Turn and Live!

I have had the privilege to preach to you for three weeks in a row now. Today I hope this sermon ties all three together. As you’ll remember, two weeks ago, we talked through the nature of temptation as Jesus is tempted by the devil. Last week, we heard about the call to imitate and mimic. Today, these ideas come together in all three readings under the idea of repentance.

Repentance. To repent literally means to turn around, to have a change of heart.

Usually the image we have of repentance is those wide-eyed street corner preachers, so we too tend to shy away from the topic, but that would be a mistake.

Repentance is a key theme during the Lenten Season, but should undergird our lives. Now repentance is not feeling a little more sorry for what you have or have not done. It is the complete and utter changing and surrender of oneself to God. Rend your hearts, not your garments. Repentance is agreeing with God about our sinful condition and turning to him in faith for forgiveness and healing.

Repentance is no small topic. Repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s name is what Christ sent his disciples out to preach in . Martin Luther said at the beginning of the 95 theses’ that Jesus Christ wills our entire life to be one of repentance before God.

So hopefully you caught this playing out in all three readings. Repentance is the theme in all the readings today. In Ezekiel, we find out that, “Those who sin will die. Repent. Turn from your sin. For God does not want any to perish but that they should turn and live.”

Perhaps even more terrifying, our Lord makes the situation worse in our Gospel reading. Jesus tells us that even if you don’t sin, you will die. Evil people came into the temple and shot up the worshippers in a 1st century way with sword instead of gun, sound familiar?

But Jesus goes a step further. How about as people go about their day. Talking with neighbors, mingling with friends, stopping at the store, innocent bystanders who are just minding their own business when WHAM! Brick and mortar cascade down out of nowhere, crushing people to death indiscriminately.

Why? That is the question we ask when these tragedies happen right?

You’ve seen the recent headlines:

A white supremacist kills 49 in New Zealand. Why? Flooding tearing up Nebraska and the Midwest. Why? Person killed when run over by a dump truck in Hewitt this past week. Why?

But it is not just the headlines right?

Diagnosis of Cancer. Why? Loved one returns to their addictions. Why? Laid off of work due to recent store closings. Why?

Why? That is the answer that these random people in our Gospel lesson want from Jesus, it is the unsaid question in their words. Why Jesus? Why did this happen? If God can’t protect people in his own temple, then where can God protect them? It seems that their prayers were useless as some say even today.

Why? We ask that question as well. Usually these questions are answered with assurances that God has a plan, or that God had nothing to do with whatever accident or tragedy has happened. Now these explanations are not bad in and of themselves. In fact, these responses show that we desire to tend to our loved one’s wounds and that we care for those who are hurting.

But these explanations are also dangerous. At best they kick the can down the road. They still don’t connect the dots; the cause and effect just don’t pan out. If God has a plan, why is suffering a part of it to begin with? If God had nothing to do with accidents or tragedies, then what is God involved with?

We want to put God under the microscope, what God is doing and why. God needs to answer for these inconceivable actions. But He who dwells in heaven laughs at mankind’s folly.

Jesus retunes our thinking. Jesus turns the question back on us, and it is not reassuring. Jesus says that these things did not happen because they were worse sinners, nobody did anything to warrant their tragic death. But unless you repent, unless you turn from your sin, you will likewise perish. The call from Jesus to repent becomes the focus. Christ’s response becomes the only answer that is worthwhile. In the face of death and ruin, Christ’s solution is Repent! Turn and live.

In our constant questions of asking why, Jesus reminds us that God does not care to nor does God need to explain himself. We are creatures of our father Adam, we belong to the dirt. God is the Creator, he is eternal, he does as he pleases. Even in our suffering and pain we answer to him, whether we are guilty or innocent, perpetrator or victim. All must repent.

We are creatures of our father Adam, we belong to the dirt. God is the Creator, he is eternal, he does as he pleases. Even in our suffering and pain we answer to him, whether we are guilty or innocent, perpetrator or victim. All must repent.

This need to repent is all the more needed just by the mere sight of evil that happens to others in our world. The evil we see and fall witness to is not an opportunity for us to ask why. Rather it is an opportunity for you and me to repent of our sin. We belong to a world that is broken, rebelling against God, honestly what should we expect?

And finally, in our reading from 1 Corinthians, in an echo from last week’s sermon on imitating, Paul gives us examples of people we should not mimic, as we find out that due to the sexual immorality of the Israelites in the wilderness, God struck 23,000 down in a single day. And we are told that God himself destroyed the entire generation of Israelites who would not repent by scattering their bodies throughout the desert for 40 years. And the lesson Paul says we are to get from them is if you do not repent, then God will do to you what he did to them.

So repent or die. Sleeping together before marriage, addicted to pornography? Like to steal from your employers or rob your employees? Gossip, lie, cheat, abuse? Repent or die. Turn and live.

But repentance is a hard pill to swallow. Pride prevents us from acknowledging the truth. Required for repentance are broken spirits, shattered hearts, and humility.

But we can count on this

Judgment is coming, when we will all be put under God’s microscope.

As a professor put it once, “People die, what about you? You ready for those things to happen to you?”

So really the answer that we get from Jesus is more pressing than our “why?” question. The “why” question never solves anything, it just doesn’t work. We are trapped, our creation is falling apart and there is nothing that any of us can do to escape the suffering and death that await.

But in this crushing hopelessness. God responds. God kills in order to make alive. God first wounds so that he can then heal.

This crisis has been answered by God in the person of His Son Jesus Christ. Not words, nor philosophical thoughts. But with Jesus Christ. In the person of his Son, God the Father has come to heal His broken Creation. God has sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but to save the world through him.

Upon the cross, the only truly innocent person meets a crushing end for you. Jesus takes upon himself all the injustice, all the suffering, all the decay, and all the sin. He does it so that you can see God’s heart, his loving action for you.

Jesus dies to forgive our sins.

So when you repent, when you turn to Christ, you do not find a God that is angry with you. No in Christ, we see God who smiles at you who is pleased for your return. In Christ we turn to God in repentance and faith so that we may hear those words of restoration, life, and forgiveness.

And here in Christ we find that in the midst of the decay of our universe and in the midst of the coming judgment of God, there is also mercy and patience from God. St. Peter tells us that God has been slow to act, not because God is lacking smarts, but because God is patient, wanting all to reach repentance.

In Christ, you have the forgiveness of all the sins I have so implored you to repent of.

Don’t hold onto those sins, don’t spurn the free gift. Please…don’t die.

For God does not desire for anyone to die. He desires that all should live and receive the forgiveness of sins! Each of our readings beg us to see it.

God says to Ezekiel this, “As I live,” declares the LORD GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that the people of Israel baptized into Moses in the Red Sea, ate and drank spiritual sustenance and the Rock that they drank from was Christ himself.

And Jesus himself tells a parable to express God’s desire for people to live. Christ tells of a tree was not giving fruit and the owner told his worker to cut it down. But the worker implored the owner. Give it one more year. This year, I will give it extra attention and care. Let me give the tree time to repent and bear fruit.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is that worker that begs the Father for more time. Christ is the rich fertilizer that has been dug around our roots. Christ has poured out on you the rich waters of his life saving grace. He constantly tends to you, showing you such love and grace. And by the power of his Word, that which is his love for you, will cause the fruit to grow. There is nothing else that can be done.

It has been two thousand years. Perhaps the prayer that we should pray for to God for our sake and the sake of our world that so easily gives into evil is the prayer that of the vinedresser prayed. “One more year Lord. Please, One more year. One more year.” So that all may gain repentance.

May God grant that prayer and also the prayer for our continual repentance for the sake of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

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