Grace, mercy, and peace to you from
God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate
his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes
and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Great text for the opening day of Sunday
School, don’t you think?
So
what’s Jesus talking about here? I mean
didn’t Jesus, just a few chapters ago, commend the lawyer who correctly said “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your
mind, and your neighbor as yourself?”
Aren’t we supposed to love our enemies?
What does Jesus mean when He says to hate family and even our own lives?
Well,
like all things in Scripture, the context is key. Notice who Jesus is speaking to – the
crowds. Seekers, we might call them
today. These people have seen, or at
least heard of, the miracles Jesus had done: casting out demons, healing the
sick, raising the dead. Some of them may
have been in the crowd of 5,000 who received a free meal of bread and
fish. Who wouldn’t follow this guy,
wouldn’t you? Hey, if you’re sick, Jesus
will heal you. Got an evil spirit
tormenting you, He’ll take care of it.
Feeling a bit hungry, Jesus will give you a free meal. And even if you should croak, Jesus may even
raise you from the dead. These crowds of
people aren’t, necessarily, people who trust in Jesus for their salvation,
believe He’s the long – promised Messiah.
These people are accompanying Him for the show, for the miracles, for
the free stuff.
But
Jesus has something else in mind. All
the miracles are secondary to His main task; in chapter 9 Luke records that Jesus
has set His face toward Jerusalem. Set
His face toward the cross. Set His face
toward winning salvation for you. So
Jesus gives these crowds a heads up of what they’re getting into. Following Him isn’t about the miracles, the
show, the free meals. It’s about loving
and trusting in Him above all else, it’s about bearing the cross yourself.
Does
Jesus want you to hate your family? No,
of course not. As Matthew’s Gospel puts
it, the problem is loving things or people more than Jesus. When Jesus is using the word “hate” He’s
using it in a very Hebrew way. That is,
it’s not just in an emotional sense, but in a priority sense. In Genesis, Jacob hated Leah and loved
Rachel. He didn’t have feelings of
distain for Leah, but preferred Rachel over her sister. That’s what Jesus it talking about here. If push comes to shove, your family and even
your own life take a back seat to faith in Christ. It’s a First Commandment issue. “You shall have no other gods.” And, as the Confirmation students will learn
or have learned, “What does this mean?”
“We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”
When
God says in Deuteronomy 6, “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your might and your neighbor as
yourself” there’s an
order, isn’t there? Love God and love
your neighbor; and the closest neighbors you have are your family.
That’s
not always easy, we’ve all put things and people above God. I love my family. I love my mother and father, my
mother–in–law, my father-in-law. I love
my sisters and brother – laws. I love my
grandparents and my nieces. I love my
wife and my children. I love you, my
church family. You and they are a joy in
my life beyond all comprehension, the greatest temporal blessing God has given
me. But no one in my family has died to
take away my sins. No one in my family
can give me eternal life. No one in my
family can give me salvation. But He
has. He did for me and for you because
He set His face toward the cross.
But
following Jesus sometimes requires you to count the cost. A real life example: I had a classmate at the seminary named
Harrison. Harrison grew up in a devout
Jewish family, not only were they of the Jewish religion, they were of the
Jewish nationality. His family observed
all the high and holy days: Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Hanukah. But in college Harrison met a Lutheran pastor who preached him the
Gospel. He heard it and the Word did
what God set out for it to do: it created faith in this young Jewish man. Harrison was catechized and baptized into the
faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
What’s more he attended the seminary, graduated and is now a pastor in
Nebraska. Sounds like a nice story
doesn’t it? But it came at a cost. His parents disowned him; they even had a
funeral for him, as statement that he was dead to them. For a long time, his parents wanted nothing
to do with him. But Christ and the
forgiveness and salvation that He had won for Harrison was more important than
even his own family. He longed to be
with His Lord in His Word, with Him under bread and wine than he cared to be
even with his own family. He desired the
love of Jesus more than the love of his mother and father.
That’s
Jesus point to these crowds. Count the
cost. “For which of you, desiring
to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has
enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able
to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build
and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king
in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten
thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not,
while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for
terms of peace.”
No
doubt the crowds thinned that day, not everyone wanted to be a Harrison. They did the accounting and the cost was too
high. When we take an account of
ourselves we can see how far short we come, like the builder who ran out of
funds we’ve not had enough to finish. We’ve seen how we’ve rejected our crosses or
failed to fear, love and trust in God above family and self. We’ve seen how we’ve been at enmity with the
Almighty King because of our sin.
But you know what? Jesus did some cost counting of His own. What would it cost Jesus to win salvation for
the world, for you?
The confirmation
students will learn about the Creed this year, all three articles. Do you remember the explanation to the Second
Article? The confirmation students will
most definitely learn it this year and even in Sunday School and Weekday School,
they’ll be introduced to it. Jesus “has
redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins,
from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with
His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death…” There you
have it. There’s the cost. Jesus hated His own life, that is, He values
your lives more than His own, giving it up for you. Jesus, our brother, was hated by His Father
as He became your sin and mine. As Paul
writes in 2 Corinthians 5, “For our sake
He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the
righteousness of God.” Was the cost
too high for Jesus to win forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation to a bunch
of sinners who so often give our first love to others? Not hardly.
He pays the cost for your sin in its fullest, shedding paying for them
with His blood.
He’s the King with
20,000 men who counts the cost to go forth into battle. The Father sends out His Son to work out
peace between us, the army of 10,000, precisely because He doesn’t want to wipe
us out. And this peace between Him and
us has been signed in the blood of Jesus, for you. This peace agreement requires nothing of us
and everything of Him. And, in our text,
that’s what He’s on the way to do.
Is Jesus calling us
to hate our family? No, but He is
putting our priorities in order. Our
fear, love, and trust is for Him. But He
counted the cost, what it would take to save us lost and condemned sinners and
He paid it. Paid it in it’s fullest when
His journey to Jerusalem was completed by His death on the cross and His rising
again for you.
So, love your
family. Husbands and wives, love and
honor each other. Parents, love and
serve your children.
Children, honor and obey your parents.
But most of all, love and trust Him who has taken away your sin, gained
for you eternal life, and has redeemed you, body and soul. Jesus counted the cost and found you worth
the great price He paid on the cross.
And He did if for you, making us brothers and sisters through the same
blood of Jesus – a holy family in Him.
Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts
and minds in Chris Jesus unto life everlasting.
Amen.
