Proper 25 Year A 10/25/2026
Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17; I Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46
Rev. Mark A. Lafler
Do you have a favorite series of books?
Many of us do…
My all-time favorite book series is the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.
I have read through them many of times…
Seven books about this other world called Narnia…
Where children from our world enter magically into this land of swords and spells, fantasy creatures and talking animals.
One of the aims of C. S. Lewis’ writing was to share the truth of scripture…
The theology of God…
In children’s fantasy through analogies and story…
With the main character being Aslan…
A large lion who does very similar things to what Jesus does in the scriptures.
Aslan is the prominent character in the series.
He shows up in the right time…
And the right places.
However, in one of these books, called The Horse and His Boy, Aslan is not featured in such fashion.
He is present…
But very different…
In a sense he is orchestrating the entire story without really making an appearance (until the end).
He helps the four main characters meet in the desert.
He brings comfort to the main character, Shasta, in the form of a cat.
In the end, he tells Shasta that he has guided his story all along.
Aslan was always present, but in the story and as the reader we didn’t always recognize his presence.
This story by C. S. Lewis has a pointed similarity that our Gospel reading today points to…
Jesus asked the Pharisees:
“What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son, is he?”
And they answered him: “The son of David.”
You see, all the Pharisees and Jewish scholars knew that the Messiah was to come through the lineage of King David…
It was obviously clear to them in the Old Testament.
The most heralded king of all the Jewish world.
When Jesus asked them the question… the answer was obvious –
The son of David.
The next question was not so obvious…
Jesus again said to the pharisees:
“How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’?
If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”
Jesus was quoting the first verse of Psalm 110… a psalm of David.
David recognized that his authority comes from God alone.
(that being the first Lord)
But the second “Lord” is referring to a future king…
The son of David… a king mightier than King David.
The psalm is a messianic prophecy pointing to the coming of the Messiah.
And Jesus was using this psalm of David to point to himself as the Messiah…
He was uncovering the mystery of the Old Testament…
But that didn’t fit the theology of the Pharisees.
In their opinion… their expectation…
The Messiah was to come and re-establish the rule of King David.
But what Matthew wants us to know is that Jesus’ arrest, trial and crucifixion are precisely the way in which he is being enthroned both as David’s son, the true king of Israel, and David’s master, David’s Lord.
Jesus fulfills the Messianic Kingdom prophecy by the crucifixion…
by an act of humility…
not an act of power and aggression.
Jesus’ question stumped them…
As the Gospel reading at the end describes:
No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
One of the things I love about this story is that it reveals Jesus in the Old Testament.
Jesus clearly believed that the Old Testament was written so that we would know that He (Jesus) is the Messiah.
Jesus said in John 5.39 about the Old Testament Scriptures:
You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.
These are the very Scriptures that testify about me…
After our Lord’s resurrection he rebuked the disciples on the Road to Emmaus and said:
“How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!
Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
(Luke 24.25-27)
Jesus is the main character of the Old Testament…
even though he is not named.
He is present through all of it…
In prophecy…
In foreshadowing…
In all sorts of ways.
Many today misunderstand the Old Testament…
Thinking that it is just full of violence, a vengeful God, and terrible stories of pain and suffering.
Turning to Marcionism, suggesting that the God of the Old Testament is about law and wrath, but the God of the New Testament is about love.
But we reject this heresy…
Knowing and praying that all of the holy Scriptures (Old and New) are written for our learning…
And that we are to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, so that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which we have been given in our Savior Jesus Christ.
(BCP, Proper 28)
There is a red thread of the grace of God that runs straight through the Old Testament, and it reveals our Lord Jesus.
From Genesis 3.15 where the first Messianic prophecy was said right after the fall of humankind…
To the Passover, where an unblemished lamb whose shed blood protected the Israelites from death…
foreshadowing Jesus as the “Lamb of God” who gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God.
The manna from heaven that sustained the Israelites points toward Jesus who is the bread of life.
Jonah in the belly of a great fish for three days pointing toward the resurrection in three days.
Of the 214 usages of the Hebrew term used for “angel,” about one-third of them refer to what is labeled by theologians as a “Christophany,” a temporary appearance of Christ in the Old Testament.[1]
We have the Messianic prophecies:
The virgin birth of Isaiah 7.14…
The suffering servant of Isaiah 53…
And his birthplace being Bethlehem in Micah 5.2.
All of the quotes in the Psalms…
such as Psalm 22 describing the crucifixion…
The psalmist David wrote:
…they pierce my hands and my feet.
All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.
Jesus is all through the Old Testament.
He is present through it…
So, if the Old Testament testifies who Jesus is…
And if Jesus believed the Old Testament was about him…
And his mission in the world…
That begs a response from us…
Is Jesus who he says he is?
Is he God incarnate?
Is he the Son of God?
Is he God in the flesh?
Once again, I turn to C. S. Lewis…
This time not to his writing of fiction…
But his non-fiction classic – Mere Christianity.
He wrote about who Jesus was…
Listen to what he says about the person of Jesus in this paragraph…
Lewis writes:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about [Jesus]:
“I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher,
but I don’t accept his claim to be God.”
That is the one thing we must not say.
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice.
Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.
You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.
But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.
He has not left that open to us.
He did not intend to
(Lewis, 52).
We have been in the 22nd chapter of Matthew for a few weeks now…
The Jewish leadership have brought up all sorts of things…
Paying taxes to Caesar…
Following the Law…
Doing good works…
But Jesus here is interested in something else.
He is more concerned about who we say he is.
We can come to church…
We can quote the right prayers, the right verses, say the right things…
We can do the right actions, serve the poor, and challenge the prideful…
Just like the Pharisees did.
But all of this is meaningless until we first come to answering…
Who is Jesus?
Who is this Jesus of the Bible?
Even more…
Who is Jesus to you?
My answer and I pray your answer also…
is this:
Jesus is my Lord and He is my Savior…
In Jesus is my hope and my salvation.
Amen.
[1] Walter C. Kaiser, Jesus in the Old Testament, Online, August 9, 2011
