“Prepare for Your Day”

“If only you had known, especially on this your day, the things that would make for your peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will no leave one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Fearful words of our Lord, which He spoke concerning the old Jerusalem, which we know were fulfilled in 70 A.D., when the Romans besieged the city, and then utterly destroyed it, including the holy temple, and over one-million people. But what is the message of these words to us, the New Jerusalem? It’s that our day of visitation demands preparedness. And today is the day of our visitation.

On the day the Jesus comes to his temple two things happen: salvation comes to those who are prepared, and chastisement is visited on the unprepared.

I told the story of Zacchaeus last week, but it’s a good story, so I hope you won’t mind hearing it again. St. Luke records the story of Zacchaeus just a few paragraphs before he gives the record of Jesus’ visitation of the temple, and he did this very purposefully. It was to set up a very important contrast.

So first there’s the lowly sinner, Zacchaeus. As I said last week, he was a tax collector, which meant he was in the business of extorting money from people by all sorts of nasty means—by lying to the authorities, maybe even by making people pay “protection money”—in order to make his quota for the Roman government; that, or pay it out of his own pocket. He had a terrible profession, one that he was born into and could only buy his way out of at an exorbitant rate. But, apparently, Zacchaeus enjoyed his profession and wasn’t trying to get out of it, because as the text says, he was very rich.

So Zacchaeus would have been one of those people that the Jewish authorities and all the proper Jewish people would have considered doubly cursed by God: born into sin, like the lepers and the blind and the deformed, and a notorious evil-liver to boot, a person who was obviously cut off from the blessings of God’s covenant.

But the day comes that Zacchaeus learns that Jesus is passing through his home-town - the city of Jericho - and he wants to see this man he has heard so much about, this wonder-worker from Galilee. But you’ll recall that Zacchaeus has a bit of a challenge. I guess that’s the PC way of putting it. So because he’s a bit vertically challenged, he runs ahead of the crowd and climbs up into a sycamore tree and waits for Jesus to pass by.

The picture couldn’t be more clearly painted of a person who’s watching and waiting for the Lord’s coming. Do you see where Luke is going with this? Luke records that “when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him [in the tree], and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.’” So he did make haste and came down, and it says he received the Lord joyfully. “But when they [that is, all the proper Jewish people] saw [what Jesus did], they all complained, saying ‘He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.’

“Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord. I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham.”

“Today salvation has come to this house.” You see, this was Zacchaeus’ day of visitation. And for him it was the Day of Salvation because Zacchaeus received Christ’s visitation with joyful faith and true repentance. In other words, Zacchaeus was prepared for his day. He was prepared for Christ’s coming. Not because he was not a sinner. Not because he was worthy to have Christ come under his roof. But because his heart was prepared to receive what Jesus would freely give: His gracious gift of the forgiveness of sins.

So here is the first point of Luke’s contrast. The day of Jesus’ coming is the day of salvation to those who watch and wait and receive him in faith and true repentance.

But then there’s the other side of the contrast, which Luke brings out in the story of the cleansing of the temple. For those who aren’t prepared for their day of visitation, it is a day of chastisement. And if chastisement does not bring about repentance, then their day of visitation becomes a day of judgment.

What do we see in the story of Christ’s visitation of the temple? Jesus comes to Jerusalem and is hailed as the Messiah: “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” But it becomes painfully obvious to Him that they are not prepared to receive Him truly as the Messiah, because as soon as He comes to His holy temple He is confronted with a scene that betrays the worldliness of their motives. He enters into the outer court of the temple, and what meets His eyes looks more like a Mid-eastern bazaar than the courts of the house of God. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people are milling about bargaining with the priests who are peddling their sacrificial animals. You can hear the bleating of the sheep and the fluttering of the pigeons. The stench of the animals hangs heavy on the air. At each booth the sacrifice sellers try to draw people in to see that their animals would be the most perfect, the most pleasing offerings to God.

Then there are the tables of the money-changers. This is where all other currencies would be changed for the coins of Tyre, because only Tyrian currency was accepted in the temple. And you can hear the people arguing to get the best exchange rate.

This is the scene that confronts Jesus as he enters the holy temple of God, and He becomes indignant. He becomes wrathful. Not only because they had profaned the temple of the Lord, but also because this was their day of visitation, and they’d missed it. This was their day, and they weren’t prepared for His coming. Because although everything in that temple pointed forward to him, especially the sacrifices, they’d gotten so caught up in the business of doing their religion they’d become blind to the true purpose of their religion: to prepare their hearts for the coming of the one True Sacrifice for sin. But instead of making the temple a place to come to prepare their hearts in watchful prayer, they’d made it a den of thieves. And so Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, and prophesies of the destruction of the temple, because they weren’t prepared for this their day.

Now how does this story, with its contrast of preparedness versus unpreparedness, apply to us today? Well, in the first place, I think we Christians think far too much in terms only of Jesus’ first and second comings. We ought to be aware that Christ comes to us many times in our lives.

Our day of visitation comes when we’re confronted with a neighbor in need, because Jesus said, “If you’ve done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you’ve done it unto me.”

Our day of visitation comes when it’s our time to leave this world, and so Jesus says, “Blessed are those servants whom the master when he comes, will find watching… And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.

And in fact today is the Day of our visitation. Today is either the Day of Salvation or the Day of Chastisement, because today Christ truly comes to you in the Word and Sacrament. Today Christ comes to his Holy Temple, for we are that Temple in the Spirit.

So are you prepared for this your day? Are your spiritual eyes wide open, watching and waiting for his coming, ready to receive him in joyful faith and true repentance like Zacchaeus? Or are you so caught up in the business of doing church that you’re missing the moment?

It’s amazing how frequently the Scriptures urge us not to miss the consequence of the present moment. Hebrews 3:12-15: “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden you hearts as in the rebellion.” II Corinthians 6:1,2: “We plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Don’t put the Lord’s coming in the back of your mind as some far off, future event. Today is the day Christ comes to his temple. You see, today is either the day of salvation and blessing, or the day of chastisement and judgment. But Christ desires to come and bless us and to lift us up by His Spirit to where He is, and to give us a taste of His heavenly kingdom. So let us us make this place a house of prayer, and be awake and watchful for His approach. Don’t worry about trying to cleanse your own heart to make yourself worthy for Him to come under your roof. He’ll do that. He’ll cleanse His temple. Just hear His word and receive His purifying Body and Blood with joyful faith and true repentance, and salvation will come to this house today. +