St. Matthew 22:34–46
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today’s Gospel is a theological debate—a debate about Scripture and doctrine. It’s a debate between the Pharisees and Jesus. It’s a debate between those supposed experts in the Law and the very Gospel Himself: Jesus the Christ. Although, the Pharisees don’t recognize that’s who He is.
One of the Pharisees, a Law expert, asked Jesus a question to test Him: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? Pick a commandment Jesus, and then we’ll have some fun debating Your answer.” Jesus quotes Deuteronomy. After all, He is the One who gave them Deuteronomy. Jesus gives the perfect answer. He doesn’t play their game. He doesn’t just pick one commandment. He summarizes the entire Law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” There it is. The Law expert asked a Law question and Jesus gave him the perfect Law answer. Debate over.
Most people think this answer is really what Christianity is all about: love God and love people. Well, most people don’t think it’s quite that simple. More like, love God in your heart, on your own, keep your religion private. And don’t just love people or serve them, but accept them as they are, affirm them, celebrate them as they are, and never tell anyone they should change their ways. That’s not what Jesus says, but that is what our world says these days.
Jesus’ original answer is right though. Love God with ALL your heart, soul, and mind—nothing held back, no doubts, no other commitments. Give your all, your everything to God, and trust only in Him for this life and the next. Never avoid hearing His Word, never forget to pray, and never look for a solution or give credit anywhere else other than the Lord. And love your neighbor as yourself—again, nothing held back, no suspicions against other people, no favoritism for the people you like or feel close to. Everything you would keep for yourself, give that also to others. Never disrespect someone, never hurt someone physically or emotionally, never even think an impure thought about someone, never cheat someone, never talk about someone behind their back (even if it’s true), never even want something that someone else has.
There’s the Law. The perfect demand from God. Love God and love your neighbor. The true Law really is that simple. But that cannot be what Christianity is all about. The Law cannot be the only part or even the main part of Christianity. Because as perfect as this Law answer is, it is impossible to do. The Law does not give life. The Law does not comfort. If you have broken even one of these commandments then the Law will only kill you and damn you to hell. Then the debate will really be over.
But Jesus isn’t finished with the debate. Jesus isn’t finished with these proud Pharisees and He isn’t finished with you. Jesus doesn’t finish with the Law. He has His own question, and it’s very different from the Pharisee’s question—about as different as Law and Gospel. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He?”
First, let me explain that term, “Christ.” We call our Lord, Jesus Christ. Jesus is His name, Christ is His title. Christ is a Greek word that means, “Anointed One.” Greek is the language of the New Testament. God’s Old Testament people, the Israelites, didn’t speak Greek, they spoke Hebrew. And so in Hebrew the term for “Anointed One” is Messiah. So, Christ and Messiah mean the same thing. Our Lord is Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. And that means He is the promised Savior, the One chosen by God the Father to save the world from sin. Now, of course, the Pharisees know all this, so when Jesus asks them, “Whose son is the Christ or Messiah?” They answer correctly, “He is the son of David,” that is a descendant of King David. But that’s really only half of the right answer. And so Jesus needs to teach these experts. Their debate might be over. But His Bible class is just getting started.
Jesus quotes from one of the Psalms of David: “How is it that David, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls the Christ Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’? If then David calls the Christ his Lord, how is he David’s son?” Everybody tracking with Jesus? The Pharisees, and all the Jews, and all Christians, know that the Christ, is the son of David, meaning He is a human descendant of King David. But in Psalm 110, David calls his descendant his “Lord.” And this Lord, this son of David is even going to sit at God’s right hand. David is worshiping his descendant. Kinda weird stuff. And the Pharisees aren’t sure what this means.
You Christians already know what this means though. Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed and promised Savior—He is David’s son and David’s Lord. How can that be? We learned the answer by heart in the Small Catechism: I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. Jesus the Christ is one Person with two complete natures. He is fully and truly God—the eternal Son of the Father. And He is fully and truly man—a descendant of David, the son of Mary. David’s God became a man, born from his own bloodline. Our God is a man: Jesus the Christ.
But our God did not come in the flesh just to repeat the Law to us. He did not become man just to answer the Pharisees’ questions and give us impossible demands that leave us suffering in hell. He came to be the Christ. The Father anointed and sent His Son to save us from the accusations of the Law.
The Christ had to be a true man. The Law was given for man to fulfill, so the Christ had to be a man in order to do what the Law commands in our place. The Law also demands punishment for those who break its commands, so the Christ also had to be a man in order to suffer in our place all the punishments of the Law that we deserve. The Christ had to be a true man so that He could die as the innocent sacrifice for sin.
And the Christ had to be true God. If Christ was only a man then He couldn’t take the place for all of us. Only God can pay the price for the sins of the whole world. Only God can take care of hell’s punishments for all eternity. The Christ had to be true God so that He could die for all and rise again for all.
So now, with this right knowledge about the Christ, let’s go back to Jesus’ first answer about the Law. He sums it all up: Love God and love your neighbor. He shows the unity to God’s Law. It’s not a list of random rules. And He shows that the Law has a unity of purpose: the Law accuses everyone. It tells everyone: You have fallen short. You have not loved God perfectly. You have not loved your neighbor perfectly. You have failed. You must be punished. Debate over.
But each of us has a little Pharisee law expert inside our hearts. We think we can keep the Law, that we can debate with God and prove our own righteousness. So, the Collect of the Day is a prayer against the little Pharisee inside each of us. This prayer admits the truth: O God, without You we are not able to please You. Without God’s mercy we have no hope. No matter how expert we think we are in loving God or loving neighbor, we are not good enough to please God. So the Collect continues: mercifully grant that Your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts. We need God’s intervention. We need His saving help. We need the answer to Jesus’ question about the Christ. We need the Christ Himself—the Messiah, the Anointed One, the promised Savior, who gives His Holy Spirit for our good.
This Christ loves you. And He actually loves you so much that He will not overlook your sins. He died for them, so He can’t just let you go on living with them. He paid the price for your sins with His blood of the New Testament. So, He calls you to repent, leave your sins, and trust in Him.
The Christ is the only one who kept the great commandments perfectly. He loved God His Father with all His heart, soul, and mind. He loved you His neighbors as Himself. He did what you cannot. He saved you to have you as His own. With the Christ your Savior, the Law debate really is over. He washed you and made you holy. And He fills you with His true body born of Mary, yet also the body of your God. The blood of the New Testament is poured for you from a cup into your mouth to forgive your sins. He gives you His Holy Spirit who directs and rules our hearts so that we want to do God’s commandments and we are able to begin doing them. Jesus is and does all of this for you.
Do not despair. Do not give up hope. You suffer some of the consequences of sin in this life, but none of it is the suffering of hell. Your sins are forgiven. The Law cannot condemn you or punish you because you are with Christ. And the suffering you have right now, this difficult life of struggling against sin, struggling to love God and love your neighbor—all that suffering, all of that struggling will be brought to an end. Because the Christ is David’s son and Lord—your human Savior and your Divine brother—and He is coming again soon.
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
A few sentences and ideas came from Rev. David Petersen (Trinity 18, 2014; and Issues Etc. Interview, Trinity 18, 2015)
