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Disclaimer: This is a transcript of Pastor Fenker’s sermon. It was preached from an outline, and the transcript taken automatically from the audio. Please forgive any typographical or formatting errors.

If you had known even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, But now they are hidden from your eyes.

᛭ INI ᛭

Christ today gives a warning. He often does this. Today, he warns Jerusalem, as he approaches it for the final time. He gives warning. about what his people should do during the last days to be watchful. 
The warning to his people about the last days is be watchful because you don’t know when he is returning. The warning he gives to Jerusalem, here is one of their rejecting peace of their rejecting him. And the result is that because they have rejected it, it will be hidden from them. 


We don’t really like it. When Christ gives warnings. For many, we avoid these warnings. We like Christ when he’s preaching grace and forgiveness and the welcoming of sinners into his loving arms. And those are good words from our Lord. But when we hear him warning. of warning about rejecting peace and of the coming judgment, We become uncomfortable. 


We don’t really want to hear that. Makes it sound as if Jesus himself is a Debbie Downer. one who is too strict, too limiting to dark and somber. But his warning is one today made with tears. 
He weeps over Jerusalem. He weeps over the fact that they are getting just what they wanted. They didn’t want him and his peace. 
So then they don’t have it. It will be hidden from your eyes, he says. This is the Lord’s judgment. 


The Lord’s judgment can take the flavor of Catastrophe, as we see in the scriptures, Sodom and Gomorrah, famines for his people, plagues in Egypt. The Lord can do this. But the harshest judgment that the Lord can actually render is the fact that his people are then on their own. That people get what they have always wanted. a life of their own making, a life without him. Paul describes it in Romans chapter one. It’s described in the book of judges. In chapter 10, when they cry out to the Lord to rescue them. And he says, you have rejected me for false gods. Why did you cry out to them? For they’ll surely deliver you?

And what Christ is warning about today has a matter to do with peace. He’s warning because there are false pieces out there. False sources of peace. There is the false piece of worldly security. that those out in the world are saying there’s peace and safety. And as Paul says in 1st Thessalonians, then comes upon them, swift judgment. 


We have some of this aspect of peace described in our Old Testament reading today in Jeremiah 7, and there’s more of it in Jeremiah chapter 6, where there were those in Jeremiah’s day saying that judgment would not come. That there will be peace and safety. And especially as we heard in Jeremiah 7, because the temple of the Lord is here. Surely the Lord will not destroy that. And that ties into another false piece. The false piece of human religiosity, man-made religion. 


So it was Paul warns of these things in Colossians 2, of taking up a religion that you make for yourself, and Paul describes things of discipline and all of the actions of worship, but really these actions have no ability to curb the sinful flesh. Only Christ’s forgiveness can do that. But this is why Christ clears out the temple. 


There was the human religiosity of what they had done to the Lord’s sacrifices. They had turned, what the Lord gave as a proclamation of the coming Savior into a means of making money. So he went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it. 
Saying, it’s written, my house is a house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves.

And Christ’s warning about false peace ties into the prophecy that he makes to the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in AD70. It is a type of the final judgment, like Sodom and Gomorrah was, as he warns, they’ll surround you and close you on on every side and level you and your children within you to the ground. Such is the end of false peace, whether that’s worldly peace or fake religion peace. Because there is only one piece. 


And peace isn’t a feeling or a state of being. Peace, is a person. Peace is Christ. As Isaiah prophesies. Unto us, a child is born unto us, a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace. 


Micah prophesies that the one to come would be born in Bethlehem and that he finally says, and he shall be their peace. The prophets preach this time and again, not only warnings of judgment, but the only place, the only person where true and lasting peace can be found. In the coming Christ. and his reign of peace. 


As Christ cries out, if you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace. Because Christ, the prince of peace, does all the things that make for your peace.

His birth means peace. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men, the angels cry out and sing to the shepherds. The one was born in Bethlehem as promised to be the savior of his people. to one who would save them from their sins. And he does this in his death. 


His death means peace. The veil of the temple was torn into the separation between God and mankind is undone in the death of the Son of God. God is let out unto the nations, and we have free access to the Father. He nailed The handwriting of the requirements that we failed to meet to the cross, making peace by the blood of his cross, and thus united all of us together in peace, the peace found only in the death of the Son of God. Not only in what he does, born, died, raised means peace in death, but also what he says and gives work peace. 


His word and his sacraments being peace for all of us. His peace that he won on the cross is not just left off somewhere for us to find, but it is now delivered. These are the things in our day. that make for our peace. 


He sent preachers to preach peace to those who are far off. There is peace in the forgiveness of our sins between us and God. between us and each other. As we all receive the absolution, as we are all baptized into the one body of Christ, baptized into the forgiveness of our sins, as we eat and drink of the one bread, and of the one cup. 
For there we are united as one body in Christ in the forgiveness of sins. And we have a peace that endures and lasts for us in both body and soul unto life everlasting.

Because Christ himself is died and raised, and carries us unto himself into life, everlasting. And the difference between Christ’s peace and the peace that we make up for ourselves in worldly peace, let there be peace among the nations, or the peace we make for ourselves and our own religious doing, all that comes to an end.

But Christ’s peace, Well, with Christ, there is peace Come what may. There’s peace for our daily lives. that whether there is suffering or sickness or even death in this life, We have a piece that passes on understanding. Because Christ is raised no matter what. 


He’s still raised each and every day, and we are baptized into Christ Jesus, and therefore nothing. No matter what you meet in your daily life, can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

And Christ’s peace endures even at death. For we do not grieve as others do who have no hope. Because we believe, even as Christ was died and raised, even so, God brings with Christ those who have died in him. Not only died with him in baptism, but died with faith in him. 


And the peace of Christ endures, even on judgment day. After all, Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? Is it God who justifies? 
No, he has justified you in Christ Jesus. Christ has done all the things that make for your peace, died and risen, baptized you, gives you his body and blood. And so it is for you, as Paul says in one Thessalonians. 


The God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it.

᛭ INI ᛭