Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

Jesus Has All Enemies Beneath His Feet

We all test Jesus, don’t we? It is most obvious when we test Him by testing those whom He has placed in authority over us. We test our parents to see how much they will let us get away with, how much longer can we keep playing our game before we come to their call? And it doesn’t stop the older we get. We test the authorities by how fast we can drive past the speed limit without getting stopped by the police, or how little effort we have to put in at school or work until we get penalized for it, or how little tax we can pay by claiming everything under the sun as a deduction or paying for services under the table to escape the HST.

It is hard to tell in what way the lawyer’s question was meant to test Jesus, but it had something to do with the Law, God’s Law. “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36) Jesus healed people on the Sabbath Day (as we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel) but He didn’t break that commandment, for it is in Jesus Himself that the Sabbath Day is kept holy. He is the One in whom we find our rest. We go to Him for healing and forgiveness and restoration through His Word and Sacraments. That is why we are not to “despise preaching and His Word, but gladly hear and learn it” (Small Catechism. I. iii).

Yet we test Jesus in all kinds of ways in regard to His holy Law. Which is the one commandment I really need to give attention to, and not so much to the others? We worry most about the commandments that will bring us disgrace in the eyes of our neighbours but not so much about the ones that cannot be seen in outward action, the ones they will never know about even though God does.

Or perhaps we want to know which is the greatest commandment that might provide me with an excuse for breaking some of the others? Can I break the Third Commandment to keep the Sabbath Day holy, if I am serving my neighbor by participating in the charity fun run? Or can I ignore all kinds of pleas for help in society if I just go to church regularly? While Jesus is faithful to all of the commandments of God’s holy Law, we are not.

It is important to remember where this Gospel lesson falls in the chronology of the life of Jesus. These challenges by the Sadducees and Pharisees are happening in the week leading up to the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. They are looking for reason to condemn Him to death. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” Jesus did not answer #1 or #3 or #5. He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

Jesus’ answer was taken out of the law of God given to Moses, just not directly from the Ten Commandments that we have memorized to guide us in living according to God’s Law. But Jesus’ answer does explain why most depictions of the two tables of God’s commandments in our catechism list three on the first table and the other 7 on the second table. The first three of the Ten Commandments teach us how to love God with all of our heart and soul and mind. And Commandments 4 through 10 teach us how to love our neighbour as ourselves. It really is pretty simple: love God and love your neighbour and the Ten Commandments tell you how God wants you to do that.

But if we test God through His commandments we show ourselves to be no better than the lawyer of the Pharisees, who wanted to bring disgrace upon Jesus and even condemn Him and kill Him. Our testing of Jesus by our contortions of His Law to try to get away with things or to excuse ourselves from having to keep them all, put us in the company of the enemies of Jesus (the Pharisees and Saducees and the pagan rulers who would rather Jesus was not there at all). Whenever we come up with some excuse or twisted logic as to why we need not keep any of God’s holy Law, either to love Him or to love our neighbour, we reveal our true nature as His enemies.

In response to our attempts to test Him, Jesus directs us again and again to His holy Word, as He did the lawyer in today’s Gospel. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He?” (Matthew 22:42). Again, it is important to remember when this confrontation happens. It is in the days immediately following Jesus’ last great entrance into Jerusalem. Jesus sat on a donkey and rode into the city as the crowds spread their cloaks on the road for a royal carpet and they waved branches from the trees as royal banners. “And the crowds that went before Him and that followed Him were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” (Matthew 21:9).

Jesus gives a reminder, not only to the crowds listening to His teaching and His answers to questions, but also to those who are asking the questions, testing Him, His very enemies. “What do you say about the Christ? Whose son is He?” The enemies are forced to answer that the Christ is the Son of David, the One whom the crowds had acclaimed Jesus to be. The One of whom the Law and the Prophets spoke.

And Jesus then, lays out what the Prophet David, the ancestor of the Christ himself, said in one of his psalms, “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, until I put Your enemies under Your feet.’” (Psalm 110:1; Matthew 22:44). Why does David call his son ‘Lord?’ As long as the king lives he is the king and his son is not, so he wouldn’t call him ‘Lord’ unless his son was Lord in a different manner.

And quite so, the prophet David proclaims that his coming Son is rightfully called ‘Lord’ even by him, because He is equal to the LORD, God of heaven and earth. It is this LORD God who speaks to King David’s coming Son, inviting Him to sit as His equal at His right hand. The Christ, the Son of David, is equal to the LORD God. He is God. The One whom the crowds acclaimed with “Hosanna to the Son of David” is God born of the flesh of David, David’s physical descendant.

The Christ is David’s Lord, greater than the greatest king, equal to the One LORD God, whose enemies will all be put under His feet—all of them. And what has been happening while all of these enemies of Jesus have been questioning Him? He had silenced the Sadducees (Matthew 22:34). The lawyer sent by the Pharisees could not answer Jesus’ follow-up question. “If then David calls Him Lord, how is He his son?” (Matthew 22:45). Was the lawyer silent because his brain could not perform the deductive logic that led to the conclusion that Jesus, the Christ, the Son of David, is LORD God? Or was the lawyer silent because he knew the conclusion and refused to confess it?

Jesus’ enemies were being put under His feet as He answered their testing questions with the Word of God that pointed to Him as the Son of David and Lord of all. The tried to gain the upper hand with their questions. They tried to entrap Him and place Him under their control, but they were all put under His feet—all of them, the Sadducees, the lawyer along with the rest of the Pharisees, and as our Gospel concludes, “nor from that day did anyone dare to ask Him any more questions” (Matthew 22:46). All were silenced. All were placed under His feet. He had triumphed over them all.

Where does that leave you with your testing of Jesus, asking Him which parts of His Law will excuse you from keeping the rest, or place you in a position where the condemnation of His holy Law will not condemn you? You also are silenced by the holy Law of God. You also are placed under the feet of the great King of kings and Lord of lords. You also must admit defeat and shut your mouth from all of its excuses and attempts to escape.

But it does not have to be a bad thing to be under Jesus’ feet. For this Lord, the Son of David, God in the flesh was born in David’s line in order to be the Lord and King of all who live in this life of the flesh. He came to be our king who rides out to face down our enemies and conquer them for us. He is the one king who came out to rescue us from our captivity to sin and death. When we recognize Him as the Lord and King who saves us and gives us victory and peace and life, then it is not so bad to be under this King’s feet.

For as the Son of David, in our flesh, our Lord and King went to the cross where atonement was made for all the sin of the world. He allowed His enemies to crucify Him so that He might die our death and we might be forgiven and pardoned for every transgression of His holy Law, for every time we tested Him to see if we could get away with breaking the commandments of God. He was nailed up high on the cross so that we might gather beneath His feet like His own mother, His beloved disciple, and all who cling to Him in hope and faith.

Upon the cross He defeated the enemies of His enemies, our enemies. He triumphed over sin, death, and the devil on behalf of sinners like us. He silenced His own condemning Law from its accusations against us, by being the just and complete sacrifice in full payment to deliver us from condemnation to death and hell.

All His enemies have been placed under His feet (the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and you too). Do you find there defeat and condemnation to eternal death, or do you find there the grace and mercy of a loving Lord and King? Do you find the salvation and life that He has secured for you by putting your enemies under His feet?

At the foot of the cross we see the holy feet of Jesus, pierced and bloody for our deliverance from sin and death. His beautiful feet proclaim the good news of peace to sinners who place themselves under His reign and rule. That is where our loving LORD God has placed us, beneath the feet of the Lord Jesus, ascended to His right hand. And at the foot of His cross we with all of His repentant enemies, have rest and peace and mercy to sing equal praise to the LORD and my Lord: “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He, blessed is He, blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!” (Sanctus).