Sermon for Trinity 26
Isaiah 40:9-11 + 2 Thessalonians 1:3-10 + Matthew 25:31-46
It was Judgment Day. There was the King on His throne. He was surrounded by sinners who looked exactly the same on the outside; you couldn’t distinguish between them by sight. But on one side of the King was a believer, and on the other side, an unbeliever. The unbeliever went to his eternal destruction, but the believer was granted a pardon by the King and was taken to Paradise.
The day, of course, was Good Friday. The King was Jesus. His throne was a cross of shame. The thieves on each side of Him were both sinners, both equally guilty before the Law. They looked the same to the world, but to Jesus, there was a world of difference between them. One died in impenitence, and the other in faith. One’s soul was sent to hell, while the soul of the other met Jesus that very same day in His heavenly kingdom.
It strikes me just how much Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats was mimicked in that Good Friday judgment, which took place only a few days after Jesus told the parable. That same Holy Week the Son of Man would hang from a cross of shame, and even there He would rule as a King on His throne, pronouncing judgment, distinguishing between the righteous and the unrighteous. How much more when He comes again in glory!
Jesus looks beyond Good Friday in our Gospel, far beyond it to the end of the age. He speaks of His second coming, when He will no longer hang on a cross of shame but will sit on the throne of His glory. But from His throne of judgment, He will make a similar distinction to the one He made on Good Friday—one that He sees even now, but we don’t see it, not clearly at least. A distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous, the sheep and the goats, the believers and the unbelievers.
To the sheep He will say, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And then He lists all these good deeds they did for Him by doing them for His brethren, even the least of His brethren.
Understand who the brethren of Jesus are. Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t a reference to all human beings. These are the ones to whom Jesus “gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name,” as John wrote in his Gospel. These are the ones who are “all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” as Paul wrote to the Galatians. These are the little ones who receive a drink of cold water “in the name of a disciple,” as Jesus said, that is, because this little one is a disciple of Jesus. Every little deed of kindness shown to every little Christian is recorded by the King and will be praised by the King on the Last Day. See how Jesus values His people and how He spurs us on to even greater service to our fellow Christians! Because the King claims all that service as being done directly to Him.
Now, it’s true, the works of Christians also extend beyond the pale of the Church to benefit all men. But there is a special bond of love among believers. There must be. As Jesus said on Maundy Thursday evening, Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another. “One another.” Not one another as human beings. But one another as brothers and sisters who have been adopted into God’s eternal family through Holy Baptism and through faith in Christ Jesus.
The sheep look like such good people as Jesus describes them, but they aren’t aware of it. That is to say, they don’t focus on it. They don’t serve one another so that they can be rewarded in the end. They show true, genuine love, which doesn’t look for repayment or even for thanks.
They look like such good people, but the truth is, they were essentially no different from the thief on the cross. They haven’t all been robbers or thieves. But they all deserved God’s wrath. They all deserved death. But they recognized it before they died and looked to Jesus to have mercy on them and to remember them when He came into His kingdom. And, unlike the thief on the cross, many of them had opportunities to live a life of love after they were brought to faith. They were like branches growing on a vine, grafted into Christ by faith. The thief was, too, but he died before he had a chance to produce any visible fruit. No matter. He was in the vine. That’s what saved him. So also the branches that had time to grow and produce fruit. What will save them all on the Last Day is not their fruit itself, but their connection to Christ.
But that doesn’t mean God will ignore their fruit. No, Jesus foretells how He will praise His blood-bought people for the fruit they produced while connected to Him, the true Vine. And in the end, the righteous will go into eternal life.
Then there are the goats, the rest of humanity, like the thief on Jesus’ other side. Depart from Me, says the King, you who are cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels! What is it that has earned them everlasting fire? The King doesn’t list anything that sounds so terrible. In fact, He doesn’t mention a single sin of commission on their part, no wicked deed against anyone. That doesn’t mean they haven’t done wicked things. It means that it isn’t only their wicked actions that will condemn them on the Last Day. What will condemn them is their every failure to do a deed of kindness to Jesus’ brothers and sisters, their failure to help Christians—that will be held against them on the Last Day. Jesus takes it very personally when the unbeliever sees a Christian in need and fails to come to his or her aid. And that is a severe warning. Because if these goats are to go to everlasting fire for their sins of omission, then how much hotter will flames be for all their sins of commission, for all the hatred and lies they have spewed, for all the blood they have shed.
It looks at the moment like the unbelievers of the world are doing just fine, even prospering, even thriving. And it looks at the moment like Jesus doesn’t care all that much about the mistreatment of His people. But nothing could be further from the truth. He tells us ahead of time that He is keeping track, and that there will come a day of reckoning, a day of distinction between the righteous and the wicked. And even as the righteous will go into eternal life, so the wicked will go to eternal punishment.
For now, we still live in the age of Jesus’ shame, and we must bear His reproach here if we would be glorified with Him there. But the Day is surely drawing near. It will surely come. We’re instructed in the Gospel to look past the present tribulations of the world, to long for that day. Let the unbeliever take warning before it’s too late! Let him repent and flee to Christ for refuge now, as the one thief on the cross did, even at his very last hour, and found in Christ a gracious and forgiving Lord. Let the believer live in daily repentance, conscious of the coming destruction and careful not to stray from the refuge that is Christ. Let the believer take comfort in Jesus’ promise to come and make things right, to come and make a distinction on the day of distinction between the righteous and the wicked, with zeal to avenge His people against all those who do us harm in this world and even against those who fail to do us good! Take comfort in His assurance that there will come a day when liars will no longer be able to get away with their lies, when the madness of this world will no longer be allowed even a semblance of power. And let Jesus’ words spur you on to love one another and to spend your life serving one another in love, without neglecting any opportunity to serve the little brothers and sisters of Jesus. Your deeds may go unnoticed here. And that’s all the better. Let them go unnoticed, even by yourselves. Don’t love for the sake of reward. Love for the sake of love. Love for the sake of Him who loved you and gave Himself for you as an offering, that you may spend eternity with Him in His eternal inheritance. And on the Last Day, the day of distinction, the God who is love and who brought you into His love by grace alone will see to it in the presence of men and angels that your love is acknowledged, too. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.
