The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Matthew, the 11th chapter:
At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
You know, these words of Jesus in the Gospel sound so nice. And they are. Except that Jesus, in the preceding verses, is talking about the destruction of cities and people, comparing them to Sodom, and telling them that the judgment of God is isn’t going to be going so well for them. And for these words, Jesus then declares His thanks to His Father for hiding these things from the wise.
You see, the reality is that God does hide things. It’s true. I mean, look at the parables of Jesus. So many people think that the parables are ways that Jesus takes the things of heaven and relates them to the people so that they can understand. But, that’s not true. Jesus Himself tells us that He speaks in parables to confuse people, to not let them know what He’s saying. Yet, for those who have faith, the meaning of the parables are revealed.
In the same way, the judgment of God is hidden from the people that they would not be able to rely on a natural fear that would guide them into right living without need of Jesus. To do that would be to have people seek out their own righteousness so that, by their own strength, they might be saved. Now, of course, this is our natural inclination anyway, but God actually hides the judgment away so that people who reject God will never find Him.
This sounds harsh. We must understand that every person’s natural inclination, from the very moment of conception is to be against God. It’s true. My wife is pregnant with our second child, a little girl, we’ve named her Ava Su, and even little Ava, who has never seen the sunlight, never breathed her first breath, never had a smile or a cry outside the womb, was conceived in sin and her sinful flesh hates God.
If it sounds harsh to you, imagine what it’s like for me, to realize that my daughter is an enemy of God. Yet, she also is beloved by her Father in heaven, even more than her father on earth. And so Ava, and all children, are to be brought to the Church, where they would hear of the goodness of God, that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the same human flesh that Ava has, to die for her, to forgive her sins, and to promise to raise her to everlasting life. That is what God has.
And it delights God to do this. He loves to give this information out, He loves to bring another child into His kingdom through Holy Baptism, through the giving of faith. But notice that it’s only in the Church that He does this. He has hidden it from the world, for the world is an enemy of God. You cannot and will not find the forgiveness of God on the street. You won’t find it in the supermarket. You won’t find it on Wall Street, Main Street, or Chuck E. Cheese. You won’t. God has hidden the goodness of His will towards man in the Church. And this delights Him.
It delights Him because the Church is the bride of Christ. God looks with favor upon Christ’s bride and gives her all things. She and she alone is set apart for His Son. Just as a new father-in-law doesn’t welcome all the bridesmaids into his family, but only his new daughter, so, too, does God only welcome the bride of Christ into His eternal kingdom. He delights over her, enjoying her company, watching her deep love grow all the more every time He gives her His gifts, the Word and the Sacraments.
And we are the bride, my friends. Belonging to the bridegroom, Jesus, we delight in God and in all of His gifts, for we have been made like little children, trusting in the goodness of our Father to protect us, defend us, and provide for us. Only to us has the Good News of Jesus Christ been given.
This is not to say that the Gospel is not for all people and all nations. It absolutely is, and we should want to go out and share that Good News with all who are perishing. Yet, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God unless you are part of the bride, and you cannot be part of the bride unless you are made to be like a child, dependent, trusting, open.
That is why God has hidden away the mysteries of faith from the world. God desires that all men should be saved, but He has put all of His gifts and all of His wisdom in the Church. It’s been said that there is no salvation apart from the Church; you cannot be saved unless you are a part of the Church. This is true. And that’s because the Church revels in the mysteries of God’s goodness shown through His Son, Jesus Christ, and His glorious death upon the cross.
If you think you are wise apart from Christ, you may think things like being a good person will get you to heaven, or that you’re a basically good person because the good you do outweighs the bad, or that all roads lead to the same God, or that you can be spiritual but not religious. I mean, that’s what the wise people of our time are telling us, right?
The problem is that all of those statements directly contradict the Scriptures. They contradict what Jesus says. There is no righteous person, no, not one. No one does good. The good that we would do we do not do. The evil we don’t want to do we do the most. Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. You see, these things are so true that the “wise” of the world hate them and pervert them for their own means.
It’s so much easier to think that we can do it on our own. It’s so much easier to think that as long as we’re nice and loving and accepting of others, God is pleased. But that’s the way of the world, not the way of God. God does separate out those who believe and those who do not. And those who do not believe in Jesus, those who do not depend upon Him for salvation will not be saved.
But, it delights God to save those who call upon Him name in prayer and praise and thanksgiving. It does. It gives God joy to pour out His gifts on you, His children. And it delights Him to lay the yoke of the burden of Christ upon you, for it’s an easy load.
You know what a yoke is, right? It’s the thing that’s laid across two oxen to make sure that they pull the weight of the load behind them with their shared power. It keeps them together so that they don’t deviate. We Lutherans don’t always like talking like this, but it’s true. You see, we often rail against, and rightly, the idea that we cooperate with God in our salvation. That’s the whole Reformation, right? We don’t work with God to get us to salvation; He’s accomplished the whole thing.
Yet, Jesus absolutely does talk about sharing some kind of load here. It’s sanctification. You see, salvation is what we often talk about in justification. And that’s all on Jesus. Jesus living the perfect life, dying your death, and rising to new life, that’s all justification. That’s all done for you, to you. But sanctification, that’s holy living. That’s becoming more like Jesus every day.
When we were slaves to sin, we were yoked to sin, bearing the heavy load of reaching salvation on our own. But, yoked to Jesus, holy living is good and right and salutary, that we should follow in His footsteps. His yoke is easy, which means that He does the heavy lifting, and the burden is light, in that He won all things for you.
This doesn’t sound like the wisdom of the world. To think that there is nothing you need to do to earn salvation sounds like foolishness to the world. But this is the only wise thing. Trust that your Lord has won salvation for you. Trust that it’s a completely free gift. And in light of that gift, go out and do that which is good in God’s eyes. Obey the Ten Commandments. Love God. Love your neighbor. You have been justified, and you are right now being sanctified for Jesus’ sake. You are becoming more and more like Him. That may be hidden to the world, but that is revealed to you, the children of God, that you may delight in your Father even as He delights in you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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