Our text from last Sunday showed that following His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus wept over the “City of Peace” on account of their unbelief. Immediately afterwards, He enters the temple and, in righteous anger, drives the money changers out of the temple, crying, “My house shall be a house of prayer” (Luke 19:46). What’s so special about the temple, this house of prayer? It was the temple where the God came to His people and where they were to come to Him in repentance and with the shedding of blood.

It’s no coincidence that in the parable set before us this morning, Jesus places the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple.

Yet, as we heard, the two prayers offered up in the presence of the Lord were vastly different. “The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get'”.

In an age where fornication and adultery is defended by the popular culture – in an age where people with power can lie and cheat and steal and get away with it, is there anything wrong with NOT being an extortioner, unjust, or adulterer? Of course not! In fact, you would probably want this Pharisee as your neighbor: as an employee.

Is there anything wrong with tithing, that is giving 10 percent of all income back to the Lord? Of course not! As everything is the Lord’s, it’s good to give back unto the Lord in joy and gratitude.

Yet, however outwardly good and pious the Pharisee appears, he didn’t go home justified, that is, declared righteous before God. To use the language from last Sunday, he didn’t know the things that make for peace with God. Why?

In sinful pride, the Pharisee didn’t think he had anything to repent from. His prayer was addressed to God, but he didn’t really pray to him. He bragged to God. He used the word “I” five times listing his good works. He compared himself to others, exulting himself and despising others. Trusting in his own merit and works, he stood before God alone without the Advocate, the Savior/Redeemer needed for sinful man to be justified, declared righteous before God.

Where the Pharisee came before the Lord in sinful pride, the tax collector came before Him in contrition and humility. “…the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'”

The people viewed Pharisees as holy and righteous, tax collectors were despised. They were seen as traitors working for the Roman government, and many charged the people more in taxes than what they really owed and pocketed it. So you have what appeared to be the best kind of person in the Pharisee and the worst in the tax collector.

Yet, the tax collector was convicted of his sin. He was humbled by the Word of God. He was ashamed: he stood far away from the view of others. He wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, he was truly grieving over his sin beating his chest in sorrow. He compares himself to no one else. He sees only his own sin.

The word translated mercy refers specifically to the mercy of forgiveness. Literally, he’s praying, “God, be propitiated to me. God, remove your anger from me.” His words are a prayer for forgiveness of sins that comes from God only through the intercessory bloody sacrifice offered up to the justice of God. He knows his sins only merit God’s wrath and he personally can do nothing to make it right. He knows the forgiveness of sins has a cost, and it’s nothing less than the blood of God. Appealing to the mercy of God on behalf of the sacrifice of the Savior, the tax collector does go home justified. As is written: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted”.

Fellow redeemed, we live in a world that loves to exalt in pride, not in doing right, but in sinning. They attack God’s gift of marriage between one man and one woman. They glory in their shame, attacking family as God instituted and ordained it.

All the more reason, why we, modern disciples of Christ need to confess God’s truth in society and lead holy lives according to His truth. We pray that proud unbelievers would be brought to repentance unto faith in Christ; He is the only source of salvation. He is the only way to be justified, to be propitiated.

So, we also must pray in repentant humility, pleading for the sake of Jesus to forgive us our many sins. We should daily pray that He would guard and keeps us from all misbelief, shame, and vice.

The temptation is to have our eye on the world around us, the person sitting in the pew, and compare ourselves like the Pharisee, “I thank God that I’m not like the world around me.” The devil tempts you to exalt yourself in that pious sinful pride to think better of yourself than you ought.

God help you and me to utterly despair of trust in self, our own righteousness and “goodness”; to instead cry out as the tax collector did, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,”. And then depend only upon Jesus Christ to keep us from either error: embracing of sin as something to be proud of, or pride in our own works and piety.

The unblemished, sacrificial Lamb of God, Jesus would soon make obsolete the very temple that He speaks of in the Gospel text. By His crucifixion on the altar of the cross He makes satisfaction for sin. Unlike the blood of Abel that cries out for vengeance, the blood of Jesus speaks a better word, a forgiving word, a propitiating word: Mercy! Christ’s perfect obedience and innocent suffering and death on the cross has appeased God’s wrath against your sin. Risen from the grave three days later, He spoke words of peace, of sins forgiven to His disciples and He has done so again today for you.

The crucified, risen, and ascended Christ is here today to exalt you who have been humbled by your sin in repentance that you may return home justified in His Name.

Let us ponder this: having been exalted and justified through the blood of the lamb, was the tax collector free to go back to ripping people off and overcharging them in his vocation as tax collector? No. And so it is for you.

In humility, we come into God’s presence to confess our sins and hear the announcement of absolution in Jesus Christ. We come into His presence to remember the baptism He has given us, to hear His Word preached into our ears, and to eat and to drink Jesus’ crucified and raised body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. This strengthens faith in preparation for life eternal.

Having been exalted out of our sin, are we thinking about the greatness of God’s mercy in this and rejoicing? Do we just go home justified to use it as an excuse to sin all the more and exalt ourselves in sinful pride? Heaven forbid!

St. Paul said in today’s epistle lesson, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:1-10)

Through the blood of Christ, you’ve been exalted out of the darkness of sin and death: not to go back to sin. Here, God works on your heart and mind through His Word and Sacrament to bring repentance, but to also be re-created in Christ Jesus to do good works, to be as Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, were supposed to be. To walk in His workmanship by doing good.

This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. It means walking in humility: understanding that you have no good apart from the cross of Christ and live in constant amazement at God’s mercy.

Eagerly come into God’s presence here, not because you have to but because this is where He gives you His gifts for forgiveness and life, where He gives you His mercy and strength, where He humbles and exalts. Then, having been exalted through the blood of Christ, you joyfully speak of God’s mercy to a world lost in sinful pride, not to lift yourself up in sinful pharisaic pride, but sincerely desiring their repentance and salvation, that they can share in God’s grace and salvation.

St. Peter wrote, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you…” Through the blood of Christ, He does exalt you out of your sin. When He tells you that your sins have been forgiven for Christ’s sake, you can believe Him! And know that you can go down to your house justified and forgiven, for the sake of Jesus Christ crucified and raised. To Him, who is your propitiation, your payment for sin, be all glory, honor and thanksgiving. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas