Trinity 20
Dear friends in Christ. In our Lutheran Confessions we distinguish between the visible Church and the invisible Church. The invisible Church is made up of all those who have true faith in Jesus in their hearts. It is invisible because what makes a person a Christian—faith in Jesus—is something invisible to the human eye; it is something only God can see. The visible Church is all those who on the basis of their confession in word and deed we must consider to be Christians. In short, the invisible Church is the total number of those who have faith in Jesus in their hearts; the visible Church is the total number of those who profess the faith.
What does this mean? It means that in the visible Church there are those who profess to be Christians but are lacking what truly makes a person a Christian—true faith in Jesus in their hearts.
This is precisely the point that Jesus makes in the parable in today’s Gospel about the man who was not wearing the proper wedding clothes at the wedding feast: In the parable Jesus describes the visible Church, which contains many hypocrites—those claiming to be Christians but aren’t because there is no faith in Jesus in the heart: And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests. That’s the visible Church. But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. On Judgment Day the King—God—will hold an accounting of His guests and those who are at the wedding feast but not dressed in the wedding garment—that is, those who claim to be Christians but lack what truly makes us Christians, faith in Jesus in the heart--will be cast out. In other words, a hypocrite can deceive people in this life by their claims to be a Christian but no one can deceive God in the judgment. Luther comments: When you are an invited guest, are baptized, hear the sermon, partake of the sacrament, but wear no wedding garment, that is, you do not believe, and are not serious about it, don’t for a moment think that you will sneak through.
Again, faith is vital/ makes a person a Christian, because faith alone receives the blessings of God’s kingdom—forgiveness of sin and salvation—and shows itself in true good works. Without faith, we do not/ cannot receive the blessings Jesus won for us and gives us in the word and sacrament; nor can we live a life of true good works. That wedding garment of faith is absolutely vital for us to be a member of the Church, the invisible Church and to be eternally in heaven with our Lord.
That’s why we do well to heed the words of the blessed apostle in today’s Epistle: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Let us make use of the time that the Lord gives us so that we are not found on the Last Day without the wedding garment. Right now the Lord has sent His servants—the apostles and all their successors—to us and has gathered us into His Church, the wedding hall. He has so richly blessed us with an abundance of His grace and mercy poured out to us in the word and holy sacraments—to create, preserve and strengthen faith. May we make faithful and diligent use of these, making the best use of the time. May we follow the Holy Spirit leading us to exercise our faith by fighting against temptation and sin and into every good work. This, too, is the grace of God mightily at work in us.
The warning here in today’s Gospel: But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and in today’s Epistle: Look carefully then how you walk is that although God has shown us every grace and mercy, we can reject and turn away from God’s grace. And that’s what today’s text—our Lord’s words He spoke to the Israelites through His servant, the prophet, St. Hosea: You are destroying yourself, Israel; but your help is from Me. In other words, if we are lost—if we lose our wedding garment—we have only ourselves to blame, You are destroying yourself, Israel; but if we are saved—if we are wearing the wedding garment—God alone gets the credit, but your help is from Me.
1. If we, in the end, are lost; if we are now destroying [ourselves], if we do not look carefully then how [we] walk, not…making the best use of the time; we have no one to blame but ourselves. The reason that we would be eternally lost does not come from outside of us—as if we are merely an innocent victim—but comes from within us. The simple fact remains, that all people as they are born and come into the world are born already as spiritually blind and dead, corrupt, and as enemies of God. It’s not that something is done to us that we become sinners and enemies of God—that we are all born good or at least neutral, and then we make a few bad decisions or hang out with the wrong crowd and then first after that become “bad.” Instead, it all comes from within us—we are all conceived and born in sin, as St. David writes in the psalm [51.5]: I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. We have no one to blame but ourselves if we continue on this path and so are in the end lost: You are destroying yourself.
This is a powerful statement, You are destroying yourself, and a mighty wake up call. Here the Lord is clearly telling us that in and of ourselves, we have no righteousness; it is not within our power to be/ produce a righteousness that is sufficient to earn/ merit/ deserve heaven. Left to ourselves and our own devices we would only destroy ourselves/ we would only be earning hell and damnation for ourselves. By our corruption by sin, by our sins we daily and often commit, we are making ourselves worthy and subject to God’s wrath and damnation. As a just and holy God, He must punish sin. Any honest look at ourselves, will reveal sin after sin—and that’s only the sin we know about, as St. David prays [Psalm 19.12]: Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. By our sin and guilt—both the sin and guilt we are born in and the sin and guilt we daily add “to our tab”—we must despair of ourselves; we can find no consolations in ourselves; we cannot look for righteousness in our own power/ righteousness.
This is why we need the wedding garment of faith in Jesus. What makes faith so glorious and absolutely vital is that it receives the blessings Jesus won for us. It receives Jesus’ holy sinless life/ His perfect righteousness. It receives the forgiveness of sin He won for us on the cross. And faith gives Jesus our sin and wretchedness in confession. Through faith all of our sins are on Jesus and all of His righteousness, salvation, and every other heavenly gift and blessing is on us/ ours.
Like we heard in today’s Gospel reading, we can still be without that wedding garment of faith even though we outwardly belong to a church. Think back to our text: You are destroying yourself, Israel. The Israelites were the people that outwardly looked like God’s people. They had God’s word, the prophets, and the temple in Jerusalem. They had the “right name” but they lacked the wedding garment of faith, they had fallen away from the Lord. That’s why through the prophet St. Hosea, the Lord was calling them to repentance and back to Him. Not just by their “natural sin” that all people have and are guilty of, were they destroying themselves but also by the fact that they had the grace of God but were rejecting it by their impenitence and continuing to live a life of sin.
That’s why this call of the Lord to the Israelites still must sound in our ears; that’s why we must hear our Lord’s parable: And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness…; that’s why we have to hear the words of the blessed apostle in our Epistle: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
We, dear Christian, can lose the wedding garment of faith; we can still spiritually destroy ourselves. Let us make the best use of the time and search out our hearts and lives, recognize our sin, sorrow over our sins, give Jesus our sins in repentance and receive His perfect holiness and forgiveness in the absolution. This wedding garment of faith in Jesus is absolutely vital because left to ourselves we would only destroy ourselves by our sin and guilt; we need that wedding garment of faith in Jesus—faith that receives Him and His righteousness.
2. If we are in the end lost, we have only ourselves to blame—we have destroyed ourselves—after all we continued in our sin and guilt, we opposed God’s way of saving us which is in Jesus, His Son. But, if in the end, we are saved, God alone gets the credit because it is all due to His grace. Why is it that God gets the credit? Why is it all due to His grace? Remember: we have no righteousness of our own that can open heaven’s doors to us; perfect righteousness is not something in own power; by our sin we are worthy only of God’s wrath and condemnation. So to us applies: You are destroying yourself, Israel. We have no one to blame but ourselves: But our text continues: but your help is from Me. That’s God’s grace!
In spite of us and our sin, we have certain help and deliverance—from God. Our destruction comes from within us—our sin and corruption; but our help and deliverance out of our sin comes from outside of us—God and His grace. The psalmist reminds us [Psalm 121]: From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Since we cannot save ourselves, God saves us in Jesus His Son, by His holy life and His innocent, bitter suffering and death. That’s grace!
But your help is from Me. How marvelous this is! Because we have been corrupted by sin and by our sin we are worthy only of God’s wrath and condemnation, God does not owe us anything good but He yet gives us His holy word and sacraments. Through these He gives us His Holy Spirit and works faith—giving us that wedding garment. That’s grace! Here is our help, deliverance and rescue from sin, death and devil. What did we, what could we add or contribute to this? Nothing at all!
God’s grace is free! It flows to us from God Himself in His holy word and sacraments. Through these He gives the Holy Spirit who works to create faith and to strengthen and preserve us in it; through word and sacrament He gives us the forgiveness of sin and Jesus’ perfect holiness by undoing, destroying our sin, guilt corruption and death. God, in grace, gives us in the word and sacrament every heavenly and spiritual grace and treasure. By freely giving us the Holy Spirit in His word and sacrament, God works a great change in us. Our feebleness is from us, but our change to living a life of love toward Lord and neighbor, a life of faith and good works, that’s from God alone! Left to ourselves and our own devices, we couldn’t/ wouldn’t live that life of faith and good works. But we have the Holy Spirit. We have Jesus coming to us and in us with His very body and blood. Now we desire and love the Lord and His will. Why? The Lord’s grace! He alone, in grace, makes us godly, saves us from sin and death, and leads us into a life of faith and good works. By His grace alone we are clothed with wedding garment for the eternal heavenly wedding feast. Our eternal righteousness and salvation is too great a thing to be gain by our work—it is a work of God’s divine grace alone!
Our help/ rescue is by God’s grace alone—so, if we are lost, we only have ourselves to blame; but if we are saved, God alone gets all credit and glory. INJ Amen