Septuagesima

On this day of the Church Year, we begin our solemn march toward Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil of Easter, and, of course, Easter itself, the Day of our Lord’s glorious triumph over death and the grave. The forty days of Lent that begin with Ash Wednesday are two and a half weeks away. But lest we be taken by Lent unprepared, the Church begins the countdown today with Septuagesima—seventy days until Easter. Yes, the private fasting of the individual Christians begins on Ash Wednesday, but the corporate season of the Church’s time of repentance begins today.

The seventy days of Septuagesima represent the seventy years that the people of God spent in exile in Babylon. Previously, the Lord has led them out of bondage in Egypt into the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. He had given them houses that they did not build and vineyards that they did not plant. God had given them rest from their enemies, peace, prosperity, and plenteousness. But then what? The people of Israel grew fat and complacent. They forgot the Lord their God, who had showered them with so many blessings. They abandoned the house of the Lord and embraced idolatry of every kind: pleasure, entertainment, pursuit of wealth and happiness, and also, outright debauchery and manifest sinfulness. The Lord God sent prophets unto them, to call them to repentance, but they hardened their hearts and would not turn aside from the path of destruction. And so the Lord drove His people out of the land of their inheritance into exile in Babylon. Jerusalem, the holy city, was left desolate—her walls broken down, the temple in ruins—until the seventy years of exile were accomplished.

Whenever God blesses His Church, there is always the danger of complacency. As the saying goes: good times create weak men; weak men create hard times. We are seeing this play out in our nation as we are led by weak men into hard times. The great days of our nation are behind us. This is true on a civil level, but it also applies to us spiritually. Complacency breeds hard and unbelieving hearts. The Church Fathers recognized this sinful tendency that lurks within the heart of every man. They knew, as Luther wrote in the first of his Ninety-five Theses, that the Christian life must be one of continual repentance. Therefore, in their wisdom, the Fathers embedded this cycle of repentance and returning to God within the rhythm of the Church Year itself. The Church Year teaches us the habit of living as Christians, ever confessing our sins, ever yielding to the Holy Spirit as he leads us away from the snares of the evil one and to the joy of forgiveness and life in Christ.

The Parable of the Vineyard is perfectly appointed for this day. We, who have been set to work in the Lord’s vineyard, need to be reminded from whence we came, lest we come to despise the Lord’s mercy to others. Every member of the Church, whether baptized as an infant or on the deathbed began in the same way: unemployed in the marketplace of sin. We dare not forget this truth. Were you brought to the faith as a young child? Most of us here were. Then thank God that in His mercy He spared you from a miserable lifetime apart from Christ and His gifts. And remember that Jesus’ parable is directly chiefly to you. The danger of complacency, and unthankfulness, and resentfulness lies most heavily upon those called early into the Lord’s vineyard.

So, let us consider the parable. There you were, lost in the ocean of sin, drifting aimlessly without hope in this world, unemployed and idle in the marketplace. And then our Lord Jesus came and sought you out—not because you were a skilled or valuable worker, but simply out of His mercy. And having found you, he sent you to work in His vineyard. That is, through Holy Baptism, He rescued you from sin and certain death, and placed you safe and secure in the holy ark of the Christian Church on earth. This He has done for you and for every Christian.

When did he do this? For most of us, as I said, it was very early in life, just as the sun was rising. Perhaps you were carried by your parents to the font as an infant. Other were brought in mid-morning. Though I was raised in a Christian home, I wasn’t baptized until I eight. And others are brought in later, for as long as sinners still stand idle in the marketplace our Lord is not content. He goes out again at mid-day and at mid-afternoon and all through the long day to gather in more and more workers to His vineyard. And finally, just before sunset, He goes out once more. Yes, even on one’s deathbed, it is not to late to receive the mercy of God.

But it is precisely this abundant mercy of God that leads to trouble within the Church. And who causes the trouble? Not the new converts. Not those who were brought to faith at the eleventh hour. They are simply too overjoyed at the goodness of God to cause trouble. They remember all too clearly the horrors of sin from which they have been recently rescued. No, the troublemakers are all those who have longest enjoyed the benefits of membership within the Church of God.

“We have borne the burden and the heat of the day,” they cry, as though having been rescued from sin and death early in life were an irksome thing. This is the danger of living as children of God, as recipients of unmeasured forgiveness, as heirs of eternal life. We can, sinful beings that we are, begin to think that by receiving all these great blessings, we have done God a favor. “I gave up eternal damnation for you, Lord! I have spent my life in the comfort and security of your beautiful vineyard. I have feasted at the table of the Lord. I have drunk the best wine, the blood of Christ poured out for the forgiveness of my sins. I have been spared countless evils. I did not end up under a bridge, high on meth. I did not commit adultery and ruin my marriage and destroy my children. I did not commit armed robbery and spend the last twenty years with Bubba in prison. I have born the burden of being a Christian my whole life, and now you owe me, God. Yes, you promised me eternal life and every blessing, but if you’re going to give that to the sinner who repents on his deathbed, then I want more. I deserve more.”

How easily we, who have received every good thing from God’s abundant mercy, can come to despise this same mercy when God shows it to other sinners. And the longer we have enjoyed God’s goodness, the greater this danger becomes. It’s a sad but true reality that whenever the people of Israel were filled to the brim with blessings innumerable, they soon forgot the Lord their God.

Dear saints, today, is the day of repentance. Today, on the first of seventy days of mourning, we pray with righteous Daniel, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, … we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and your judgments. O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face…because we have sinned against You” (Daniel 9:4a, 5, 7a, 8b).

The workers in the parable were indignant that the Lord had made them equal to the late-comers, to those who had recently repented and received His mercy. But as we pray the prayer of Daniel, we confess that we were already equal: equally sinners, equally deserving death and hell, equally in need of the undeserved mercy of God. “For there is no difference,” St. Paul writes, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22b–23).

That the Lord gives eternal salvation to those who lately repent is cause for rejoicing, not indignation. It means that He will even now receive you, however complacent or distant your heart may have grown. Today, seventy days before Easter, is the day to cast yourself upon His mercy. For, according to His promise, when the evening comes and the books are opened and the accounts settled, it will not be your work in the fruitful vineyard that matters, but the work of our Lord Jesus on the barren hill of Calvary. It is His good pleasure to pour the sweet wine of His labor into our undeserving lips, whether we have arrived early or late. And so, He does. The master of the vineyard says to you, “Take what is now yours and depart in peace. For I desire to give to the last as I also give to you” (Mt. 24:14). Amen.