3rd Last Sunday - A Devotion

Devotion for 3rd Last Sunday 2020

Jeremiah 20:1-18       Matthew 24:29-51 

In the church year calendar, today is the 3rd Last Sunday of the Church Year. It is time to look forward to the second coming of Christ, looking toward the “Last Day,” or what is often referred to as Judgement Day. Many think of this as a day of foreboding and great terror.

Is it? I ask that with all seriousness? Is it truly a day of which we should be afraid? Or, is it a day to which we should look forward with all joy and hopeful expectation?

Today is also November 8, it is the day set aside on the calendar to remember Johannes von Staupitz, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s father confessor.

Yeah, I know, someone is probably thinking, “Father confessor? That’s a Roman Catholic thing.”

When people consider the last days and are afraid, I have learned from discussions with some that they are afraid because they are unsure. They are unsure because they are not positive that they are “worthy,” afraid that on the last day they will be condemned because they have not lived up to the perfect demands of a holy and just God.

None of us has! If God judged each of us based upon works, we would all have serious reason to doubt and be fearful of that last day. We know what we should think, do, and say, but we fail miserably each day. It is called sinfulness, it is life in the flesh. The good I would do, this I fail to do! The evil that I would not, this I do! Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?   (paraphrased summary of Romans 7) The Holy Spirit at work in us moves our desire to do what is right, leads us to desire to do what God’s holy and righteous Law requires. And Satan loves us to feel helpless and guilty when we fail – when we fall into sin.

Here is where we tie the father-confessor into the matter, and it is there in the Collect of the Day for the 3rd Last Sunday: Almighty God, we beseech You, show Your mercy unto Your humble servants, that we who put no trust in our own merits may not be dealt with after the severity of Your judgment, but according to Your mercy; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.

God’s mercy is dispensed by God’s servants in the words of the absolution, the preached Word of Christ, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. However, Satan tempts us – and our flesh concurs – that while true, it is not enough, there must be more we have to do.

Like I said, here is where the father-confessor finally can be realized as God’s Divine agent of grace and mercy. He is commanded and granted the blood bought authority of Christ to forgive sins. Jesus had told His disciples, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” (Mt. 16:19) On the third day following His crucifixion, in the upper room, He gave the disciples that authority. (Jn 20:19-23)

Father-confessors have that authority as those “Called and Ordained” to forgive sin, to bestow the very mercy of God, poured into the ears of the repentant sinners. When they do so in the privacy of individual confession and absolution, they speak directly to the sins which weigh most heavily on burdened consciences.

That last day is not a day to fear, it is a day of hopeful expectation, for on that day we will receive the eternal blessings of our merciful God. We will either be raised from our graves, perfected, and glorified – or – we will be changed, in a twinkling of an eye at that last trumpet, into the perfected and glorified bodies we will inhabit for all eternity.

If your conscience bothers you. If that last day raises dread or foreboding in you heart and mind, visit your father-confessor (your pastor). Come to him that He might proclaim to you the forgiveness He has been called to deliver to you, that you might have peace, and that you might go out refreshed and renewed in love toward God and your neighbor.

Peace of the Lord be with you.

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