Bloghardt's Reflector

But..when they don’t accept our non-apology, it’s ok.. Now we have an excuse for us to suddenly become the victim who isn’t forgiven - even though our apology wasn’t really an apology at all!

And I often say, sin makes us sound like children:  “I’ll apologize, when they do.  I’m sorry I was wrong, but he was more wrong.  I’m sorry I hit him, but he hit me first.  If you only knew what she did, you’d understand what I did.” 

The Man giving the banquet in Jesus’ parable seems a bit pathetic.  He just wants to have a party and He can’t get anyone to come.  

All the Father wants to do is give life and salvation to all.  The people in the parable today are too busy.  It’s not that they don’t love him, they all take the time to give their excuses why they can’t come.  They all just love themselves more.

This parable speaks of the Israelites, invited to a feast that they don’t want to come to.  They reject the Father, His Salvation, His Christ, so He invites others - the poor, the lame, the crippled, the sinners, the Gentiles.  

And no looking down on the Israelites, we dodge God with all our excuses too.  I would have been in church.. But that person gave me a nasty look, or they weren’t very loving, or it was because of that pastor.  I love God and all but...  You see, it’s really important that I did this... It was the only time that I could...

Really? So you are so busy that the only time we could try those five oxen out, or spend time with that new wife, or check out our new field was right during the Lord’s banquet? God desires an hour of our time and we just can’t spare it?  Kinda makes God a bit pathetic, don’t you think?

But, we can stare at our tvs, go to the movies, or text people, or play games on our phones for hours! We have time for that!  Sometimes, we are so busy that we even do that phone thing in church!  I’m here Jesus, but this is really more important...

You love Him.  I do too.  We just love ourselves more.  I guess we aren’t poor enough, crippled enough, sick enough, handicapped enough, or lame enough to need him.  

You see, they come to His Banquet.  The poor, the crippled, the lame, have no where else to go.  Nothing else on their schedule, but His banquet.  They have nothing to hold on to, nothing to cling to, but His mercy and love.

Here is Jesus, the Son of the living God, God Himself in all His pathetic-ness - seized like a robber, falsely accused, mocked, spit upon, passed from ruler to ruler, beaten up, flogged, rejected by His people, made to carry His own execution device, then when He was too beaten up to do so, He was dragged, stripped down in shame, clothes divided up, and nails driven into His hands and feet.  Then, He was lifted up from the earth and there He hung until the heat, the beatings, the bleedings, and the suffocation killed Him.  

Here is God’s love - that covers your sins, covers your excuses, covers your death.  

Here is life, not in yourself, but in Jesus’ resurrection.  

Here is salvation.  Won by Jesus for you on the Cross.  Delivered in His Banquet, His Supper.

There is no excuse that will stand before God.  No way of dodging His judgement.  The Cross shows us that.  

For here is God in all His shame - becoming your shame, to saved you from the shame of each one of your excuses.  To die your death in order that you might have His life.  To suffer the wraith of God, so that God would never treat you as your sins deserve, but instead treat you as His Son deserves.

So, leave all excuses behind, all “buts,” all things that you might cling to to justify what you have done.  Repent of them.  I know you can’t walk without them, but they are going to damn you.   

Confess your sins and their effects on your life.  Confess that you are the cause of the bad stuff that has happened to you - in your family, in your life, in your workplace, in your world.  Take responsibility for what you have done and then plead that the Lord would have mercy on you - even you with all your sins and excuses.

And if you are thinking to yourself, I’m glad pastor finally said this so that he or she finally takes responsibility for what they’ve done.  You aren’t listening to Jesus today.  You... You alone are responsible for what has happened, not them.  Take ownership for your sins.  Come clean, before they do more than cripple you.  

For Jesus is for those who have no excuses.  He is for those who cannot stand on their own, for those that have no one but Him.  Those are the ones - you are the ones - invited to the banquet after the Israelites rejected His invitation.

Jesus was without excuse before God and those around Him.  He trusted solely that He had a heavenly Father who would love Him through suffering, pain, and death.

And His Father did - through the beatings, through the mocking, through the sufferings, through the Cross, even through death itself.  And what Jesus endured - even death - His Father counts for you.  

That’s the Christian faith!  Jesus lived a perfect life for you and died the death that you deserve.  Then, after three days, He rose again and conquered your sins, your excuses, and your death.  

Live that forgiveness.  Live in that repentance.  Live in that freedom, dear Saints of God. 

We make excuses because we think our excuses are easier than standing before God crippled, lame, and without something to stand upon.  But, this parable teaches us today that His banquet is for just those people - for the lame, for sinners, for you and me.  

The Father has had mercy and drawn you here again to receive His Son’s Banquet - to receive His forgiveness, to show you how good He is even to you, to show you how He loves you and those around you.

It is Father’s Day throughout America.  A day to celebrate Fatherhood.  Well, here is your Heavenly Father who loves you without pride or fear of shame - He loves us in the giving up of His Son.  And all He wants, all he desires, is to be your Father.

Here’s love - Jesus laid down his life for you.  In His love, you can lay your excuses behind and stand before those around you and fess up to where you have fallen short.

Where you have fallen - as people, as fathers, as sons, as daughters, as husbands, as wives, be the one who apologizes.  Leave your excuses in the Cross of Christ.  He has raised for you, you have raised with Him from the death of your excuses.  

And if they don’t receive your apology, keep apologizing, keep repenting.  Be the one who owes others repentance.  Live that free, that crippled before God, that lame to yourself.  

This is what it means to be a Christian:  to fully repent of what you have done without excuse or desire for return and seek forgiveness and mercy in the merits of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

So, the invitation is out.  Come today, to His Banquet, where He feeds you life - His Body given for you to eat, His blood given and shed for the remission of all your  sins.  

No if’s, no and’s, no buts, no excuses.  I forgive what you have done.  I’ve forgive everything.  I’ve taken them all on the cross and died for you.   For Jesus is for the poor, the lame, the crippled, for sinners like you and me.  People without any more excuses - only sins that they need forgiven.  

Lord Jesus Christ, You have prepared This Feast for our salvation, It is your body and your blood, and at your invitation as weary souls, with sins oppressed, we come to you for needed rest, for comfort, and for pardon.” (622, v.1) In the name of Jesus. Amen.