Luke 23:27ā€“43 Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā Last Sunday of the Church Year, November 24, 2019 Ā  Ā  Ā  Ā  ā€œDoes God Know What Heā€™s Doing?ā€Ā 

Today is the Last Sunday of the Church Year and yet the Gospel reading we heard today seems better suited for Good Friday. But thereā€™s a method to the madness! The reading was selected because Good Friday is the beginning of the end. Good Friday is the lens through which we, as Christians, see everything. Everything before that day was leading up to it. Everything after that day is flowing from it. That was the day that changed the world. That day is the center of history.Ā 

So today on this Last Sunday of the Church Year, we consider the end through the lens of the cross ā€“ and our life leading up to the end through the lens of the cross. For Jesusā€™ death and life has something to say about our life and death.Ā 

And so today to do that, I want to focus your attention on just one little sentence, one little sentence Jesus spoke from the cross. Youā€™ve heard many times before. But maybe today you can hear it a bit differently: ā€œFather, forgive them, for they know not what they doā€ (v 34).Ā 

Usually when we hear that, we focus on what great love Jesus has that he could pray such words! And thatā€™s not wrong. We hear Jesus praying for the forgiveness of those who put him on the cross. Those who drove the nails through his hands and feet. Those who mocked him even as he prayed for them. Those whose appetites would not be satisfied until they had taken his life. ā€œFather, forgive them. Make this forgiveness that I am here winning available for them.ā€ No small thing, that. For you know how hard forgiveness is, and for much lesser things than that. So how great and wondrous these words! And how precious for us sinners still today!Ā 

But itā€™s that second part that I want to focus on: ā€œfor they know not what they do.ā€ In context, as Jesus spoke those words, certainly the people who put him on the cross didnā€™t know what they were doing. They didnā€™t know that the hands they were driving nails through were the hands that had created all things and had even knit them together in their motherā€™s wombs. They didnā€™t know that the feet they had fastened to the cross were the feet that had walked in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day and would soon make the earth their footstool. They didnā€™t know that the head into which they pressed that crown of thorns was the head of the One who knows all things. They didnā€™t know. They didnā€™t know that in this death was their life. They didnā€™t know.Ā 

But we think we know. Thatā€™s the problem. From the beginning down to you and me today. We think we know. We think we know what weā€™re doing. And therefore, we think we know what God should be doing.Ā 

Those who put Jesus on the cross thought they knew what they were doing: getting rid of a troublemaker and a blasphemer and someone who was going to bring the wrath of Rome down on their nation. And they thought they knew what God should be doing: that if Jesus really was God then he should jump down from the cross and save himself. And then those who believed in him, who believed that Jesus was who he said he was, the very Son of God in human flesh, probably were wondering: What in the world? Does God know what heā€™s doing?Ā 
That question has often crossed the minds of Godā€™s people, because how often it seems to us as if he doesnā€™t! We heard it again from the prophet Malachi today. The people were saying: Weā€™re doing what weā€™re supposed to be doing, what God told us to do, mourning our sins and repenting and sacrificing, but what is it getting us? The arrogant are the ones who are blessed. Evildoers are the ones who are prospering. They are putting God to the test with their sins and evil and perversion and getting away with it ā€“ nothing happens to them! Does God know what heā€™s doing?Ā 

Because, after all, we know what God should be doing, right? He should be prospering us, blessing us, giving to us, helping us, making our life easy and punishing them! Does God know what heā€™s doing? For evil keeps advancing. Does God know what heā€™s doing? For I keep struggling. Does God know what heā€™s doing? Because things donā€™t seem to be getting any better.Ā 

But maybe Jesus was right. Maybe itā€™s we who donā€™t know what weā€™re doingā€¦Ā 
For how often do things turn out differently than we expected? When what we thought would be good turned out bad? When what we thought would help actually hurt? When we thought we had everything planned out and then everything changed? And the other way too: when what we dreaded actually turned out well.Ā 

The truth is thereā€™s a lot more going on than meets the eye. God tells his people through the prophet Malachi: The day is coming. Then you will see what you do not now see.Ā 

But we want to see it all now. We want God to punish evildoers now. The problem is, if he did so, what would happen to you? You who hurt, you who lie, you who lust, you who doubt and disbelieve, you who covet and take, you who rebel, you who do not love God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your strength all the time.Ā 

Thereā€™s a lot more going on than meets the eye. Paul told the Colossians that Jesus is the creator of all things visible and invisible, as we also confess in the Creed. And thereā€™s a lot more invisible than we know. What God is doing like an iceberg. The part of the iceberg you see floating on the water is only a small percentage, maybe ten percent, of all thatā€™s there; most of it is hidden beneath the surface. So we, too, do not know all that God is doing, how he is working, what he is doing in the world, in your neighbor, and in you.Ā 

Thereā€™s more going on than meets the eye. And especially is that true of the cross. For, yes, contrary to what the eye can see, this is no criminal! This man is the very Son of God, the Lamb of God, the atonement for your sins and mine and the sin of the whole world. Though it doesnā€™t look like it. Though it looks about as far from that as you can imagine. For, in fact, God does know what heā€™s doing.Ā 

And the Day is coming when that will be seen. The disciples saw it three days after the cross when Jesus rose from the dead. The before looked bleak. The after revealed the truth and the joy. And so also for us on the Last Day it will be seen, and not before. Now, in this before time, we have words, we have promises, we have faith. Then it will be seen. But now, we say with the criminal hanging next to Jesus: Remember me! Remember me in my sad state. Remember me when you come into your kingdom.Ā 

And he does, for we know the tree of the cross that looked like defeat restores paradise. For now, ascended and in his kingdom, ruling all things for us and for our salvation, Jesus is remembering us and forgiving us and acting for us. And as he did to the thief next to him, telling us, too, ā€œYou will be with me in Paradiseā€ (Lk 23:43). When a child or an adult is baptized, Jesus is saying: ā€œYou will be with me in Paradise.ā€ When you believe the Gospel and are absolved, Jesus is saying: ā€œYou will be with me in Paradise.ā€ When you come to receive the body and blood of Jesus, he is saying: ā€œYou will be with me in Paradise.ā€ Just as I came to be with you in your misery, so ā€œyou will be with me in Paradise.ā€ And just as I died your death, so you, too, will awaken and arise with me into Paradise.Ā 

To the thief on the cross, Jesus said, ā€œToday, you will be with me in Paradise.ā€ When that today will be for you, when your soul will enter the nearer presence of God in Christ and your body will continue awaiting Christā€™s coming, we donā€™t know. But we do know that it will be a day of joy, when, as Paul said in our Epistle, you are ā€œdeliveredā€¦from the domain of darkness and transferredā€¦into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sinsā€ (Col 1:13ā€“14).Ā 

God indeed knows what heā€™s doing. Always. Always working for our good. Always working that we hear those precious words: ā€œFather, forgive them.ā€ Those were the words Jesus spoke from first to last, and the words he wants you to hear and to have, from the beginning of your life to the end. That on that Day, the Last Day, that Great and Final Day, the One who would not come down from the cross would pull you up from the grave and say: ā€œWelcome home, my child! Welcome to Paradise.ā€ Amen.Ā 
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