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Thursday Outline

“Friend, move up higher.”

᛭ INI ᛭

A healing at a banquet, of course, <u>IHS</u> would do that—especially when “they’re watching Him closely.” Christ’s parable about where to sit, or rather, where someone ends up sitting at the banquet has everything to do with healing that man with edema. For Christ’s ministry and His parables highlight that He is concerned with the last, the lowest, the least, the lost. “The Son of Man came to save that which was lost,” we heard Christ say a couple weeks back.

When Christ saves “the last, the lowest, the least, the lost,” or when Christ tells a parable that says those sorts of people are saved or have a place, even a high place, at His table, what He’s really doing and saying is that He “did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” It means, to put it another way, the line to get into <u>IHS’</u> banquet is full of losers! Who wants to be in that line?

Yet, that’s who Christ saves: “the last, the lowest, the least, the lost,” those who’ve got nothing to bring to the table except their sins and screwups. Behold their “accomplishments”!—many miscues, missteps, misdeeds, sins! And to be in that line one is signing up to say, “I’m last, lowest, least, lost—loser!—in terms of my relationship with God and Christ.” The world teaches “American exceptionalism” or self-sufficiency, which causes us to say, “I’m not all that bad.”

But again, what does Christ do for the last, the least, the lost? He saves them. But let’s put “saving them” in terms of today’s healing and parable. Christ saving means He raises up. He raises them up FROM somewhere TO somewhere. Simply put:

CHRIST RAISES YOU TO A HIGHER SEAT.

(I. The seat from which Christ raises you.)

Now, if CHRIST RAISES YOU TO A HIGHER SEAT, it means He’s raising you FROM somewhere. Now, when Christ raises from a lower seat, really from the lowest and last place, it’s a call to humility. We “shouldn’t think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.” (Rom 12) After all, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted,” as Christ preaches today. “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1-Pet 5)

But Christ’s words aren’t just a call to humility. Christ calls us to confess reality! When Christ says, “Take the last place.” He’s call you to confess that we are already in the last, least, lost place, that we are by nature sinful and unclean, that we are poor, destitute sinners. It’s a call for all of us to make Luther’s final confession: “Wir sind Bettler; hoc verum est.” (“We are beggars; this is true.”)

To confess that we rightfully deserve the lowest place, and that we still possess that lowest place because of our flesh, our sinful nature, it’s not false humility. It’s not degrading ourselves. It’s reality! It’s to “call a spade a spade,” to “call a thing what it is” (Heidelberg), to call evil, evil. (Is 5) It’s to no longer delude or deceive ourselves into false righteousness.

Sin really has put us in the lowest place possible. Our sinfulness as well as our own sins, which we commit daily and much, continue to make us lowest. Yet, our flesh won’t confess this truth. The flesh might take the highest seat in self-righteousness, but more often it humbly takes a middle seat. “I’m not all that bad” it says. But when Christ says to take the last place, He’s saying that we are in the same position as “an ox that’s fallen into a well.” “I’m a beast before You, O LORD.” (Ps 73)

To believe and confess anything else except that is to put ourselves higher. It is to run risk of Christ’s own reality check. “Give your place,” for “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

(Transition.)

Christ’s end goal isn’t to shame you or degrade you. We’re already last because we’re human! “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3) “God has committed all to disobedience.” (Rom 11) “All our righteous deeds are like filthy rags.” (Is 64) “There is none who does good, no not one.” (Rom 3)

Spiritually, we’re no different than an ox that’s fallen into a well, or a man with dropsy. “We cannot free ourselves from our sinful condition.” Confessing “this … teaches us to discern sin: We are completely lost; there is nothing good in us from head to foot; and we must become absolutely new and different people.” (SA III III § 35) “A person who confesses that everything in him is nothing but sin includes all sins, excludes none, forgets none.” (Ibid. § 37)

Finally, this drives us to Christ alone. “It is the suffering and blood of the innocent Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world [John 1]” that makes satisfaction for our sins. Christ is calling us to recognize, to repent that we might make a true confession of who we are and where we ought to be, so that we might recognize who Christ is for us, and where He went for us. For “Christ humbled Himself being obedient unto death, even death on the cross. Therefore God exalted Him,” (Phil 2) resurrected Him.

This is the great exchange. We are lowest, least, lost, and Christ becomes that for us, that He might raise us up high, great, and found. Being in the loser line is the winning line, because Christ lost, gave up, His life for you. Yes, CHRIST RAISES YOU TO A HIGHER SEAT. And this causes us to reflect, to repent, to recognize the place and seat FROM which Christ raised us, but there is also joy. Because when CHRIST RAISES YOU TO A HIGHER SEAT, we get to rejoice about the seat TO which Christ raises us!

(II. The seat to which Christ raises you.)

By healing the man with dropsy Christ foreshadowed what takes place on the Last Day. One day there will be healing and eternal life for all God’s people. And so, when CHRIST RAISES YOU TO A HIGHER SEAT, it’s the seat you get to look forward to at His eternal banquet! As the Spirit says through Isaiah: The LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever (Is 25)

Not only does Christ welcome sinners and the last, least, lowest, and lost to His eternal table. He invites us, such as we are, to His Holy Supper that we wouldn’t remain as we are, but be enlivened and set free to live apart from our sins. His Supper here, through the forgiveness of all your sins, prepares you, in both body and soul, for life everlasting.

Yes, we know that those who want to live in their sins or continue to behave contrary to what God wants shouldn’t commune, but this isn’t to say that those who commune are without sins. Far from it! “Friend, move up higher,” He says to you. [It’s] the highest art to know that our Sacrament does not depend upon our worthiness. We are not baptized because we are worthy and holy. Nor do we go to Confession because we are pure and without sin. On the contrary, we go because we are poor, [destitute] people. We go exactly because we are unworthy. This is true unless we are talking about someone who desires no grace and Absolution nor intends to change. (LC V)

(Conclusion.)

CHRIST RAISES YOU TO A HIGHER SEAT.

It is the Great Exchange. Your sins for His righteousness. His cross is your life. His vindication, His resurrection, is your innocent verdict.

CHRIST RAISES YOU TO A HIGHER SEAT. He raises you from your sins. Not past ones only and aftwerard you’re good to go on your own. No, present ones, real ones, daily ones, many ones. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely as a gift.” (Rom 3) “God has committed all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all.” (Rom 11)

CHRIST RAISES YOU TO A HIGHER SEAT—a seat next to Him. You’ll eat and drink with Him forever, but He bids you to eat and drink now. “Friend, move up higher.” He says. But “I’ve made a mess of things, again.” “True, enough,” He says, “But I have more forgiveness than you have sins. My Body and Blood for you—It’s right here. This seat’s for you.”

᛭ INI ᛭