Sermon for the Second Sunday after All Saints: November 14, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝
Our Lord Jesus Christ predicted His own coming Day of Judgment saying: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.” “What does this mean?” Well, it’s exactly the same thing we confess in the Creed when we say that on the Last Day Jesus will “come to judge the living and the dead.” Is that Good News or bad –Gospel or Law – an occasion for anticipation, or a time for dread? The answer is “Yes! Both” – depending, of course, on whether you’re a sheep or goat. This is bad news for goats – cursing, condemnation, and eternal hellfire. For sheep, it’s Good News – blessing, praise, and eternal life. You may say, I don’t know which one I am, because some days I feel a little like both sheep and goat. So, what will that judgment be like for me? Our reading gives us some answers.
Above all, we learn that Jesus will come to judge – a task which was given to Him by the Father from eternity. All nations will be gathered before Him. The living and dead from every tribe, people, and language will stand before Him as He appears enthroned in heavenly splendor surrounded by armies of angels. Concerning that day, St. Paul writes: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done.”
The judgment Paul speaks of, however, is really more like sorting – the way a shepherd sorts sheep from goats at the end of the day. During the day, they graze together in the same field, but at night, when they’re brought into the pen, the shepherd stands at the gate and separates them one from the other – the goats on his left and the sheep on his right. What that means is that in this world believers and unbelievers will graze together and be treated alike. Both will receive the same rain, sunshine, illnesses and diseases, have the same business, car and house problems – and both will die to rise in the resurrection of all flesh on the Last Day. But that’s where the similarity ends. The righteous will rise to eternal life, but unbelievers will rise to eternal condemnation – the sheep will be on the right and the goats on the left – with Jesus, the “Dividing Line,” between them.
However, even though works are mentioned, the judgment of that Day won’t be based on what you’ve done or left undone, but instead on what you are – sheep or a goat. What you are will determine where you go – be it to the right, to blessing, inheritance and praise for your works – or to the left with cursing, punishment, and condemnation for the works you didn’t know you didn’t do. The sheep hear Christ say: “Come, you who are the blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” They receive a gift that’s been in the works since before the beginning – when God was at work preparing salvation even before any of us even existed. And what they will receive is an inheritance and a gift – rather than wages for their work.
Parents can do a similar thing if, before having children, they establish a fund so that when their offspring reach a certain age they’ll receive the money as their own. When the child is old enough, at that time the parents can rightly say: “We set this aside for you before you were born, and now we want you to have it.” The child can no more say he’s earned that money than you and I can say we’ve earned eternal life. This was something set aside for us before we were born – even before the foundation of the world.
God has been working for our salvation since before the cosmos came into being. He made His promise to save when He spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden following the fall. He called Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because of us – even as He guided Israel out of Egypt through the wilderness and into the Promised Land. He caused His Son to be born of the Virgin Mary – to suffer, die and rise again –for us and for our salvation. God brought us to His Word in Holy Baptism – later to His house to hear that Word and to taste that Word and strengthen our faith in Christ. All this has been worked out so that Christ could hand us the kingdom on the Last Day and say: “Here, it’s all yours. Your Father has been working on this for a long time.”
On that day the works of the sheep will be judged as righteous – and the sheep will be amazed! After all, they had no idea any of the things they had done were done for the Lord. And so they’ll ask in amazement: “When did we do those things? When did we see You hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or in prison?” They hadn’t seen Christ Himself. They’d only seen some poor beggar picking through the garbage, a lonely foreigner in need of welcome, a person with nothing to wear, and another sick or in prison who needed company. Whether Jesus was there or not was the last thing on their minds. They had only done what they knew needed doing. They had only done what comes naturally to a child of God. They were simply exercising their God-given vocation.
That’s how faith in Christ works. It does what needs to be done even before the Law lays down the requirement. It does the right thing without having to be led or prompted. It’s like an apple tree producing apples, or a tomato vine bringing forth its fruit. Faith gives food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, welcome to the stranger, and company to the sick or imprisoned – and all without having to be told. That’s how faith in Christ serves Christ in the service of one’s neighbors, because Christ is actually hidden behind the “mask” of those we serve.
Jesus who fasted for us in the wilderness and felt hunger pangs Himself is hidden in the hungry. Christ who cried out: “I thirst” is hidden in the thirsty. The Shepherd who came as a Stranger despised by His own people is hidden in the stranger in our midst. He who became sick unto death with our sin is hidden in the sick and physically afflicted. Our Lord became a Prisoner under the Law in our place—He’s hidden in the one who is imprisoned. Jesus became the least, so that through His poverty we might become rich in God’s mercy – so that when we love those who are least, we love Him who loved us unto death. When we love the neighbor in need whom we see, we’re loving Christ, our Shepherd-King, whom we do not see.
But what about the goats? Their situation is entirely the opposite. Jesus says to them over His left shoulder: “Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Notice two things. First is that Jesus doesn’t call them “cursed of My Father.” And the second is that the eternal fire they’re being sent to – that is, hell – wasn’t prepared for us, but instead for the devil and his angels. You see, God’s desire isn’t that anyone go to hell. He sent Jesus to die for everyone. If anyone goes to hell, they’ve wound up there in spite of the Father’s desire to save the world through the death and resurrection of His Son.
The goats on the left hear nothing but condemnation because their works are found wanting. “I was hungry and you gave Me no food, I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink. I was a Stranger and you didn’t welcome Me, naked and you didn’t clothe Me, sick and in prison and you didn’t visit Me.” Did you notice how the goats seem to be just as surprised as the sheep at what they didn’t do? “When,” they asked Him: “when did we see You hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or in prison and didn’t help? If we had known it was You, Lord, we would’ve done something to help and assist You!”
In spite of all their supposed “good works,” the goats actually despise and reject these the least of the world – because they despise and reject Christ who is hidden in our neighbor. They reject Him who came in the form of the least – the poor, helpless Babe of Bethlehem and the broken Man of Calvary – the very One who comes still today humbly and hiddenly – only now in water, Word, bread and wine. The goats had done what comes naturally to unbelievers. They had rejected and refused the gracious gifts of our giver-God – the gift of Christ, and the gift of their neighbor in need. That was why they were rejected and their works refused. It’s sad, God never intended that anyone perish, but the reality is that if you reject the gift of Christ and the life He brings, you get the wages of hell.
Now we’re back to the earlier question – which are you: a sheep or a goat? Are you standing at the right or the left hand of Christ? The answer here and now in this world is “Yes!” Your sin and the Law tell you that you are a goat by nature, for we all often neglect the needs of the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned. And no matter what we’ve done, it hasn’t been nearly enough. But the Gospel tells you something else – that you are a sheep from the Good Shepherd’s flock. You’ve been marked with His cross in Baptism and taught to trust only in Jesus, not in yourself. Daily you die and rise to new life through repentance – which is the very thing this account is intended to work in you – that is, that we each turn from goats into sheep. That doesn’t mean you’re supposed “try real hard” to become a sheep, or that you are to endeavor to mold your life in such a way that you make yourself a saint. No, there’s only one way. The sinner in you must die in Christ so that the saint can rise – because that’s how God transforms a goat into a sheep!
Repentance means simply that you have to be transformed. You must get a new identity. Before, you could only see yourself as a goat with Christ as your Judge, but God wants you to see yourself as a sheep with Christ as your Shepherd-King. The Good News is that you will not be judged by what you’ve done but who you are. You don’t do good works falsely hoping to earn God’s kingdom, you do them because God’s kingdom is already yours through faith in Christ Jesus. You don’t feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, or comfort the sick and imprisoned in order to become a sheep, you do those things because you’re already one of His sheep. And along with being a sheep comes this wonderful promise: “As you did to one of the least of these, My brethren, you also did it unto Me.”
In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Readings:
Dan 7:9-14 One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven!
Psalm 50:1-15 Every beast of the forest is Mine
2 Pet 3:3-14 the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night
Mt 25:31-46 a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats