[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]

This Week's Sermon THE SECOND SUNDAY in LENT 28 February 2010 "The Only Escape: The Shadow of His Wings" Luke 13:31-35 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

The appointed Psalm for the First Sunday in Lent, which was last week, is Psalm 91. On Wednesday evening, we chanted these words:

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler." (Psalm 91:1-4, ESV)

When David fled from Saul he said in Psalm 57:

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. (Psalm 57:1, ESV)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this sermon should be half over! Luther said:

When you look at the mother-hen and her chicks you see a picture of Christ and yourself better than any painter can paint.¹

I've included such a picture at the bottom of the third column of your insert because Jesus used exactly this word picture to describe God's love for sinners who need to escape the coming wrath of God. Only in Christ is there safety and security from the storms of destruction.

The context of this section of Luke's Gospel is about judgment and the necessity of repentance [12.54-13.35]. Jesus told the crowds that they knew how to interpret the weather signs but didn't understand the signs of the coming judgment. Then he told the parable of the barren fig tree which symbolized the lack of the fruits of righteousness. He spoke of himself as the narrow door through which one must enter in order to escape being cast out of God's kingdom.

God's judgment is described in the Bible as a fury which consumes everything in its path. John the Baptizer has warned that God's judgment would be such a consuming fire that those who had not repented would be like dry wood cast into a fire or chaff thrown into an unquenchable fire.

The Law of God brings condemnation for sin. Many people think that God cannot be a loving God if he judges sin. They think of him merely as an indulgent grandfather or a powerless God. They do not believe that he means what he says when he condemns sin and demands repentance. They don't take God's threats seriously. They confuse his mercy with his justice. God cannot ignore sin. Sin must be paid for. There is no escaping that fact. It can be denied but it does not remove the reality of it.

You cannot escape the call to repentance. Lent is a penitential season, a season when we consider our lives in the light of God's Law. We are to rediscover how out of step we are with God's Law. We are to confess our sins, to remember that our very existence is from the dust and to the dust it shall return. We are to come face to face with our sinful mortality. We are to admit this to ourselves, to confess that we have been sinful in thoughts, words, and deeds. We are urged to say the same thing that God says about our sins. Perhaps this is the reason that fewer people attend Divine Service and the midweek services during Lent, because they do not want to confront their sinfulness or that they don't believe that God is really serious about sin. It's easier to let sleeping dogs lie than to awaken the ferocious wolf of God's Law.

Our heavenly Father did not send Jesus to condemn us. Jesus himself says this right after his well-known words in John 3.16. He goes on to say:

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (John 3:17, ESV)

God's love, however, has often been rejected. That specific rejection by the people of Jerusalem lies at the heart of the Gospel reading. Over the centuries God sent prophet after prophet to his people with the result that the people killed nearly all of them. In fact, Jesus says that it cannot be possible that a prophet should die away from Jerusalem! In saying this, Jesus was describing his own death at Jerusalem, a death that he willingly accepted as God's plan of salvation.

God's judgment would come crashing down on Jesus as he suffered and died. Jesus would absorb that judgment in his own body on the cross. Here he would suffer the tortures of the damned in hell. Those who are found in faith in him escape.

It is an illustration I have used before, but there is none better. Fire is terrifying to trapped animals. When a fire strikes a barnyard, the animals try to escape. However, if they can't, some animals will do whatever necessary to protect their young. Many times this story has been repeated. After a fire in the henhouse, those cleaning up have found a dead hen, scorched and blackened, but with live chicks under her wings. The hen absorbed death so that her chicks could live. She literally gave her life in order to save them.

This is the picture that Jesus gives here. He wants to gather all people under of his wings, his pinions [which is a term that denotes not only the bones of a bird's wing, but the whole wing], so that none perishes in the judgment. This is Jesus' destiny. Jesus spoke very pointedly of what he must do:

Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem." (Luke 13:33, ESV)

"I must go on my way . . " The cross is his necessary destination for there he will gather us under his wings, just like a mother hen does when trouble threatens her brood. He will not shrink from his mission. He will die so that you do not have to.

Luther says it beautifully:

Those who are under His wings will gladly hear, see, and feel this brightness. Whoever believes in Him and takes refuge under this Brood Hen shall be saved. In these wings alone there is salvation, and there is no other. He who will not abide here must perish. Christ is a noble Hen, a fine Brood Hen. To him who crawls under Her wings salvation, eternal life, and forgiveness of sin are promised; he will lack nothing, for the Sun will shine for him."²

But faith is precisely that which makes you a chick, and Christ a hen, so that you have hope under his wings.³

Under his wings is also your joy. David said as he was in the wilderness:

"for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy." (Psalm 63:7, ESV)

The shadow of his wings is Word and Sacrament. In Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution [where we repent, confessing our sins], and Holy communion where we receive Christ's body and blood for our forgiveness, life, and salvation. Here is your security, safety, and your joy! In Christ the fury of God's wrath passes over you because Christ covers you with his wings and shields you from the wrath over your sins. In him you are safe. "Come to me," says Jesus [Matt. 11.28]. He will protect you from God's wrath, and in his continued protection in Word and Sacraments is also your joy.

Look again at the picture. Christ is the hen and you are his chicks. Those outside of his wings are left desolate, destroyed. But here is Christ as a mother hen. He calls you to himself. Listen to his call for "The Only Escape: [is under] The Shadow of His Wings."

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

¹Martin Luther, vol. 52, Luther's Works, Vol. 52 : Sermons II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 52:96 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1974).
²Martin Luther, vol. 23, Luther's Works, Vol. 23 : Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 6-8, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 23:325 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1959).
³Martin Luther, vol. 32, Luther's Works, Vol. 32 : Career of the Reformer II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works, 32:236 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1958).