The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost Restore to Me the Joy of Your Salvation Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen. Today’s Gospel is our Lord’s parable of “a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.” The king is God the Father. The son is Jesus, His only-begotten. The wedding feast is the eternal life of the resurrection, which is right now ours and yet one day shall be more fully revealed to us. You and I are the invited guests. Dear Christian friends: Christ Jesus died on the cross, forgiving you all your sins. Christ Jesus rose from the dead, opening the door to your own resurrection on the Last Day. The death of Jesus was marked by sorrow; the resurrection of Jesus created joy (John 16:22). In your Baptism, when Jesus gave you His forgiveness and His resurrection, He also gave you in that same water His own eternal joy. God says that the joy Jesus has given to you is “inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). Jesus also promises, “No one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22). When you have joy, you have the very flavor and taste of the Christian faith. We might even call joy the exuberance of faith. Food is a sister to joy. Food is what joy does with its hands, so to speak. An angry, sullen man loses his appetite (1 Kings 21:4). Joyful people want to eat (Luke 15:22-24). Social gatherings often include food; if not a full meal, then at least coffee and cookies. Some of you remember Lorena Holtzen. She was so gladdened by my Communion visits that I was never allowed to leave until I had put some cake into my belly. My grandmother nearly committed a double homicide when she learned that my father and mother had planned only a light reception with no meal for their wedding. My father-in-law refused to hear of it when my bride and I suggested the same thing for our big day. Food makes joyous times more joyous, and there is no better place for food than a wedding celebration. Mix food together with marriage, and you have the single best picture of our eternal life in Christ. Nothing in our human language is able to describe your forgiveness and life better than food and marriage and joy: • This is what the Lord says, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.” • St. John later echoed these Words of our Lord when he wrote his book of Revelation. John described our life in Christ using terms of food and marriage and joy: I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! The Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready” … Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:6-7, 9) We believe that “the marriage supper of the Lamb” stretches down from heaven and opens a little corner for us here, upon our altar and at our communion rail. We call this Holy Communion a “foretaste of the feast to come” (LSB 955). We confess that the Communion is where we rejoice “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” (Preface to Holy Communion). In all of heaven and earth, there is no greater joy than the joy that rides upon these Words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” Where is your joy? Do you perceive it, or has it become hidden and buried under the crust of your existence? Your God will not accept the excuse that someone or something stole your joy. Failing health and the nearness of death cannot take your joy. Overwhelming confusion and daily frustration cannot take your joy. The people you resent cannot take your joy. Poverty, grief, loneliness, false-accusation, misrepresentation, hard labor, boredom and unfairness: none of these have any power to take your joy. Perhaps you can agree that the Lord your God, maker of heaven and earth, is somewhat larger than all these things. The Lord your God has given you joy. God’s Words remain faithful and true, despite any opinion of them. “No one,” says the Lord, “shall take your joy” (John 16:22). Those Words are a promise, not a bet: “No one shall take your joy.” Where is your joy? Are you in full possession of it? Is your God-given joy wrapped around you like “a wedding garment” (cf. Psalm 30:11, Isaiah 61: 3, 10) or did you absentmindedly set it down and walk away? Did you toss your joy out the window in fit of anger that has now stretched into a preoccupation? Have you so plugged your ears against the noise of your irritants that you no longer hear the angels sing? “I give you good tidings of great joy. This joy is for all people” (Luke 2:10). “To you a child is born; to you a son is given” (Isaiah 9:6). The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, “Tell those who are invited, ‘See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.’” But they paid no attention… Some were disinterested in the words of the king. Some felt too preoccupied by weighty matters of business and family (cf. Luke 14:18-20). Some became so angry at the king’s messengers that they “treated those servants shamefully, and killed them.” All failed to pray, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation” (Psalm 51:2; Offertory, LSB DS III). None wanted to eat. A busy man does not take time to eat. A sorrowful man cannot think of why he should eat (2 Samuel 12:16). An angry man feels no appetite (1 Kings 21:4). Where is your joy? • Is your joy fully intact and brimming at the upper reaches of your heart? Then sing praise to the God of your salvation! He indeed has given you “a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:3). Jesus “loves you and has freed you from your sins by His blood … In so doing, He has made you priests to His God and Father” (Revelation 1:6) and God clothes His priests in righteousness (Psalm 132:16). Stated in terms of today’s Gospel, God the Father has given you a wedding garment in the righteousness of Jesus (Galatians 3:27), your Lord and His Son, for whom He “gave a wedding feast.” Your wedding garment of joy assures you that you shall never be thrown out from the celebration. • On the other hand, if your joy has been somehow misplaced, pushed aside, or buried under the papers on your desk, do not despair! God’s mercies are new every morning! Great is His faithfulness! God promises you that He shall restore unto you the joy of His salvation (Psalm 51:2), and God thinks that a meal is a pretty good place for you to receive His joy. What is your salvation? It is food and it is marriage and it is rejoicing: • The food–“This is My body, this is My blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” (Mathew 26:26-28). • The marriage—“Christ loved His bride the Church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word” (Ephesians 5:25-26). • The rejoicing—Our King has prepared a wedding celebration for His Son! It is a banquet “of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine” (Isaiah 25:6). “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
