“THE BEAMS OF HIS MERCIFUL PASSION”
Saint Luke 6: 36-42
4th Sunday After Trinity: 19 June Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
The Lord is your Light and Salvation whom shall you fear? Your old nature, the world, and Satan tempt you to either fear no one or to fear just about everyone. Both conditions are sinful and break the 1st Commandment. You are commanded to fear, love, and trust in God above all things. You are commanded to follow and obey His Word and His teachers; to walk in His Light. Christ is that Word and Saint John writes: “in Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.” [Jn.1. 4]
But everyone is born blind, i.e. spiritually blind and dead in sin, and cannot see, i.e. believe in, this Christ. One who is blind cannot operate on himself to remove the impediment. Only one from the outside, a physician of healing, can perform the restoration of sight. “Can the blind lead the blind?” This is Jesus’ question and His answer is NO! The pagan being led by the heathen goes to hell. The person who thinks they are a “Christian” but in fact is being led, taught, and directed by false-teaching wolves in sheep’s clothing is also being led to hell.
The blind should fear The Lord. The false leader who thinks he isn’t blind should fear The Lord.
Jesus’ parable this morning is about Mercy—that means it is about Himself. The Light which brings salvation and The Life which brings…Life… flows from His Calvary cuts, His Golgotha gashes…and that redeeming Blood flows from His heart of Mercy—FORGIVENESS. “Father forgive them.” He means you!
Where there is no forgiveness there is no life and only hell. “Be ye merciful, as your Father also is.” This Law condemns and damns you. This is the same uncompromising Word which Christ first gave to Moses. This same compassion and requirement to forgive your neighbor is found in the 5th Petition of the “Our Father,” “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
The Word of The Lord is clear. I have forgiven you your debts and you are to do the same to those that have debts to you. “Aw, Master” says Peter “how many times do I have to do this, seven?” Jesus’ reply is that it must be done to eternity…every time you are sinned against you are to loose the sinner as you are loosed every day for your vileness in thought, word, and deed! Peter is not above his Lord and neither are you. When you forgive the unforgiveable, the ones who have hurt and abused you, you are showing mercy to truly miserable people…they need it because they cannot forgive themselves. You have been remitted and absolved, as great a debt yourself, by Christ. He suffered, bled, and died to forgive you all your sins. When you hold grudges, pontificate about the other guy’s speck, or mote, or whatever it is that they’ve done to precious little you, know that it was your beam your plank, your two huge pieces of lumber that were pieced together from your breaking of both Tables of the Law, pieced together to crucify the Lord of Life. Your bad!
You have been justified…you should be as The Justifier. You have been saved…you should be as The Savior. You have been redeemed…you should be as the Redeemer. You have been made Christians…should you not be as The Christ? Yes, you should and no you are not…not as you should. Repent of your failure and repent that you don’t sometimes even try to show mercy. Repenting is removing the beam from your own eye. Love born of faith worked in you by God’s Grace—The Holy Ghost—allows you to see clearly enough as sanctified new men and women to pull out your neighbors speck of dust that you both can continue to bask in the Light of Jesus.
Who saved blind Bartimaeus and gave him his eyesight back? Christ Jesus. Who saved dead Lazarus and gave him his life back? Christ Jesus.
You are miserable but do not despair that you don’t see as you ought. You are miserable and aching but do not despise yourself to the point of self-worship because you do not show mercy to others; that you do not forgive as you ought. The answer for you is still the same. Christ Jesus.
He will most assuredly judge and condemn the unbeliever at the final trump, to be sure, but He has already judged you not-guilty, and forgiven you all your trespasses with the beams of His merciful passion. Cross beams at Calvary millennia ago and the beams radiating from His sacred heart of forgiveness into you this morning in your + Washings and in your receptions of Light and Life in Sacrament. Jesus was judged guilty for you. He says you are not guilty. Jesus was condemned for you. He says you are saved.
Mercy is your new + birthright. Compassion is your cruciform Name. They will know you are Christians by your Love. And by Love, we mean Jesus. Thus the feast of Love incarnate at Holy Eucharist.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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