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The Third Sunday In Lent
Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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The Third Sunday In Lent
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Scripture citation(s): Luke 13:1-9
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
Luke 13:1-9
✛
How to Escape Death
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Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. St. Luke 13:1-9
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Jesus is on his way to the Holy City Jerusalem where his whole ministry will reach its moment of truth; he will be condemned and put to death by the religious and political authorities. As he makes his way, with disciples and various crowds of people including critics and enemies, he gets a report from some people about an atrocity apparently just committed by the Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.
It seems some Galileans were slaughtered while they were performing religious rituals in Jerusalem; this would presumably have been within the precincts of the temple. Thus Saint Luke says Pilate “mingled their blood with their sacrifices.” Pilate had a reputation for reaching quickly for violent solutions to problems of governance over the Jews, and this massacre matches other descriptions of Pilate found in the historian Josephus.¹
But Jesus shows no interest in the religious politics of the news. Instead, he turns to those around him to say, “Do you think those Galileans were worse than other Galileans, because they suffered thus? I tell you, No; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
Jesus then brings up a tragic accident that was apparently well known. The Tower of Siloam, near the famous pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, had collapsed and killed eighteen people. “Do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, No; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
Jesus’ own imminent death in Jerusalem, which he had himself predicted, was itself quick and violent; in addition to which it was spun by the religious authorities as a punishment for sins. So it is fair to ask what he means when he says, Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. If the sinless Son of man dies the death of a sinner, a death arguably as bad as or worse than the two horrors in today’s Gospel, then what can “unless,” as in, “unless you repent,” here mean?
Jesus cannot mean that repentance heads off death, even tragic, sudden, violent or unjust death. Death in some form comes to us all. We might pray, in the classic words of Lancelot Andrewes, for a “Christian close, without sin, without shame, and if it please without pain.”² But the Lord himself died deprived of any of these mercies. What then does “unless” mean? The answer in turn to this question is, what is repentance?
“Repent” in contemporary English means either to regret a thought, attitude, or act; or, more frequently, to regret and change from one attitude or allegiance to another. Much more richly in Holy Scripture, beginning in the Old Testament, repentance means turning from sin to God; it is to turn to the Lord with all the heart and soul and strength. Since this turning is itself a gift received from God, there is also a sense in which, as the repentant person turns towards God, God also turns towards his creature, from wrath and opposition to mercy and blessing. Thus the Old Testament, especially in the prophets, often speaks of God “repenting” as man is by divine inspiration turned toward God. This turning is something experienced as new life.
The New Testament takes this development further in the same direction, except that the death and resurrection of Jesus has become the decisive fact of life between us and God. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting our trespasses against us; for our sake God made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin, so that in him we sinners might become the righteousness of God. If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come! The word here again is repentance, a turning toward God which is also a transformation, a turning from death to life. With Christ we see God turned decisively towards us, once and for all. By the power of God’s Spirit, we are turned towards this love. God, who is everlasting and unchangeable, has nevertheless from all eternity willed to turn towards us. He desires not the death of sinners, but rather that they should turn and be saved; and so he has always willed to turn (repent) from his wrath against sin towards mercy. When we ourselves turn towards this great love of God in Christ, we are transformed; we live: though we die, yet do we live, and we shall live.
The signs of repentance are a letting go of sin, a softening of the spirit and opening of the heart towards God, a humble and gentle bearing; a sharpened sensitivity and resistance to sin itself, to be sure, but a new readiness to love and to forgive; and finally, a trust in God, who holds our every breath and every moment of our brief lives. In other words, repentance prepares us to die without perishing. In that sense, repentance does head off death after all; it prevents spiritual, eternal death. Repentance enables us to live forever with God, here and now and always.
Jesus did not stop with the two tragic stories of death in Jerusalem. He summarized today’s Gospel with the parable of the fig tree that had not borne fruit. Three years the owner had sought figs, but instead nothing. Why should it take up the ground, he said to his vinedresser; cut it down. “Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure. And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”
Next to mercy itself, time may be God’s most precious gift to us. Time to repent; time to live. Our time runs out and catches us by surprise; it falls on us, like the Tower of Siloam or Pilate’s soldiers. Then, too late! The fig tree was given one more year. We are alive today, by the grace of God. As we prayed on Ash Wednesday, Turn thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned! Repentance is a new way of life, every moment, every day, with surrender to God, transformation in Christ, and empowerment by the Holy Spirit. Repentance is real living that will take us to and through death. Repentance is citizenship in God’s kingdom. Repentance is how to breathe the good air of eternal life.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
__________
¹Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina, series p. 211.
²The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes, translated by John Henry Newman, p. 6.
