SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT [c] March 8, 2022
LUKE 13:31-35 (LUKE 13:6-9)
PSALM 4
1 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
2 O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? Selah
3 But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself;
the LORD hears when I call to him.
4 Be angry, and do not sin;
ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Selah
5 Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the LORD.
6 There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?
Lift up the light of your face upon us, O LORD!”
7 You have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine abound.
8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
IN THE NAME OF JESUS.
A man hits his bed at night, but remains awake. Thoughts overtaking his mind; sleep comes hard.
Thoughts of turmoil in his family. Words spoken not to help but to tear, other words left unsaid which should have been said. Chickens come home to roost. Payback will come. There always seems to be retribution.
Thoughts of his job. Will he be working tomorrow, next week, next month? The economy races downhill, few smiles are seen in his office. There will be a day of reckoning, there always is.
Thoughts of his body, his blood pressure, his family history, his diet—things always catch up. He knows better than to say that a particular sickness is God’s payback for a particular sin, but he knows also that sickness and death sting our world because of sin. Sin’s retribution, it catches up.
Thoughts of his God. His holy God who loves him, and yet here he is, unable to close his eyes in sleep—thoughts of what he’s done today, what he’s left undone, what he harbors in his heart—nothing seems holy. Sleep robbed by the Law’s retribution. With a desperate voice he prays:
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
[Psalm 4:1]
Jesus walks toward Jerusalem to give himself over to Herod. Pharisees approach. Maybe these Pharisees actually had Jesus’ interest in mind? Or maybe not, maybe they just want to divert him? It doesn’t matter.
“Get away from here,” [they say to Jesus,] “for Herod wants to kill you.”
[Luke 13:31]
No diversion for Jesus. He will go on to Jerusalem, he will go on to the cross. Luke 13:33:
[Jesus said,] “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.”
A few verses previous, Jesus gave the parable of the fig tree. The parable revealed who he is, what he would be doing, and the purpose of this journey to Jerusalem. Luke 13:6:
And [Jesus] told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. 9 Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'”
This is not gardening advice. They all know how to take care of fig trees—no rabbi needed for that.
The parable reveals a vinedresser treating a tree as no vinedresser would ever treat a tree. The tree bears no fruit. It takes up valuable space. That ground should be used to provide for the family, to build wealth. If the tree hasn’t produced for year one and year two, it’s not going to produce in year three. And if not in three years, year four won’t help. The family needs to eat. Cut it down. Everyone knows this. Yet, the vinedresser says to the owner,
“Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”
What’s strange in the parable? What doesn’t fit.
The vinedresser will do what makes no sense. He will waste time and labor and fertilizer on a tree just to give it one more year of life, though no one would expect that additional year to change anything. And then, when it doesn’t produce, cut it down. But note who will cut it down. Not the vinedresser. He says to the owner, “If it doesn’t produce, you can cut it down.” The vinedresser has no intent of cutting it down; he’s not about the business of cutting down.
So the parable gives us to look at a vinedresser who refuses to cut down a tree which should be cut down. Why?
“Let it alone this year,” says the vinedresser. The tree is not destroyed—retribution is held back for one season. Why? Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to die. The parable reveals the accomplishment of the impending death. He goes to Jerusalem to die for sinners, for those who cannot produce good fruit.
Death sin’s retribution; it’s the sinner’s day of reckoning. Jesus reveals the season of the cross—the parable reveals that with his crucifixion, the retribution is over.
Let the tree live for one more season. One more season takes it past the day of the cross. So the tree, so deserving of destruction, is taken past retribution into the new year. It’s now the season of eternal life. The season of the Law has past. The sinner is not cut down, for the Law has already cut down Jesus, the One standing in the place of every sinner.
The parable of the vinedresser not cutting down the worthless tree makes no sense, until we notice that the one telling the parable is looking over his shoulder. He sees Jerusalem, he’s sees his death. The parable is Jesus saying to the sinner, The day of retribution is over. It belongs to me. All retribution belongs to me. You belong to life, for you belong to vinedresser who does not desire to cut down the worthless tree.
The sinner is to know that Jesus is the Lord who forgives the sinner.
It’s after Jesus tells that parable as he’s on his way to Jerusalem that some Pharisees come up to him and say,
“Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
Jesus will go to Jerusalem for just that reason, to die. Luke 13:31:
“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.”
The retribution is over. That’s why Jesus went to Jerusalem—to satisfy the Law of God by his own obedience, to shed the blood to atone for the sinner in his own death, to empty out the words of the Law’s accusation by forgiving all sin, to say, the worthless tree will not be cut down, for this is the season when retribution is ended; it’s the season of grace and life.
So that man of Psalm 4, tossing on his bed with no sleep—turmoil in the family, harsh words met with harsher words—payback demands its price, the retribution continues. The downhill economy, the unsure workplace, the day of reckoning, is it tomorrow, next week? His body, his health, his habits he can’t seem to break, the traps he keeps falling into, it’s all testimony to the sin in our world, in our very bodies—he knows sin brings the retribution.
And holy God—How to find peace with his God? Sleep comes hard to the man of retribution.
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness.
His God hears.
The answer? Jesus on his way to Jerusalem, unable to be diverted by the teachers of the Law: “Don’t go to Jerusalem,” they say, “Herod will kill you.”
He will not be diverted. Jerusalem is where the prophet must die, Jerusalem of the holy Temple, of the Throne of David, of the Ark of the Covenant and the Law of God inscribed on the Ten Commandments, Jerusalem of the retribution of God, to there I must go. I will die. And the retribution will be over.
The man on the bed, his God does hear him.
The answer is the Gospel. The answer is the worthless fig tree not cut down, but preserved alive through the season of retribution. The answer is the sinner not destroyed, but saved through this time of tribulation. For Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and that death closes out the retribution of God.
The answer is that you go to bed as one bound to Christ Jesus in Baptism.
The promise is that the reckoning is over and the Father accounts his Son’s righteousness to you.
The promise is that as you toss on your bed, the voice your Father wants you to hear is his voice. Not your voice recounting sins, not the voice of others holding people under the Law’s accusation, not the voice of the demons speaking in your conscience of retribution, but your Father’s voice. He says, You’re mine, my child whom I love, for you belong to my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
His voice no longer of retribution, but grace and mercy. So the man of Psalm 4 lies down to sleep, completing his prayer, Psalm 4:7:
You [O Lord,] have put more joy in my heart
than they have when their grain and wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
IN THE NAME OF JESUS.