Septuagesima

This Sunday the church begins her countdown to Easter. In seventy days we will celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. That is what Septuagesima means—seventy days. But before joy comes sorrow. Before the Resurrection comes suffering. Before the feast of heaven comes the fast of life in this sinful world. And so we mark the days until Easter with sorrow and repentance over our sin, and with fasting.

We are not yet in Lent, but you may have noticed that the vestments are violet, marking the beginning of a penitential season. The Gloria in Excelsis, that joyous song of the angels first heard on the night of our Savior’s birth, will not be sung again until the day of His Resurrection. The Alleluia also has been set aside. No, the forty-day fast of Lent has not yet begun, but at seventy days from Easter, the church corporately begins to clothe herself in the garments of fasting, anticipating the private individual fast that will begin in two and a half weeks on Ash Wednesday.

The forty-day fast of Lent corresponds to the forty days of our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness, and the seventy-day countdown that begins today corresponds with the Church’s seventy years of exile in Babylon. The prophet Daniel speaks of this in the text appointed for this day:

In those days: I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day. O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets” (Daniel 9:2–10).

And so, as the church enters into a season of repentance over sin, in the Gospel text appointed for this day, we hear of the great mercy of God towards sinners. To us belongs shame of face because we have sinned against God. But to the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness. And what does that mercy and forgiveness look like? Jesus tells us. The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who desires to give His workers what they have not deserved. But strangely, as we hear in the parable, this undeserved mercy causes resentment and anger among the workers who receive it. Can giving a gift make people angry? Indeed, it can.

I suppose you could try this for yourself if you want, though I don’t recommend that you do. If you have at least two young children, announce that, for no reason at all, but simply because you are kind and generous, everyone will be getting ice cream. Hurray! What a wonderful surprise. There will be much rejoicing! Then give one scoop to the first and twelve scoops to the last, and watch the rejoicing turn into anger—a real-life reenactment of the parable of the vineyard. A moment before there was joy at the prospect of an unexpected gift. But now that joy has given way to howls of protest and indignation. Why? Because someone else received a larger share of what neither deserved.

The text for Septuagesima is well appointed. This is not the season to consider what your neighbor has not deserved. It is the time to look at your own sin. In what ways are you lazy, or disrespectful, or unkind? How have you frittered away your time? Have you treated your spouse with contempt or dishonored your parents? This season of repentance is not for you to keep tabs on your neighbor and his sin. It is not for you to judge whether he has received more than his share of blessing. It is for you to repent of your sin. You are the problem in this church. You are the problem in your family. You are the sinner in desperate need of repentance.

You may recall that when the Pharisee and the tax collector went up to pray, the tax collector did not even dare to look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and said, “Lord, have mercy on me the sinner.” But aren’t the other people sinners too? Of course they are, but as far as you are concerned in your repentance, you are the only sinner. Make the prayer of Daniel the prophet your own: “To me belong shame of face, O Lord, because I have sinned against you.” Never mind your spouse, your parents, your siblings and their many transgressions against you. You are the sinner. You are the one in need of repentance.

This is hard, no, impossible, for the sinful nature to admit, because by nature it is always looking around to see if anyone else got more than he deserved. “Never mind that I don’t deserve the least of God’s mercies, I’m watching like a hawk to see who else is more underserving. Instead of confessing my own sin, I’m looking to see if my neighbor is a bigger sinner.” That’s because the sinful nature is fully convinced that God grades on a curve. As long as we are not at the bottom of the class, we think that we’ll be OK. And so, instead of casting ourselves upon the mercy of God, we begin instead to take an inordinate interest in the sins of our neighbors.

Why is gossip such a delightful sin? Because our own guilt motivates us to rejoice in the sins of others. Why is it so easy to notice the many faults of our family members, and so hard to admit to our own? Because we are terrified of being thesinner, and so must look to spread that guilt around. The world, the flesh, and the devil have countless ways to excuse and cover sin, but it still remains and festers. God alone has the answer for sin. And that good news begins with repentance: “To me belongs shame of face, O Lord, because I have sinned against you.” How is this good news? Because of the second half of the prayer: “But to you, O Lord, belong mercy and forgiveness.”

God says to the workers in the vineyard, “It is My desire to give to this last man as I gave to the first.” He desires to give mercy and forgiveness to the underserving. And it is only in light of this that we can dare to enter into a season of repentance. How can you have the courage to admit that you are the sinner? Only because you have heard that it is God’s great desire to be merciful to you.

As we embark upon this seventy-day journey towards Easter, I urge you to use this time to consider and repent of your own sin—not your neighbor’s sin, your sin. This is an act of faith and confidence in the goodness of God. Like the child who confidently leaps from a ledge into his father’s arms, so you too can admit to your sin with boldness, knowing that God will catch you up in His forgiveness. Dare to be a great sinner, because Jesus is a far greater Savior. And it is His desire to give the kingdom to those sinners who deserve it least. Amen.