✠ Psalmody: Psalm 27:1-2b; 3a; Psalm 79:9b-10a, 9a; Psalm 21:1; Psalm 13:3b–4a; Psalm 18:2a
✠ Lection: Isaiah 58:6–12; Romans 8:18–23; Luke 6:36–42
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The prophet Moses died in the wilderness. But he had an assistant who carried out and completed his role as deliverer: humble, faithful, and courageous Joshua, who himself was a type of Christ; who led the people Israel out of the wilderness, through the waters of the Jordan, and into the land promised by God as an inheritance. Joshua led the conquest of the land and saw to it that it was divided out in accordance to the will of God given as a place in which to dwell. The people’s grumbling was proven to be faithlessness as the Lord their God never left them nor forsook them, but upheld every bit of what He said He would do. This can be nothing other than a mighty display of the Lord’s mercy and His desire to bestow it upon and into His people.
The people dwelt in the land of promise. They dwelt in the promise of the Lord and as blessed Joshua neared the end of his life, he preached as did the merciful Deliverer Who came after him, because Joshua was a type of Christ, pointing ahead to the coming Lord, in like word, in like deed. Joshua called the people, those already in possession of the inheritance, and said to them, “Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” There is no doubt that this Joshua, bearing himself a form of the name of Jesus, was sent by God to be a preacher of the Good News, of God’s favor, yet true preachers of the Gospel are also preachers of the Law, for both are of God and are good. The Law is necessary so that sin is curbed, so that it is deterred and restrained among us who have the inbred desire to wallow in it more than swine in muddy mire. The Law is necessary so that we see ourselves in a bright and holy mirror that reflects every blemish down to the heart. The Law is necessary so that the people who possess the riches of God, His own promised inheritance, not in a slice of earth resting at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, but in His eternal kingdom, may know what good works in the kingdom are. These are the uses of the Law, of which the second, and highest use, the revelation to us of our sins, is remedied by the Good News that Jesus Christ came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it and that He died for those who cannot keep it themselves. His own life and death proclaim the Law and the Gospel unto us as do His very words.
The Lord Jesus fulfills the vocation of the first Joshua. He speaks Law to those dwelling in His promise for all the reasons aforementioned. Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. Those of the house of the greater Joshua, our Lord Jesus Christ, choose to serve the Lord their God and hear His Law with gladness, meditating upon it in the heart day and night, meaning that it becomes the standard of life, and thus causes the one who delights in it to flourish like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf does not wither. Those of the house of Christ yield not to the pampered and picky tastebuds of the old Adam who chokes and gags at the hearing of the Law, convinced that only bad breath and aftertaste may come about from consuming it. Yet it is the always humble, faithful, and courageous Jesus, traits which He bestows upon those of His house by His Spirit, Who is the One to proclaim to His disciples, both of then and today, words of Law and Gospel; words of what you are to do; words of what He has done.
His words in today’s Gospel text are imperatives for the ears of those already welcomed into the Gospel promise so that we may know all the better what true life, life that reflects His ways, looks like. And, having a new heart placed in us with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to keep it alive by God’s Word and Sacrament, we hear our dear Lord say to those willing and delighted to hear, “Be merciful…Judge not…Condemn not…Forgive…Give…For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” Indeed, the Lord’s mercy comes with no strings attached, for all has been satisfied in the life and death of the only-begotten Son of God, yet we must not be foolish in thinking that being able to live unrepentantly contrary to the kingdom of God while in the kingdom is something that will be tolerated by the Almighty, Holy, and Jealous King of Glory.
Our eternal Joshua, Who admonishes us unto the godliness of His Father and ours, speaks with it in mind of the Father’s heart constantly becoming more of our own. His first words in our text are what are meant to guide the remainder: Be merciful. Works of mercy are most certainly beneficial to the neighbor, but, just as with all the commandments, there is more being said than just what we do outwardly. Jesus’ heart overflows with mercy toward us so that we may have hearts, a very being within us, that is one of mercy. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. When the heart is dedicated to receiving the mercy of the Lord, to living in it, to giving thanks to Him for it, to treasuring it, then the heart itself grows in the mercy of the Father to be merciful. Such a merciful heart is then quicker not to judge maliciously, or on grounds of comparative righteousness, for is that not the way of the flesh? To mercilessly judge one another because of others’ faults and failures? Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Do not live as the world does, but as your Father does; He Who has the true position of moral righteousness and authority, and is yet merciful to us who are beneath Him, offensive to Him, who serve other gods, who daily show ourselves unworthy of kind treatment and favor, yet receive it in immeasurable bounty from Him anyway. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.
His true and only Son came into the world not to condemn it, but to save it. His priority isn’t to jump to condemnation in knowledge of our faults, thus neither should it be for those of His house. He has not come to tolerate sin unto destruction, but to treat the sinner with mercy in repentance as He forgives sins, all the sins in others and in ourselves, which in both are far more than we are aware of, and He freely gives eternal life in His promised land where mercy is the norm, not the exception. Every of us are great opportunities for mercy from God and from one other.
Christ’s Gospel comforts hearts that are stricken, either by failure to do well in our life’s intentions or in judgment and condemnation of others in their failure. Be merciful, for in our sinful lives, we have no doubt about mercy from God, but from one another we do. If all refuse to be merciful, then we shall be like the blind leading the blind, both falling into a ditch when at least one is needed to have in the eye the light and mercy of Christ, to see not only faults in one another, but opportunity to lead by the way of showing mercy, by being merciful down to the heart. Be merciful, for then you shall see as Christ does, for it is by His shed blood that every cost of extending mercy is paid for in full. We truly risk nothing except what the flesh clings to. But we live in a new place, an eternal promised land of God, led there and exhorted by our Joshua unto an inheritance reserved for those who are His and are being renewed daily in His likeness. Be merciful, for in Christ has mercy been given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, put into your bosom.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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