"Blush and Believe"
Jeremiah 8:4-12; Romans 9:30 - 10:4; Luke 19:41-48
Trinity 10, August 12, 2007
Pastor Aaron A. Koch
Mt. Zion Lutheran Church
Greenfield, WI

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

There is a line in today's Old Testament reading that always stands out to me when I read it. The prophet Jeremiah asks, "Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush." The people no longer were able to blush. You usually blush when you're embarrassed for some reason or put on the spot. The blood rushes to your face because a truth has been told about you that you're not comfortable with or that you don't want publicly known. But the people of Israel had become so accustomed to the various abominations of the day that they were no longer able to be embarrassed. They had no sense of shame over their false dealings and their covetous hearts and their sacrilegious deeds. Even when a prophet like Jeremiah would call them to account, nothing could make them blush.

Is that not a good description of our society and culture today? You see the various ungodly things that people are willing to do and say on camera, you see the immorality and the greed they're willing to peddle, and you've got to ask, do they even know how to blush? Aren't they at all embarrassed? Or does the media god take away all shame? And then there's us. Are you as bothered as you used to be by the positive portrayal of homosexuality or of people living together apart from marriage? When our society pushes the envelope on controversial issues, when various churches sacrilegiously follow society's lead rather than the Scriptures, does it even shock you any more? Have you sort of just given up? Do you blush when you are confronted with your own sin, or do you lash out at the person who's calling you to account? If we're not on guard this worldly attitude can gain the upper hand in our hearts, as Jeremiah prophesies, "No man repented of his wickedness, saying, 'What have I done?'. . . From the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely."

But let us also be on guard against the opposite error as well. For when we see the corrupt and degenerate state of our culture, we can be tempted to stake our hope in our own moral efforts and our own upright living. We can begin to place our confidence in the fact that we haven't succumbed to the ways of the world, or that we've turned our lives around, that we're more spiritual, a cut above the rest. We can begin to think that our works and our righteousness will keep us close to God and win His favor. And such a false belief is just as bad as society's corruption.

St. Paul spoke of this in the Epistle for today. He said that the Jews of his day did have a zeal and a passion for God, but they were ignorant of God's righteousness and instead sought to establish a righteousness of their own. Rather than receiving the righteousness God gives in Christ as a free gift, they thought they could produce their own righteousness through the works of the law. And that's just another form of idolatry, trusting in yourself, making a god out of your own goodness and your own spirituality. Self-righteousness is no better than sinful immorality. When you think about it, those who are self-righteous can't blush either. For they think they have no real sins to be embarrassed about, nothing to be ashamed of.

Let us remember then that it is not enough to have religious conviction or spiritual passion as the Jews did. For too often that zeal and passion are man-centered rather than God-centered, focusing on my works and my life and my walk rather than on Christ's works and Christ's life and Christ's walk to the cross for us. Our fervor should especially be directed toward the life-giving teaching of the Gospel and not simply to the deadly requirements of the Law.

I believe we need to be reminded of what St. Paul says in the Epistle, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." Did you hear that? Christ is the end, the completion, the goal of the law. That doesn't mean that you are free to disobey the commandments. But it does mean that the entire law is meant to point us to Jesus, and show us our need for Him as the Savior. All of the moral demands of the law, which we have fallen so far short of, have been satisfied and kept completely by Christ for us. All of the ceremonial regulations pertaining to the Sabbath and circumcision and sacrifices find their fulfillment in Christ, the perfect sacrifice, who was cut off for our sins and raised again to give us life and rest. Righteousness before God, then, comes not through our own efforts but through Christ alone, not by works but by faith in Jesus, the Righteous One.

And that's what makes the Gospel a stumbling block and a rock of offense, as the Epistle said. By nature we all want some of the credit for having gained God's favor, don't we? We want our salvation to be due in some way to our own doing and our own choosing. But the truth is that it's all Christ's doing and election. All glory belongs to Him for having brought us back into the Father's favor and for having brought us to the faith by His Word and Spirit. It all centers on Jesus.

The Israelites in today's Gospel didn't recognize this. They were blind to the fact that this was their time, when God Himself was visiting them in the flesh to bring them peace. But they would not have Jesus. They despised Him like an ungrateful child despises a Christmas present that turns out not to be the toy that he wanted. And so, as Jesus looks at Jerusalem just days before His crucifixion, He weeps over it. Our Lord's visit to Jerusalem is like a woman who prepares a gourmet meal, decorates the table and pours the wine for her husband, eager for the romantic time they will have together. But she waits all alone while he is in the bed of another. Or it is like a child who brings home a school art project and a bunch of flowers to find his mother on the phone. He says, "I made these for you." But she turns away, answers not a word, dismisses him with a wave, and drops his gifts into the trash. In a way this hurt Jesus even more than having spikes driven through His hands and feet. This is the hurt of being rejected by those you love. He weeps for those who did not want His gifts, who, only four decades later, would suffer the judgment of their unbelief and be crushed by the Roman army. Even the temple would be utterly destroyed. And so He says with a broken heart, "If you had known, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

Fellow believers, do you recognize the time of your visitation? It has come upon you in this very moment. This is the hour in which Christ Himself is coming to you in the words of His saving Gospel now sounding in your ears. Blush and believe. Don't assume that you'll have forever to repent. It is written, "Behold now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation." Don't let this time pass you by. Believe in what the Lord has done to redeem you from your sin; take refuge in Him and His words; seek His righteousness.

For our Lord has cleansed the temple. When Jesus drove out the moneychangers in righteous anger, that was a sign of what He was about to do at Calvary. For there on the cross Jesus Himself experienced the righteous anger of God against the entire world's sin and drove it out in the temple of His body. Jesus made Himself unclean in your place. He took all of the greed and the self-righteousness and the callousness and every other sin and made it His own dirty mess. And by His holy suffering and death He cast it out and away from you forever. He buried it all in the grave from which He arose in triumph the third day. Just as Jesus purified the temple as a house of prayer, so He has purified and cleansed you of all sin. You are forgiven in His name.

Jesus said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up"-in reference to His body. Though the temple in Jerusalem still remains destroyed from the Roman onslaught, Jesus, of course, did not remain in the grave, despite the devil's onslaught. He is now raised in everlasting glory and honor, the new and eternal dwelling place of God for you. Jesus is your temple. Baptized into Him, you have become the body of Christ and the temple of Christ's Spirit, who dwells in you through your baptismal faith. You are safe from divine judgment. For you are protected by Him who took the judgment for you.

"If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace!" Brothers and sisters in Christ, here are the things that make for your peace, the body and blood of Christ, offered up for you for the forgiveness of your sins, for your peace, for your rest. Call upon God, and He will hear your voice. Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you. For He has redeemed your soul in peace from the battle that was against you.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit