temptation to come and merely go through the motions, failing to take note of the treasures found in the words you hear, the words you speak; to sing things like Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy upon us, simply because that just what we do. It’s so much more than just what we do. Those brief words of The Kyrie are treasures in and of themselves because of the One to Whom they are addressed. And they are always, always comforting to the Christian heart because when Lord have mercy is prayed, whether in the Divine Service, at the stoplight, on the phone call, at the bedside, or at the graveside, we are certain that Christ our Lord hears and answers us by freely giving us His mercy. The use of The Kyrie in the liturgy is more of a most certain and confident proclamation than it is a petition asking that He would have mercy. Sing it boldly. Sing it gladly. Every time.
Even more in that brief prayer that comes right after the Introit is the fact that we address our God and King by two particular other titles in it. The middle one is Christ, meaning Anointed One, as we have seen reflected by His baptism and march into the wilderness to be the Victor. Anointed One of God have mercy upon us. We also call Him Lord, meaning ruler, or His case Divine Majesty, and it is good if it even brings to mind the divine, covenantal Name revealed in the Old Testament that is built into the Name Jesus. This is very significant, because no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. No one can agree and confess what Jesus reveals about Himself except by the Holy Spirit. Only those who have been called by the Gospel, enlightened with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and are sanctified and kept by Him in the true faith are able to look at Jesus, believe in Him for salvation, and confidently say Lord have mercy. To those who believe, welcome to His eternal family. It is eternally comforting to have a home with Christ. It is eternally comforting to have a family, to be family with Jesus the Lord. He has made it so. Therefore, when we take this gift of calling Him Lord for granted, let us repent, reorient our attention, embrace those present moments, and cling to His mercy of forgiveness.
By faith, you have ancestors about whom you regularly hear: the Disciples. In the Gospel of St. Matthew, these men, these redeemed followers of Jesus Christ, these believers, only address Him as Lord; Lord, save us; Lord, it is good for us to be here; Lord, is it I? Just like them, we both believe and yet still struggle with doubts and with the weakness of the flesh, which is why our lives are in daily need of being baptismal, constantly lived in the waters of drowning the Old Adam and emerging and arising to live before God in righteousness and purity now and forever. That is the life in Him that Jesus came to proclaim, but not all believe in Him; not all repent; not all call Him Lord.
Some of the scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” Is Jesus a Teacher? Yes, and the best that one can ever have, yet this Teacher is also the Lord Almighty. The scribes and Pharisees sound like none other than their father, the devil. If you are the Son of God, show us a sign. A faith that demands God to prove Himself by our standards, our thoughts, our ways, is not a true faith, but a man-based one. There is no salvation in man. Yet, there is in God. Their request for a sign isn’t just for validation of the things that Jesus had already said and done, because claiming to be the Son of God, healing the lame, the deaf, the blind, even on the Sabbath, preaching repentance for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, these things that He has done have future implications as well. Therefore, their request is for Him to give them a sign that the kingdom that He preaches and brings is one that would be in accordance with their desires and design. Far too much does man demand God’s worship and submission to us; that He be the divine approval-stamper of our thoughts, our desires, our ways, even our earthly happiness.
But the will of the Father in heaven is that we believe the Son Whom He sent. The path through life travels in only two directions. Upon the path of the Father’s will is a life of repentance, of hearing the words of Christ and turning from our sin to Him; to take Him at His word. The Ninevites repented upon hearing the call. The queen of the South heard that wisdom was made known upon the earth through Solomon, the Son of David. She responded and sought out this Wisdom. Both the repentant Ninevites and the Wisdom-seeking queen will rise up in the judgement and condemn the evil and adulterous generation that sees no need to repent, sees no need to seek God’s wisdom, sees no need to hear the One who came to do His Father’s will in establishing the eternal kingdom in Himself.
The other path of life is dire not only on judgement day, but in the present. The Ninevites heard and heeded the call as it was made by Jonah, yet he was only a prophet called by God to bring this message, whereas here was the Author of the message Himself in the midst of the Jews, and both His Person and His message were unheeded. Eternal life begins now in Christ, so to hear and reject His calls, His identity, His salvation, is to encounter the Word that calls sinful man to repent, that clears the heart of its self-righteousness, sweeps, and puts it in order for the purpose of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and to say that such a Jesus is not the One that I want. Therefore, to reject that Spirit by rejecting the Son is to invite the spirits that bring a last state that is worse than the first. So shall it be with this wicked generation for all who refuse to repent, for all who call Jesus accursed, for all who seek to be like God by deeming the revealed Christ not the preferred One.
To reject the call to repent is to reject Jesus as the Lord that He is. Repentance is His teaching, thus repentance must be good, for He is. Repentance doesn’t stand alone. Christ doesn’t just let it be. He doesn’t leave the penitent heart in the sorrow of sins, but comforts by His forgiveness of them. True repentance is calling upon and trusting in the Lord who has mercy that He freely gives. Christ alone has the forgiveness that you need, because He was the One Who descended into the heart of the earth in death for your sins, but remained not there. Just as Jonah was raised out of the death of descending into the deep in the belly of the great fish, so even greater has Christ blessed all repentance through His rising from the dead. There is no life to be found in Jesus apart from repentance. The warning is stark to those who seek otherwise, but the Blessing is greater, for Jesus is a greater than Jonah. He is a greater than Solomon, and for your sake, He was there. For your sake, He is here. Lord have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon us. Glory be to Jesus, the merciful Lord.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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