Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who
are sick. . . I did
not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.
These words of our Lord Jesus Christ from today’s Gospel tell
us plainly who Jesus came for.
He came for sinners.
For those who’d messed up bad, and who knew it – and
everyone else knew it too. Prostitutes
and tax collectors, drunks and pickpockets – the spiritual
bottom-feeders of Jewish society.
Jesus didn’t come to give honorable, respectable people a pat
on the back and tell them, Hey,
keep up the good work! He
didn’t come to tell those who trust that their own personal
goodness will make them right before God, You’re
okay just the way you are; you don’t really need anything I
have to offer. He
didn’t come to stroke the egos of the pious and proper and
cozy up to the religious establishment of His day.
No. Jesus came for
sinners. He came to
live a holy life before God on their behalf – a life of
perfect obedience to God’s commandments, a life of perfect
devotion to His heavenly Father.
Jesus came to die on the Cross for sinners in payment for
all their offenses and transgressions.
He came to be raised again as proof positive that God the
Father accepted His sacrificial death as payment in full for the
sins of the whole world.
He came to live and die and rise again so that He could
call sinners to repentance and faith in Him.
Jesus came for sinners.
And in many eyes, Matthew the tax collector would have been the
biggest sinner of them all.
After all, as someone who’d contracted with the Roman
oppresors to collect revenue from the Jews, Matthew was an
outcast from polite Jewish society.
He was unwelcome in synagogue and temple, because his
close association with gentiles rendered him
ceremonially unclean.
He’d shown that love of money was the prime mover in
his life. Riches,
luxury and good times were the three brightest stars in his
firmament. By
becoming a tax collector Matthew had forsaken the God of Israel.
He’d stepped outside the covenant and cut off his
relationship with the people of God.
The terms “tax collector” and “sinner” were
practically synonomous to some Jews.
Phhttew!
There he goes: Matthew, the sinner.
So, all this being the case, we don’t know what went through
the minds of Jesus’ disciples when Jesus stopped in front of
Matthew’s tax booth one day and said to him:
Follow Me.
Neither do we know how they felt when Matthew
arose and followed Jesus. But
we do know this: In that simple exchange between the Savior and
the sinner, Matthew entered upon an entirely new life.
Why do I say that? It
wasn’t just that Matthew launched into a new career when Jesus
paused in front of his tax collection booth that day.
It wasn’t that he exchanged his ledgers and money chest
for a walking staff and a durable pair of sandals suitable for
traipsing over the hills of
Galilee
and
Judea
.
No, the very mode of Matthew’s existence changed.
He himself was transformed.
The sinner became a saint.
In fact, it’s not inaccurate to say that Matthew was
resurrected – born again – by the Gospel imperative Jesus
directed to him: Follow Me. The Word
of Jesus had the power to accomplish in Matthew that which our
Lord commanded. Matthew
arose, and followed Jesus.
Matthew arose.
You’ll notice that the New International
Version, used on your bulletin insert, says simply that Matthew got
up. That’s an
inadequate translation that misses the connection this verb has
with something very important – in fact, something critical to
the Christian Faith. I’m
speaking, of course, of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It’s the
same word used in each case: Matthew arose,
Christ arose. Jesus came to be
crucified for the sins of the world and to rise again on the
third day. And when
He paused before the tax collection booth of Matthew the sinner,
and called Matthew to follow Him, Matthew arose.
Matthew was resurrected.
He left behind forever His old life.
He was raised up to a new life by Jesus Christ.
And as I said, the sinner became a saint.
That’s what Jesus does. He
makes saints out of the most unpromising sinners.
He gives eternal life to those who are dead in trespass
and sins. He
transforms those who by nature are God’s enemies into God’s
beloved children. And
He does it all by means of His Gospel, as it’s proclaimed and
taught, and as it’s enacted among us in the water of our
Baptism.
Isn’t it true that Jesus raised you up to a new life when you
were baptized? Romans
6.4 says that we were buried with Christ by
baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised up from the
dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in
newness of life. Moving
you from death to life – that’s what your Baptism, by the
grace of God, accomplished for you.
If
anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, 2 Corinthians
5.17 says. Old
things are passed away; behold all things are new.
In your Baptism the Holy Spirit brooded over the
waters and made you a new creation, for Jesus’ sake.
He gave you a new life – a life of grace and blessing,
instead of judgment and condemnation.
He made you a follower of Jesus, a disciple, one who
learns from His Word and grows in the grace and knowledge of
your Savior.
You were resurrected in Holy Baptism – all on account of Him
who lived for you the perfect life that God blesses, who
suffered and died on the Cross in payment for all your sins, and
who was raised again on the third day to be your Savior and Lord
forever. Every day
now is to replay what God did for you when you were baptized.
Daily you die to your old sinful nature as you repent of
your sins, and daily you rise anew to a life of faith in Christ
as you follow Him in the pursuit of your daily vocations.
It’s
no longer [you] who live, the Scripture says, but Christ lives in [you], and the life [you] live in the
body [you] live by faith in the Son of God, who loved [you] and
gave Himself for [you].
And why did God do all this for you?
He did it purely out of His grace and mercy, out of His loving-kindness
that richly and freely pardons the undeserving. You didn’t
work for it, you didn’t earn it.
You never could. God
gave it to you freely, on account of His dear, beloved Son,
Jesus Christ, who died for you and was raised again to save you
forever.
You are Matthew, called to salvation, called to inherit God’s
mercy and grace. You
look at your life, and if you’re absolutely honest you’ll
see a load of sin and guilt and shame – ways you’ve let
other people down, ways you’ve neglected God’s grace in
Christ, ways you’ve squandered God’s many gifts and
blessings. But look
at Christ and see in Him the physician of the sin-sick soul, and
you will see His goodness poured out upon you in Word and
Sacrament, to cleanse you of your sin and guilt and shame, to
make you acceptable in God’s eyes – acceptable for Jesus’
sake. Look at
yourself honestly, and you’ll see a whole lot of sinner.
But look in faith to Jesus and you’ll see a whole lot
of Savior. If John
the Baptist speaks the truth in calling Jesus
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,
then that means Jesus has taken away your sin too.
Notice that after Jesus called him, Matthew threw a party – a
party for sinners. We
can gage the degree of accumulated sinfulness present at this
party by how high the Pharisees turned up their noses.
Jesus sat down to eat in Matthew’s house with tax
collectors and all sorts of other sinners, and the Pharisees
looked on with scandalized disapproval.
They asked the disciples, Why
does your Master eat with tax collectors and sinners?
Doesn’t
He have any standards? Why
isn’t He more discriminating in who He associates with?
Let Jesus answer: It is not those who are well who need a physician, but
those who are sick. But
go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice;
for I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners, to
repentance.
Several comments here: In speaking to the Pharisees who are
scandalized by His eating and drinking with sinners, Jesus tells
them: Go and learn what this
means. The
word “learn” is related to the word “disciple.”
Jesus is in essence telling the Pharisees to learn from
Him, to become His disciples, to recognize that in actuality
they’re essentially the same as the tax collectors and sinners
they look down upon. They too are sinners – so who are they to
look down on others? They
too need a Savior – and Jesus is precisely that Savior.
Quoting the prophet Hosea, Jesus says that as true God,
He desires from us mercy, not sacrifice.
He’ll take care of the sacrifice – by offering up His
holy precious body and blood on the Cross for the sin of the
world. He sacrifices
Himself to save us, amd then calls us to show mercy to others.
Jesus does both mercy and sacrifice.
We don’t do sacrifice – but as those on whose behalf
He sacrificed Himself, we do mercy.
We show mercy to others.
A second comment: All of us by nature are the sick in need of a
physician. A literal
translation says that it’s those who “have it bad” who
need a doctor’s care. We’re
the ones who by nature have it bad, and Jesus is the One who in
Word and Sacrament applies the healing medicine of His Gospel.
Now the symptoms of our illness may vary – some of the
symptoms may be more disgusting than others – but it’s the
same disease, and the cure is exactly the same too.
The cure is Jesus – Jesus present in the proclamation
of the Gospel and in the application of the absolution.
Jesus, who with His Word makes Holy Baptism a healing
salve for the sin-sick soul.
Jesus, who in the Sacrament of the Altar bids us eat and
drink of His true Body and Blood as the medicine of immortality.
The disease is the same – sin.
And the cure is the same too – our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and thereby
transforms sinners into saints.
One final comment: The Pharisees stood back, proud and aloof,
while the sinners and tax collectors gathered around Jesus in
humility, to eat and drink with Him.
The Pharisees would have been welcome, too.
But their pride and arrogance kept them back.
Their refusal to admit their need and sin, their refusal
to acknowledge Jesus as the One who came in the flesh to meet
that need and take away that sin kept them back.
Their refusal to learn from Jesus and become His
disciples kept them back. Their
refusal to come to Him, and to sit down with Him to eat and
drink on His terms, and not their own, kept them back.
They wanted to be in charge, not Jesus.
And so they hung back, smug in their self-righteousness,
self-condemned by their rejection of Jesus.
God grant that we would learn the lesson the Pharisees refused.
We don’t write the ticket: Jesus does.
We don’t select the items to be featured at the banquet
of salvation: Jesus does. We
don’t pay the bill: Jesus did.
We merely come, in repentance and faith, willing to be
instructed, willing to receive what He gives in Word and
Sacrament, uniting together around Jesus as sinners made saints,
gathered around the Savior who has done all things necessary for
us to be saved. We
don’t come offering Him any righteousness or good works of our
own. We come with
empty hands open to receive what He alone can give.
We come acknowledging our emptiness, and looking to Him
who satisfies us with His mercy and love.
We come, looking to Him for forgiveness, and knowing that
forgiveness has been forever won by His death on the Cross.
I did not come to call the
righteous, but sinners. . .
Those
who are self-righteous refuse to admit their sin, their need.
They think they have a place in God’s kingdom by right.
But crushed and repentant sinners acknowledge their need
and sin. They openly
confess that apart from God’s gracious initiative in Christ,
they have absolutely no business in God’s kingdom.
But Jesus has called them, just as He calls all to
repentance and faith in Him.
Jesus’ call is a call to repentance and faith.
Are you a sinner? Then
the call goes out to you. Jesus
welcomes sinners. He
welcomes them and by His Gospel makes them saints of God.
In Nomine Patris. . .
