The Father's Great Love (Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent: April 6, 2025)

Listen to the sermon here.

Texts:  Isaiah 43:16–21

             Philippians 3:4b–14

Luke 20:9–20

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text that serves as the foundation for our sermon for today is our Gospel reading. Especially these are words from Jesus' parable, “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.’ And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him” (Luke 20:13-15).

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,

Our gospel lesson for today is one that is known well, one that is beloved, and one that also makes us as 21st century Americans ponder a little bit. If you owned a business and you left that business to a manager to take care of that business, it's fully expected that at some point in time you'd want your profits from your business. You'd want the money that your business had earned. It's fully expected that the manager would give you that. That's not the parable that we find ourselves in, that Jesus tells. Instead of giving the owner what is rightly His, the workers in the vineyard try to steal from the owner. And yet the owner of the vineyard continues to love his servants, even sending his son to them. So it is with us and God. Although we rebel against God and don’t do what He commands, yet He loves us. Today in our readings, we learn that the Father's love is so great that he sends his Son knowing that his Son will be killed.

Let us pray: Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, although we know Your Word and know You, yet we are often quick to despise that Word. May the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, that we may always have the sure and certain confidence that since Your Son has come and suffered and died for us, we have the promised inheritance. It is through Your Son's name we pray. Amen.

In our gospel reading for today, Jesus tells this parable of a man who plants a vineyard. He lets it out to tenants, he goes away, and he plans to send someone to collect some of the fruit of the vineyard. This was a standard operating fare. And he sends servant after servant after servant. And each time those servants get beaten up, each time those servants get battered and bruised and sent back. Jesus here is telling this to Jews, to the Jewish people. And He is telling it with them fully understanding what He is saying. If we skip ahead to Luke 20:19, “The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people”. The scribes and the Pharisees aren't dumb. They recognize He's talking about them. They were the ones who battered and bruised the servants who came. They recognize that he's talking about the history of Israel. How Israel, although prophet after prophet was sent to them, refused to return to God, refused to repent of the sins that they had committed. They were so stubborn. They were so set in their own ways that they thought they could do whatever they wanted and God would always be happy with them. They thought that because God had called Abraham, God had called Isaac, and God had called Jacob, that they could, like their father Jacob, be as stubborn and bullheaded as he was, that they could do whatever they want, and God would never punish or discipline them.

So who does the master of the vineyard send after servant, after servant, after servant? Who did God send after He had sent prophet after prophet after prophet to turn his people Israel back to the faith? To bring his people Israel back to following him? He sends His own Son. What?!? If you and I owned a business, if you and I had a manager who refused to give us the money that was rightfully ours from that business, would you send your son after they had beaten up servant after servant after servant? No, you would call the police. You would send those who could actually physically take care of the issue and have that disobedient person arrested and thrown in jail for stealing from you. That is what you would do. Yet the master of the vineyard, in his great love for his servants, tries one more extreme and foolish measure. He sends his son. He sends his beloved son. Could you imagine owning a business, you've got servants who have come back to you battered and bruised, beaten, wounded, and you look at your son and go, “Okay, you're next.” It's absurd. It's insane.

Yet, the son shares the father's love. The son shares the father's love and so willingly goes. What happens to the son? They see him coming. They say, “‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.’ And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him” (Like 20:14-15). They took the son, the beloved son of the owner of the vineyard, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Here again, we see the Jews. Because what happened when Christ came to his beloved vineyard, to Jerusalem? What happened when Christ came to the people of Israel? Well, we will see it all too real starting next week. Christ rides into Jerusalem as the victorious king mounted on the donkey. “Sometimes they strew his way and his sweet praises sing, resounding all the day ‘Hosannas’ to their king. Then crucify is all their breath. And for his death they thirst and cry.” The servants in the vineyard, who seem to welcome the Son with open arms, will turn to shouts of crucify, will cast the Son out of the vineyard, as there on the hill He is lifted up high on the cross, as there on the hill he hangs, suffering, and dies. Did He deserve to die? Absolutely not. He had committed no sin. He had done nothing wrong. Yet He suffers and He dies.

“What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.’ When they heard this, they said, ‘Surely not!’” (Luke 20:15-16) They're astounded that the owner would dare to give the vineyard to others. After all, we see even going back to Abraham, when there is no son, when there is no heir, then the ones who are over the land get the inheritance. The scribes and the pharisees expect the master of the vineyard to give it to the servants. Yet God did the exact opposite. He went and he destroyed Jerusalem. He destroyed it, razed it to the ground less than 40 years after Christ's death. And He gives it to others, so that the stone that the builders rejected could become the cornerstone. So that Christ who was rejected could become our foundation of faith.

But lest we think more highly of ourselves than we should, we must be always cautious to recognize and not turn to the same pride that plagued the Jews in Jesus' day. For oftentimes we, in our own sinful nature, the same sinful nature that we share with the Jews, that we share with all of creation through Adam's fall, too often we, in our sin, think more highly of ourselves than we should. We get prideful, think, “Oh, this is ours. All that we have, it's not given to us by someone. It's not a gift from God. No, we worked hard for this. It was our doings that did this.” We often think that we are the ones from whom the blessings that we have flow. God sends pastor after pastor to us. Call us back. Week after week, pointing us always to the beloved son, pointing us always to the cornerstone of our faith, who suffered and died for you and for me, who was rejected by men so that He could become the foundation of our faith. How wonderful it is a gift that God has given us in giving us His Son to suffer and die for your sins and giving you the absolution that we so desperately need. So. We should always receive Him with glad and welcome arms, knowing that this is not our own doing, but the work of the Holy Spirit given to us. We should with glad and welcome arms receive Him as the Beloved Son, hearing His call to repent, as you did this morning, confessing our sins and receiving the absolution that He has won for us on the cross, partaking of the fruits of the vineyard in, with, and under the bread and wine as here you feast on Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, it is all too easy and all too common in this sin-filled world to reject the Son. It is all too common and all too easy in this sin-filled world to turn away from Him, to not hear His call. But there is always that promise from God that although He is slow to anger, He will eventually come and will eventually bring to an end all disobedience. So today and every day, when the Son comes to you through Word and Sacraments, receive Him with joyful hearts. Receive the salvation that he has won for you. He is your cornerstone. He is the one upon whom your faith is founded. Continue to trust in him all the days of your life until at last we get to partake of the vineyard in its perfection forevermore. Amen.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.