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THE TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST October 25, 2026 Pastor Tom Steers Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto Our Bible readings: Old Testament – Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 Psalm 1 Epistle – 1 Thessalonians 2:1-13 Gospel – Matthew 22:34-46 Our Hymn of the Day from Lutheran Service Book is LSB 803, “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vyYPwEMMNs&list=RD4vyYPwEMMNs&start_radio=1 The Sermon – “True God and true man” What must we do to please God? How ‘good’ must we be? How much love must we show? When we stand before God's judgment seat, will our lives be adequate to meet His demands? People have asked these questions throughout the ages. In today's Gospel text, a religious lawyer asks Jesus: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” The question is intended to entrap Christ. The temple authorities were looking to condemn Him. Yet His answer reveals something far more important than this Pharisee expected. Jesus shows us both the holiness God requires and the One in whom our salvation is found. First, Jesus reveals what God's Law demands. Christ answers, quoting the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:5 : “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. Then Jesus adds, “And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. Christ summarizes God's entire moral Law. We are to love God with our whole being, holding nothing back from Him. We are also to love neighbour as self, seeking the good of others rather than our own advantage. Our Old Testament reading from Leviticus helps bring this into focus. The Lord commands His people not to show partiality, slander, harbour hatred, or seek vengeance. Instead, they are to love their neighbour as themselves. God's Law extends far beyond outward behaviour. We might congratulate ourselves for not having murdered anyone, yet still harbour resentment and anger. We might avoid speaking maliciously, while inwardly delighting in a person's misfortune. We can appear religious while allowing pride, envy, or indifference to replace compassion. God’s Law judges the heart. In Leviticus, the Lord declares, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” This isn’t a demand for a respectable outward demeanor. God requires absolute holiness, perfect righteousness, and genuine love. Who among us can claim to have fulfilled this commandment? Have we loved God with all our heart, soul, and mind every moment of our lives? Have we always trusted Him above all else? Have we loved neighbours as faithfully and generously as we love ourselves? We have not. In Martin Luther’s explanation of the First Commandment in the Large Catechism, he wrote that the fundamental question is where we place our fear, love, and trust. Our problem isn’t that we sometimes make ‘mistakes.’ The Apostle Paul made clear, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”(Romans 3:23) God’s Law cannot be softened to console us. Nor can we make amends for our failures by promising to do better tomorrow. The Commandments remain holy and good; they expose our need for a Saviour. This is the Law doing its proper work. It brings us to repentance and strips away every claim of righteousness based upon personal effort. But thanks be to God, Jesus doesn’t leave us with the Law's demands and our failure to fulfil them. In our Gospel passage, Christ next reveals who He truly is. After answering the treacherous lawyer, Jesus asks a question: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” The Pharisees answer correctly: Christ, the promised Messiah, is the Son of David. Jesus then asks them to consider the words of Psalm 110: “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’” If David calls the Messiah “Lord,” how can the Messiah be merely David's son? The question reveals the mystery of Christ's identity. He is indeed the promised Son of David, descended from this earthly king according to His human nature. Yet He is also David's Lord, the eternal Son of the Heavenly Father, who shares the divine King’s godly majesty. This is the great confession of the Christian faith: Jesus Christ is both true God and true Man. Why does this matter for us? Because the One who must save us is not merely another human being who shares our guilt and weaknesses. He is God Himself, who has come among us to accomplish our salvation. The two parts of today's Gospel belong together. First, Jesus declares the perfect love God requires. That shows us our sin. Then He reveals the identity of the Saviour who alone fulfils that requirement. Throughout His earthly life, Jesus loved His Father without reservation. He perfectly obeyed the Father's will because He was without sin. He loved His neighbour completely. He welcomed the broken, healed the sick, comforted the sorrowful, and showed mercy to those others despised. Yet, His greatest act of love was at Calvary. There, He bore the judgment our disobedience deserved. The One who perfectly fulfilled the Law took upon Himself the punishment we earned. This is the Gospel: God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. Because Jesus is true Man, He stands in our place and fulfils the Law on our behalf. Because He is true God, His saving work is sufficient for all sinners. His death is not merely an example of love; it is the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. It is how we are reconciled to God the Father. We don’t earn this salvation through obedience or ‘good works’. We receive it by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. The righteousness God requires is found in Christ. Through faith, worked in us by the Holy Spirit using God’s Word and Sacraments, His righteousness is credited to believers. Our confidence before God rests not upon the perfection of our love, but upon the perfect love of our Saviour. In Him there is forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation. Does this mean that God's commandments no longer matter? By no means. The Lord who forgives also calls us to live as His holy people. Yet we do not love God and our neighbours to earn forgiveness. We love because God has first loved us. We have been given the gift of faith, and that faith bears fruit. We learn to forgive because we have been forgiven. We seek the good of neighbour because Christ has loved us. We resist hatred, slander, and vengeance because God's Spirit is at work renewing our hearts. In this life we can never fulfil the Commandments perfectly. So, we repent daily and return to Christ for forgiveness. Yet we do so with confidence, knowing our hope is not in ourselves, but in our crucified and risen Saviour. To Christ alone be all glory, praise and honour, now and forever.