“PAX DOMINI”
Saint Luke 19. 41-48
10th Sunday after Trinity: 28 August Anno Domini 2011
Father Jay Watson S.S.P.
"As for me, I will call upon God." These opening words from the Introit are the Spirit's counseling words to all of you. Even as He spake by the mouth of David: "put not your trusts in princes." [Ps. 146.3]
Fear, love and trust in God above all things. Love your neighbor as yourself.
The very One, "one-in-three and three-in-one" that you fear is the God Who weeps over Jerusalem. The disembodied voice from the cloud does not cry. The fiery tongue of fire, He Who was "as" a dove does not cry. The God Who is Man AND God, in one person, sobs salty tears of passion and empathy over Jerusalem.
That Jerusalem exists no more, but, it had been the most special place in the world to God. "Jerusalem" means "city of peace." Jerusalem was Zion-God's Holy Mountain and sacred ground. Jerusalem was the land, earth, place, and LOCATION of God's choosing!
The Lord gave the city to His created people, His hand-formed tribe of Israel. He specifically gave the city into the hands of His anointed: David, son of Jesse. David was beloved of God and a "type" of the Prophet, Priest and King to come one day at a Bethlehem stable (Bethlehem, the same place where David had been born).
That throne is everlasting-from David to Christ the eternal and pre-existing and Alpha/Omega King; from David's Jerusalem to Augsburg's piece of Jerusalem right here! From this "new" Jerusalem here under the cross to Jerusalem the golden-the Feast to come!
The city had no intrinsic qualities of its own but was special because The Lord was there and attached His Name-His Word-His presence. Do you see that direct connection to this Holy nave and chancel?
This peace is not the end of cruelty between man, no fighting between countries and nation/states; rather it is harmony and communion between sinful man and Holy Trinity! The Divine Peace which is from and of God is when trespasses are covered over and forgiven in cleansing and purging blood. There is no new life with the Lord without the very Life of the Lord providing it. In the blood is the life!
From the onset God had His patriarchs, prophets and priests shed the blood of innocent sheep. These sacrifices pointed to and signified the coming Christ, and also trained His people in the truth of sin's seriousness, and God's loving mercy. The blood poured out in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle pointed to the blood which would one day be poured out in the Holy of Holies of Jerusalem's great Temple. The blood poured out in the Lord's Temple, built by Solomon (whose own name likewise means Peace) pointed to the true Temple, Jesus. For it would be the pre-existing Temple of Peace, the God/Man, who in His own Body and Blood would make everlasting peace between His people and the Father of Mercies. Jesus' Blood and Righteousness is your beauty; your glorious dress. [TLH 371]
It is this Jesus Who weeps over the…city? Yes, for all of His creation belongs to Him. Even a city as rock and grass, brick and mortar, wood and fabric was important to Him because His Name had made it Holy.
He weeps over a temple, a re-built former shadow of its self that will soon be destroyed in 40 years. It was after all His Father's "house," and the very place where Jesus had been brought by the Virgin 40 days after His nativity. It was the place where He was found at the age of 12 both listening to His people and speaking Words of Wisdom. It was the place where He had taught and the place where He would cleanse.
But He was mostly weeping over the people: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes. He was weeping for Caiaphas, Annas, Herod, Pilate and Judas. He was weeping over all who reject and torture Him. He was weeping for all who would go on spurning the Holy Ghost whether they were Roman soldiers or barbarian pagans. He was weeping over His own as well. Christ cried tears over the sin and anguish, the fear and cowardice, the denseness and meanness of Peter, the Emmaus disciples, Thomas, and all of you!
The Lord weeps over your sin-your daily treason. He weeps over the misery and sadness it brings you. It pains Him in such a way that His human nature produces groaning in His very core but also saline shedding from the very eyes of God. He has this kind of physical passion and compassion on your own self-inflicted injuries to the soul and mutilations of your spirit. It's as if your sin causes you to "cut" yourself rather than rely on the merits of your Savior's own cuts and piercings which He bore for you on the Cross.
Christ also cries over you a flood of Grace when He weeps with you as you yourself shed tears when you lose loved ones.
He weeps whenever you worship mammon and whenever you turn His House of Mercy into a house of works and commerce.
Repent of your sin. Repent that you take Him for granted and that you do not have Him always before your eyes. He cleansed the temple of merchants and tradesman and sellers of stuff not because He is against any of those things but because they are no part of Godly peace and Holy atonement. The works of man and the gifts of your hands do not bring satisfaction and acquittal for sin and sins. Only the Blood of the Paschal (Passover) Lamb makes for Peace!
The un-believing Jews, those selling animals in the Temple, or, those like Caiaphas, selling fake-righteousness, did not know what, WHO, was their peace. "If thou (them) hadst known, even thou, at least in thy day the things which belong unto thy Peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes."
Jesus is Peace in the flesh, and only His flesh brings you peace. The angels sang of this peace when He was born of the Virgin.
He cleansed the Temple back then but He must and He does by the Holy Ghost cleanse His Temple this day and every day. He cleanses you of your trespasses by His Word of Law and His Greater Word of Absolving Gospel.
Your work, your accomplishments, your discipline and energy-no, you might as well be selling turtle doves, goats and indulgences. Your work makes you tired, bruised, broken-down and closer to death. You take your so-called "rewards" or "pay" and you simply spend and buy and idolize and worship mammon-the stuff which moths and rust destroy. Your wages as the Apostle reminds you is death!
But by the love of God in the Person of the Son-the God/Man your new wage and reward is not by works but by Grace. Your wage is the Merit of Jesus.
You are not here Sunday after Sunday because you feel a sense of duty and obedience to the Third Commandment or triumphal gloating over confessional integrity to reverence and liturgics. You are drawn and gathered by the Holy Ghost through the Word/Christ to receive His Words of Forgiveness and His Meal of Mercy. You are not here for entertainment, enthusiasm, or ethics. You are here for rest and refreshment-RIGTHEOUSNESS from the Right One! You are not here for the shopkeeper's latest and brightest goods, gimmicks, or sugary goo. You are here for Peace, Shalom, Salem, Eirene, and Pax; that is, Jesus Christ and Him crucified for your Peace. The Body and Blood on your tongue for the delivery of that Peace by faith!
Peace isn't a feeling it's a reality because Christ is a reality.
You know (believe) this day! You know the things (Word, Washing, and Wedding Feast) which make for your peace-PEACE who is Prince and King. Your peace is not found in the village of Salem in the inner parts of a Tent of fabric abiding over a wooden box covered with gold. Your peace is found this day in the village of His Church in the Sacrament of His altar abiding under the forms of wine and bread.
Pay special attention to what the pastor says after the consecration during the Service of the Sacrament. Here him as he turns from the altar and presents to you what you will be receiving: the Pax Domini.
And listen closely to the words of the "votum," those words you will hear in second right after you stand up and before you sing the offertory.
In the Name of the Father + and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost