“This Is the Lord’s Slaughterhouse”
Tuesday in Holy Week
Jeremiah 11:18-20
April 19, 2011
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Lincoln, Nebraska
IN NOMINE JESU
What do you think of when you hear the word slaughter? What does the
word mean? Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary gives three
definitions of the verb: “to kill (animals) for food”; “to kill in a
bloody or violent manner”; and “to discredit, defeat, or demolish
completely.” So what comes to your mind when you hear the word
slaughter? Do you think of a chicken, a cow, or a pig eventually
becoming your dinner? Does the image of genocide, terrorism, or
abortion predominate your thinking? Or are you hoping the Big Red
will slaughter the rest of the Big Ten, starting this fall? What
comes to mind? The synonyms given for each respective definition are
butcher, slay, and massacre. Tonight we’ll focus not on the use of
slaughter as “butcher” but as “slay” and “massacre,” as these two
words best fit the use of slaughter in our text for this evening.
Our text tells us of a slaughter about to take place. The prophet
Jeremiah was on the verge of being martyred on account of his faith
and on account of his message. The Jews were greatly displeased with
Jeremiah. They didn’t like what he was saying to them. But it was
not his own words that Jeremiah was speaking. He was speaking the
very words God gave him to speak against the Israelites. Why was God
speaking against His chosen people? They chose to forsake Him. They
chose to abandon the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—and follow false gods. They chose to
break the covenant that God made with them—again! This was not the
first time the God’s people shunned Him. It wasn’t the second time,
nor the third. This falling away from God was part of a cyclical
pattern. God establishes His covenant with the Israelites. They
agree to abide by it, and they worship Him. After a couple of
generations, they forget the covenant He made with their forefathers,
and they follow false gods. God sends prophets to preach repentance,
that they might be saved. The proclamations go for naught, and God
carries through with His wrath, giving them over to their enemies, who
slaughtered many of them and enslaved the rest. Many Israelites were
killed in battle, and others were part of what we would call today
“collateral damage” or by the more familiar “raping and pillaging.”
The Israelites’ enemies were savages. They were ruthless. They were
bloodthirsty. Many Jews shed their blood at the hands of their
enemies, victors, and oppressors. After a time in slavery, the
Israelites remember the covenant God made with their ancestors and the
words of the prophets God sent, and they finally repent. They confess
their sin to God and beg for His deliverance. God forgives them,
delivers them, and re-establishes His covenant with them—namely, that
He is their God and they are His people. They agree to His terms, and
they confess Him as their God. He forgives them and restores them as
His people. And the cycle begins anew. They follow Him. Then they
ditch Him. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
But God is a loving and gracious God. He dearly wants His people to
repent of their sins so that He would forgive them and restore them.
For this reason He sent prophets to the Israelites, to preach a
message of repentance, lest they incur the wrath of God. It is never
His desire to have sinners in the hands of an angry God, for His
proper work is to be loving and forgiving. That’s what He wants to
do, to give His gifts of forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation to
His people. But sometimes God has to do what He doesn’t want to
do—namely, to bring His wrath upon the unrepentant sinner and His
condemnation upon those who do not confess Christ by the time they’ve
died. This is God’s alien work, for it’s alien to what He wants to
do. But He wants His people to repent; for this reason He sent
prophets to the Israelites. “Long ago, at many times and in many
ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” (Heb. 1:1). Jeremiah
was one of those prophets. God sent Him to the Israelites, that they
would repent of their sin of apostasy, falling away from God. Through
him God threatened them with His wrath if they did not confess their
sin and confess Him as their God. God spoke His Law in all its truth
and boldness. Did they repent? Did they shun their evil ways and
return to the Lord as their God? Nope. What did they do? They
conspired to kill the messenger. They wanted to slaughter Jeremiah
for the words of wrath and condemnation that God gave him to speak.
This is certainly nothing new. The so-called people of God have
sought to do damage to the men God has sent to them. The Lord Himself
said:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the
tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,
saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have
taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you
witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the
prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents,
you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom
you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues
and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the
righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the
blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the
sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will
come upon this generation.” [Mt. 23:29-36]
The Lord warned His disciples that their ministry would not be a bed
of roses, either. It was to be more like the crown of thorns He would
soon wear. He warned them of what was to come on account of Him and
the message He sent them to deliver. All of the apostles, except
John, were martyred, as was Paul. Their blood was shed. They were
slaughtered. The Lord revealed to Jeremiah that the Israelites were
seeking to shed his blood, like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter.
They wanted to blot him from their memories forever, that his name be
remembered no more. The devil was hard at work in the hearts of the
Israelites. He is just as hard at work today in the Church. Satan
has turned the hearts of many of the faithful against God and against
His called and ordained servants of the Word. He has caused them to
reject the faithful preaching and teaching of God’s called pastors in
their midst. These wolves in sheep’s clothing gnash their teeth at
the shepherds God has given them, and they hate them. So what do
these disgruntled parishioners do? They try to get rid of their
pastor. They gossip about him, spreading rumors that would hurt his
reputation and damage his good name, perhaps permanently. They don’t
put nearly as much in the offering plate as they used to because they
want him to do their bidding, conveniently forgetting that he is a
called and ordained servant of Christ, not some lackey or punching
bag. They withhold their offerings to “teach him a lesson.” As a
result they starve him out because the poor congregation can’t afford
to pay her pastor. They try to make his life so miserable that he
supposedly has no choice but to resign as their pastor. If that
doesn’t work, they go after the pastor’s family and intimidate them.
Some members have even threatened their pastors with physical
violence. One way or another, these malcontents, these enemies of the
Gospel, these enemies of God want to get rid of their pastor one way
or another and hope that no one remembers them anymore. One way or
another, they want to slaughter the prophets God has placed in their
midst.
Why do they hate their pastors so much? They hate their pastors
because they also hate God. They don’t like to hear what God has to
say to them. It doesn’t matter if the pastor is a nice guy. If he is
faithful, many will not like him or the message he brings. You see,
when you hear the pastor preaching the sermon, proclaiming God’s Law
and God’s Gospel, the message might be considered unfriendly and
unloving because it’s not all about you, but it’s all about what God
has done for you—for me—in Christ. God’s Word takes us completely out
of the equation. They shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
them mad. But the faithful pastor cannot be so “friendly” that he
literally loves a person straight into hell, for he cannot, in good
conscience or on account of his divine call, gloss over or even ignore
what God has to say in His Word. There are times when we get mad,
too. We get mad at what we hear the pastor say, and our sinful pride
gets in the way. We can’t stand hearing how we don’t measure up
against the Ten Commandments, because we do not fear, love, and trust
in God above all things. We get mad at the pastor because we hate
God. We in our sinful nature are spiritually blind, dead, and enemies
of God. So when we get mad and decide to “get even,” as it were, who
gets hurt? The pastor? God? We do, because we place our souls in
peril since we despise preaching and God’s Word, we do not hold it
sacred, and we do not gladly hear and learn it. We sin. We sin a
lot. We daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but God’s temporal
and eternal punishment. We deserve to die for our sins. We deserve
to be slaughtered, to have our blood shed on account of our sins.
The payment for sin is indeed blood, “for,” God says, “the life of
the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to
make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes
atonement by the life” (Lev. 17:11). God commanded the sacrifice of
animals to pay for the sins of His people. The priest would take the
required animals and slaughter them on the altar, and the blood would
gush forth. On the Day of Atonement, the temple, and Jerusalem
itself, would be one bloody mess on account of all the sacrifices made
to atone for, to pay for, the sins of the people. For our sins to be
atoned for, it is necessary to have blood shed on our behalf as well.
But it isn’t our blood or the blood of some animal. St. Peter reminds
us:
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or
gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to
you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a
lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of
the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
Through Him you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and
glorified Him, and so your faith and hope are in God. [1 Pet. 1:18-21
NIV]
St. Paul reminds us that “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been
sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7b). The sacrifice—the slaughter—for our sins
has already been made by Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world, has mercy on us, and grants us His peace, the
peace the world cannot give, the peace that far surpasses all
understanding. He is our great High Priest and our Sacrifice. His
sacred head was wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, bearing
the crown of thorns upon His brow, taking the beating and the whipping
we deserve. He bled as His flesh was torn into. “Surely He has borne
our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our
transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the
chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are
healed” (Is. 53:4-5). What the Israelites had conspired against
Jeremiah, the Jews carried out against Jesus. The prophet Jeremiah
said, “The LORD made it known to me and I knew; then You showed me
their deeds. But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I
did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, ‘Let us
destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of
the living, that his name be remembered no more’” (vv. 18-19). This
was a foreshadowing of what was to come, as God spoke through the
prophet Isaiah concerning the Suffering Servant—that is, Jesus, “He
was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like
a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its
shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. By oppression and
judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered
that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the
transgression of My people?” (Is. 53:7-8).
In a few days, on Good Friday, we will remember the slaughter of the
Lamb of God, the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The
temple for this once-for-all-time sacrifice was atop Mt. Calvary, and
the altar upon which Christ was sacrificed was the cross. The Lord
said in our Gospel for this evening, “‘Now is the judgment of this
world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am
lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.’ He said
this to show by what kind of death He was going to die” (Jn.
12:31-33). Jeremiah spoke of his persecutors, who said of him, “Let
us destroy the tree with its fruit.” The Early Church Fathers
translated that sentence like this: “Come, let us put wood into his
bread.” One of those Fathers, Tertullian, said this:
Christ Jesus, alone reared “on His shoulder” His own novel glory, and
power, and sublimity,—the cross, to wit; that, according to the former
prophecy, the Lord thenceforth “might reign from the tree.” For of
this tree likewise it is that God hints, through Jeremiah, that you
would say, “Come, let us put wood into his bread, and let us wear him
away out of the land of the living; and his name shall no more be
remembered.” Of course on His body that “wood” was put; [i.e., when
they laid on Him the crossbeam to carry.] for so Christ has revealed,
calling His body “bread,” [and the various accounts of the institution
of the Holy Supper.] whose body the prophet in bygone days announced
under the term “bread.”
The Early Church Fathers wanted to draw their hearers to the
sacramental reality of Christ’s body and blood, given to us in the
Lord’s Supper, in, with and under the bread and wine. It is here,
with God’s other Means of Grace, that Christ’s sacrifice, His
slaughter, is made real and personal for us, for “we have been
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for
all” (Heb. 10:10). You see, here in our Lord’s house there is a
slaughter taking place. No, it’s not our offering up a sacrifice to
God, but it’s His coming down to us through His Word and Sacraments.
Think of it this way: This sanctuary is God’s slaughterhouse. Yes, we
are in God’s slaughterhouse, and we are on the killing floor. Who is
doing the killing? God is doing the killing. He is killing our
sinful nature, the Old Adam that is in us. God is the One who kills
and the One who restores us, His people. He slaughters us and saves
us. That’s the nature of the Means of Grace, the instruments by which
He gives us His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
The first time many of us were slaughtered happened at the baptismal
font. As the pastor poured that water with God’s Word over us, we
became baptized in and into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, “for,” as Martin Luther says, “to be baptized in the Name of
God is to be baptized not by men, but by God Himself” (LC IV 10), and
we drowned—we drowned in the blood of Christ, whose blood takes away
our sin. Baptism “signifies that the old Adam in us should, by daily
contrition and repentance, be drowned and die [to be slaughtered] with
all sins and evil lusts, and, again, a new man daily come forth and
arise; who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever,”
as St. Paul reminds us in Romans 6: “We are buried with Christ by
Baptism into death, that, like as He was raised up from the dead by
the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of
life.” Here at the font we are slaughtered, and we are restored in
the blood of Christ, bearing on our brows the seal of Him who died,
being marked with the sign of the cross upon our foreheads and upon
our hearts, to mark us as redeemed by Christ the crucified.
That slaughter is ongoing as we get to live our Baptism each day in
the confession and forgiveness of our sins, as we get to come before
God, whether here in the Divine Service or in our private devotions or
in private confession and absolution, to confess our sins and receive
the assurance that our heavenly Father forgives us for His Son’s sake.
Luther reminds us, “Repentance, therefore, is nothing else than a
return and approach to Baptism” (LC IV 79a). God sees you through His
Son’s blood and declares you forgiven.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Your Old Adam is killed again, this time through your ears as you hear
the promise that God has forgiven you. The Old Adam is once again
slain when the Word is read and proclaimed in your hearing. Again,
God comes to you through the Readings and the sermon. He comes to
destroy the sinner through His Law and to restore the saint through
His Gospel, as you get to hear that Christ gave His body and shed His
blood on the cross to win the forgiveness of your sins, the
forgiveness He gives to you in Baptism, Holy Absolution, the Gospel
read and proclaimed, and the Lord’s Supper, where He gives you the
very body He gave on the cross and the true blood He shed there and
gives in His holy meal.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here at the Lord’s altar, the sinner is slaughtered once again, and
blood is poured out. But it is not your blood that comes out; it is
the blood of Christ touching your lips as you eat His body and drink
His blood. At this meal, our Lord invites us to feast on Him who died
for us and now lives, for He is risen from the dead, as we will get to
celebrate in five days, on Easter Sunday. He lives, has ascended into
heaven, and comes back to us in Word, water, wafer, and wine, giving
us a foretaste of the Feast to come.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
So here we are at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. Here we are in God’s
slaughterhouse. But, unlike the animals loaded up in the truck, we’re
not going to Farmland. No, God is preparing us to enter into the
Promised Land of heaven, where we will be seated around our Lord’s
heavenly banquet table, forever singing His praises. By God’s grace,
we will one day join St. John, to whom Jesus revealed heaven, and John
said:
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures
and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads
and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the
Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in
heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that
is in them, saying, “To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be
blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the
four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and
worshiped. (Rev. 5:11-14)
God grant this in Jesus’ Name and for His sake. In the Name of the
Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
___________________________________________________________________
'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless
otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors;
posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for
redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by
the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is
not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use
in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_.
Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list.
Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster.
Subscribe? Send ANY note to: [email protected]
Unsubscribe? Send ANY note to: [email protected]
Archive? <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/>
For more information on this or other lists offered by Confess And Teach
For Unity, you can contact the CAT 41 list administrator at:
Rev. Fr. Eric J. Stefanski <MoM [at] lists (dot) cat41 <dot> org>
