Trinity 13

St. Luke 10:23-37

September 1, 2026 - Matins, first day of school

+INJ+

Among the many marvelous things you come to school to learn, history is very important. But history is more than dates and people and places. We must ask why. Why did this happen? What must I learn from it? How does it affect me?

Jesus says something very important about history, and the meaning of history, in today’s Bible reading.

“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

The prophets and kings from the beginning of the world were waiting for the Christ. Adam and Abel and Noah; Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Joshua and Jeremiah; David and Solomon and Josiah; Isaiah and Elijah and Elisha – they all were waiting for the Christ.

And suddenly, when no one expected it, He came. Born of Mary, in the household of Joseph, the son of David the king.

This man, the Lord Jesus, is the center of all human history. You can learn every fact about Alexander the Great, about Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire, about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and the founding of our great nation - but without Jesus at the center, you won’t really understand any of it.

Because human history isn’t the story of empires and generals, wars and constitutions, musicians and poets. Human history is the story of man who lost his way, and the God who entered our history, became Himself a man, and descended into our darkness.

All mankind fell in the ditch, like the parable we heard today. Jesus came to be our Good Samaritan, to go into the ditch, to die on the cross, and bring us to His house of healing. Jesus rose again from the dead, and that is the future of human history.

So this year, study your history, and all the other things we’re here to learn. But remember this one central truth: Jesus is the center of all human history. And you have a place in the story too: He came to rescue you from the ditch, and bring you to His house of healing.

+INJ+