Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing. [2 Timothy 4.8; KJV]

     Today we observe the minor church Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist, which occurs on October 18^th on the church calendar. As with all the saints remembered among Lutherans, to celebrate this feast is to be reminded of the grace of God and the faithfulness of God. We mark the ancient saints because God’s grace and God’s faithfulness are not mere abstract ideas, but they are active and at work in the lives of God’s people.

I.

St. Luke is the human author of the third Gospel account of Christ. The four Gospels are called “Evangels” in Greek, and so St. Luke is known as an “Evangelist.”

In his Gospel account, St. Luke presents Christ to you as the presence of the righteous God on earth. This picture of our Lord does no show God’s righteousness as a measure to shame your own righteousness, but rather St. Luke shows you that God’s righteousness comes to you in human form, out of God’s mercy toward fallen mankind. Even before he begins to set forth what he calls “a narrative of the those things which have been fulfilled among us” in the person and work of Christ, Luke quotes the inspired words of the blessed virgin Mary concerning the purpose of God’s righteousness coming into our world: “His mercy is on those who fear Him, from generation to generation.”

And then he adds the inspired words of Zecharias at the birth of his son, John the Baptizer: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, ... to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, ... that He would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life.”

St. Luke is driving home this point: The righteous things that he will record concerning Christ’s life are to be understood in terms of the gift of righteousness that Christ will bestow on you. And this means that the righteousness found in your daily life must be understood in terms of the judgment that God has already declared over you, that, for Christ’s sake, you are holy and righteous before God.

The final event in the righteousness of the Christian is the “crown of righteousness” the Christ will bestow upon you when He returns on the last day. It is this event to which St. Paul points in the Epistle of the Day, where he writes: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me on that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.”

II.

St. Paul writes these words in an inspired letter to St. Timothy, his younger student, colleague, and fellow pastor. This letter is the last that Paul will write. As he writes it he is imprisoned by the Romans for the second time, and he knows that he death at their hands will come soon. He looks back over his ministry, and he charges Timothy to carry on with the task of the apostolic ministry entrusted to him: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the Word; be instant in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned to fables.

“But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelists, make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” Then comes the words concerning the crown of righteousness which comprise the sermon text today.

Note that St. Paul says two things about this crown of righteousness. First, he states that it is “laid up” for him. What does that mean? It means that it is secured for him and set aside for him. To borrow a term from the current presidential debate, Christ has St. Paul’s crown of righteousness in a “lock-box.” There it is infinitely more secure than any lock-box, literal or mythical, that one can find on earth.

But what, precisely, is this “crown of righteousness” that is laid up, not only for St. Paul, but for “all them also that love His appearing”? In the New Testament the term “crown” is used in several settings, but the meaning of the crown is always the same. The crown is placed on the head of a king-in-waiting, and when that happens, his waiting is over. The crown of life is given to those who, in the midst of earthly life, remain faithful, waiting in the hope of what Christ has promised, as He says in the Book of Revelation: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”

The crown marks reaching the goal, the completion, the victory. Thus, the “crown of righteousness,” laid up in the lock-box of heaven by Christ, marks the goal toward which Christ leads His brothers and sisters in this world. That goal will soon be reached by St. Paul as he writes the words of our text.

III.

The second point that St. Paul makes about this crown of righteousness is this: “a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” The crown is given by the judge of the living and the dead. It is therefore an affirmation, a vindication, a justification of the faith and life of all those who will receive it.

So, what is the message of the “crown of righteousness” for you? The message is this: You are already righteous in Christ! That’s why your crown is laid up for you in heaven. And in a totally righteous way, because of His life, death, and resurrection on your behalf, Christ the judge will give you the crown of righteousness at His appearing.

But that day has not yet arrived for you. You still live by faith and not by sight. The righteousness that you might see in your life, which the Holy Spirit works in Christians, is not the reason for the crown. Most of the time, you won’t even see what the Holy Spirit is working in this life, and probably, others won’t either.

Doesn’t matter! Already, in this life, you live in holiness and righteousness all the days of your life. It is Christ’s holiness, Christ’s righteousness, that is credited to you, so that, as Dr. Luther puts in the explanation of the 2^nd Article of the Creed, you “live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.”

When the crown arrives on your head, only then will you see the righteousness in which you have lived by faith. Until then, as St. Paul states, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us,” and again, “for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

So, the crown of righteousness is yours already. You don’t see it now, but the day is coming when you will!