Monday, June 25, 2018

Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me

In Nomine Iesu
St. Mark 4:35-41
June 24, 2018
Proper 7B

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

The miracles of Jesus come in all shapes and sizes. Some are private and intimate, like when Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever. Other miracles are just plain fun, like when Jesus miraculously manufactured 180 gallons of fine wine at a wedding run dry. But the miracle under consideration today is a big one, loaded with meaning and with spectacular special effects. Jesus calms a storm on the Sea of Galilee with just two little words. Even the wind and the waves obey Him.

It had been a long day of teaching for Jesus. But as the day’s final order of business, Jesus told the disciples, “Let’s go across to the other side [of the lake].” That little detail is important. Jesus, who you might say is the chief meteorologist for the world’s weather, who knows precisely when and where storms will arise, He gave the order to set sail straight into the gathering darkness in which a storm was brewing. St. Mark writes that they took Jesus along “just as he was,” which is perhaps a way of saying that He was exhausted—worn out. This would explain why Jesus fell asleep so easily on the trip. And let’s not forget that “other boats” were also along for the trip, providing plenty of eye-witnesses who could later corroborate this miracle saying, “Yeah, I was there. It really happened.”

What happened? Well, a great storm arose. The Sea of Galilee is surrounded by mountains which make the atmospheric conditions considerably more volatile than we’re accustomed to with the predictable waters of Lake Michigan. The boat was small and full of people. The wind was howling. The waves were crashing, quickly filling the little boat with water. The deepening darkness and low visibility would have only added to the sense of panic and terror.

I suppose the phrase “All hands on deck!” originated in situations just like this. The efforts of everyone (“all hands”) would be required to stave off a watery death. Everyone is busy lowering the sails. Everyone is busy bailing. Everyone . . . except Jesus. And where’s Jesus in the midst of all this commotion? The Savior is snoozing in the back of the boat with His head propped up on a pillow. Just when Jesus is needed most, He seems to be totally disengaged, unaware, and unresponsive. The disciples must have been wondering why they had hitched their wagons to this star. A little later this morning we’ll sing, “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me.” It’s a nice hymn, to be sure, but all I’m saying is, be careful what you pray for. Jesus just may not be the pilot you’re looking for.

Now, a lot of skeptics would like us to believe that this miracle is made-up—that some anonymous writer put this account together in hope of creating an impressive legend about an ordinary man named Jesus—that all of these details have been conjured up purely to pad Jesus’ resume and to deceive feeble-minded people for generations to come. But if that was the plan, I don’t think the writer did a very good job. If I were making this up, I wouldn’t include all the other boats and people who could verify or contradict this story. I would make the disciples to be a little more manly, more heroic, totally trusting that Jesus would save the day. What’s more, I’d have Jesus standing in the front of the boat, wide awake, calm, cool, and collected—you know, like Leonardo DeCaprio leaning over the bow of the Titanic, or a “Washington Crossing the Delaware” kind of scene. I would not have a bunch of cowardly, faithless disciples in a boat with a snoozing, comatose Christ.

But what the Holy Spirit inspired St. Mark to write down wasn’t crafted to make anyone look good or to pad anyone’s resume. This account was written down for your sake—so that you might have hope—so that you might be encouraged, even when you are feeling faithless and fearful. You can hear that faithlessness in the question the disciples posed to Jesus when they went to wake Him up: “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?” That question is really not a prayer or a petition. In fact, it’s more of an accusation. It’s an indictment of the sleeping Son of Man.

Jesus, don’t you care? Perhaps that question has passed through your lips a time or two. It’s easy to trust Jesus when your life is smooth sailing. At other times you’ve probably pondered whether Jesus cares for you—when the weather starts getting rough and your tiny ship is tossed. Does He care for me? Who am I that He should come to my rescue? When I’m drowning in a sea of debt—when I’m swimming in a sea of panic because the doctor says that nothing can be done—when my marriage seems to be sinking in sea of acrimony and recrimination—when life is simply out of control and hope is all gone—even the faithful begin to wonder, “Jesus, don’t you care?” Do you trust this Jesus who sleeps through the storm—who seems a little too comfortable with chaos?

But it’s precisely in the chaos that Jesus teaches us who’s in control. It’s precisely when Jesus seems most distant that we discover Him to be right by our side. While we crave miracles and search for spectacular special effects, Jesus simply speaks. He speaks to us what He spoke that night on the boat: “Peace! Be still!” It’s only two words in the Greek. It was nothing more than what you or I might yell at a barking dog in the middle of the night. “Be still.” And as soon as those words left His lips, the wind ceased and there was a great calm. Within seconds, roaring, foamy waters became as smooth as glass.

And just at this point, as their jaws are hanging open in awe, Jesus turns to His disciples, looks them in the eye and asks, “What are you so afraid of? Don’t you trust me?” He’s asking you the very same thing this morning. Why are you so afraid? Why do you live each day in fear and anxiety? Why do you choose to face your fears as if your Savior was sleeping and distant? Why do you live as if a Jesus you can’t see is a Jesus who can’t help you? If Jesus single-handedly conquered sin and death and Satan by dying on the cross and rising again—if Jesus chose the whip and the thorns and the nails for you—if He was willing to suffer as your substitute under God’s wrath against sin—don’t you suppose that He has a plan and a purpose for your life—that He has the help you need?

It takes faith to believe that. And that’s why we’re here this morning—to hear the Words and eat the meal designed to strengthen our faith and to forgive our faithlessness. The same powerful Word that stills the storm is also the Word that forgives all your sins and declares you to be justified before God. In that Word is your safety—in life, and in death—when storms are raging, and when all is calm.

As that great calm settled over the waters, the disciples were no longer asking, “Teacher, don’t you care?” That question had now been replaced by a different question: “Who is this guy? Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” You know the answer. He is Jesus the Christ, true God begotten of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary—your Lord, our Savior. No one else can still the storm. No one else can order around the wind and the sea and have them obey. Jesus is one of a kind. Salvation is found exclusively through faith in Him.

This miracle, like all miracles, is the exception rather than the rule. There are plenty of ships that go down in the storm—some of them sitting at the bottom of Lake Michigan not too far east of here. Airplanes crash, even with plenty of Christians on board. Tornadoes typically don’t skip over churches as they do their destructive work. A tiny cell turns cancerous. So where is Jesus when all this happens? Is He asleep at the wheel? Does He care?

Beloved in the Lord, Jesus is right here in the middle of it all. He is God and we are not. But He is not just God; He is God With Us—Emmanuel. God with us in the preaching and proclamation of His promises. God with us in the bread that is His body and in the wine that is His blood. Jesus is an ever-present help in times of trouble.

The photograph on the front of today’s bulletin illustrates what I mean. If you’ve got a bulletin handy, pull it out and take a look at the sculpture which appears on the cover. This sculpture is fascinating for a couple of reasons. For starters, it captures that second in time right after Jesus has calmed the storm. “Peace. Be still,” has just passed through the Savior’s lips. Notice how
the attention of the disciples in the boat is already firmly fixed on Jesus. “Who is this,” they wonder, “that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

You can travel to view this sculpture for yourself. You’ll find it in Gainsville, Georgia, of all places. But you won’t find it in a city park, or downtown, or even next to a church. No, to find this sculpture you’ll have to go to Memorial Park Cemetery. A cemetery! It’s the perfect place. For how many people do you suppose travel into that cemetery with tears in their eyes, wondering, “Jesus, don’t you care?” How many people do you suppose travel into that cemetery with fearful hearts, battling a furious storm of grief and pain and sadness? You’ve been in that storm yourself. You know what it feels like. But at Memorial Park Cemetery in Gainsville, Georgia, they also see the Savior, right there with them, standing in the boat, above calm and placid waters. “Peace. Be still,” they hear Him say. Even the wind and the waves must follow the command of Jesus. And if that’s the case, well, then neither angels nor demons, then neither life nor death, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Monday, June 18, 2018

God Gives the Growth

In Nomine Iesu
St. Mark 4:26-34
June 17, 2018
Proper 6B

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

I’m always excited whenever I get the chance to preach on one of Jesus’ parables about seeds and soil. For one thing, it gives me a pretext to talk about how my garden is doing this year (thanks for asking, by the way!). I’m glad to report that my garden is doing great so far. I don’t think there was a single seed I planted that didn’t sprout. Zucchini and cucumbers, beets and beans, onions, eggplants,
peppers, tomatoes—it’s all looking good so far.

I wish I could take all the credit. After all, I knelt and squatted to plant all the seeds in just the right depth of soil (and then nursed sore muscles for a few days after that). I’ve watered and I’ve weeded. I’ve caged my tomatoes and deterred the bunnies with chicken wire. Is it just me or do my thumbs seem to be turning greener by the day? I wish that were the case.

But the first little parable we heard from Jesus today is a much-needed reminder that my green thumbs are irrelevant—that God gives the growth. “The kingdom of God,” says Jesus, “is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.” The only thing the farmer does in this parable is plant the seeds and await the harvest. Everything else, for the most part, is out of his control. The seeds and the soil, the sun and the rain, these take over once the seed is scattered. The gardener doesn’t have the power to make the seeds sprout and grow. The growth comes from God.

As with those garden seeds, so it is with the Word of God—with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Word of God gets scattered—it gets preached and printed and proclaimed to the four corners of the earth. And the Word of God—scattered recklessly and randomly, here and there and everywhere—it grows and gets results. It is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. Faith comes by the hearing of that Word. It eventually yields a harvest.

But here’s the point of the parable: Just like sprouting seeds don’t depend upon the skill of the gardener, so too does the Word of God take root in human hearts. And that Word—it doesn’t depend upon the personality and skill of the preacher. Nor does it depend upon the goodness or the intelligence of the hearer. The Word of God sprouts and produces faith in human hearts where and when it pleases God. God gives the growth. God gets results. God gets all the credit.

Of course, we chafe at that just a little bit. I mean, it makes us (pastors and laypeople) seem just a little irrelevant. And we don’t like that. By nature we all want to be important, needed, and necessary—indispensable cogs in the kingdom-building crusade, taking credit where credit is due. We all have an over-inflated sense of self-importance. We all just assume that without us and without our uniquely personal contribution everything will just fall to pieces.

We should all learn from Luther. Martin Luther had a profound sense of his own non-necessity. If ever there was a preacher who could lay claim to great results—if ever a preacher could claim that His preaching of the Word changed the world—it was Luther. Popes and powers and kings and councils could not undo what Luther had unleashed from his pen and his pulpit. But Luther was more circumspect. He claimed no credit. In fact, he once said, “While I drink my little glass of Wittenberg beer, the gospel runs its course.” While Luther was content to sit back and quaff a cold one, the gospel—the good news of God’s free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ—it was sprouting and growing and laying down roots all over Europe—quite apart from Luther’s own personal powers of persuasion.

There can be little doubt that in the church today—we’ve lost Luther’s confidence in the Word. We’ve forgotten that God gives the growth, perhaps because we don’t see much growth at all in the church today—at least not here in North America. The church today is in crisis—watching as her members walk away from the faith once delivered to the saints, turning from the Word and being swallowed up by our culture of death and depravity. It’s heart-breaking and sad to see. And the temptation is to stem the tide by any means possible—with slogans and gimmicks and programs and special effects and emotional appeals. But the decline in the church has made one thing clear: We don’t trust God. We don’t trust the simple power of His Word. We think it all depends on us.

Thank God it doesn’t. It doesn’t all depend on us. God promises that His Word will never return empty, but will always accomplish what He desires—that it will always achieve the purposes for which He sends it (Is. 55:10-11). We need to remember this in the church—that God gives the growth (and that the growth He gives sometimes appears to us as demolition and decline). Our efforts, our strength, and our smarts are not what keep this church growing and flourishing.

What about you? Do you believe that God’s Word and the Gospel is running its course in your life? Do you believe that His Word is enough—that it’s sufficient to carry you through whatever troubles you face? Sometimes we don’t believe it. When worry takes over—when the tyranny of anxiety robs our lives of joy and peace—when we start to think that we are bearing the weight of the whole world on our shoulders—we need to repent. We need to remember whose promises DO have the power to change our sinful situations.

Jesus Christ is the one. He carried the weight of the world’s sin—the weight of your sin—upon His shoulders. He suffered and died as your sacred substitute. You can cast your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you. He has claimed you as His own in the water of Holy Baptism. We walk by faith, not by sight. And by faith we know that God is working all things for the good of those who love Him. God is building His church in ways that we can’t always see with our eyes. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. The gospel always runs its course.

The gospel also leads us to live lives of faithfulness—faithfulness not fretfulness. God gives the growth. The growth doesn’t depend on us. But God does call us to faithfulness. To be faithful—that’s just doing and speaking the things that God has called us to do and speak. The faithful farmer scatters the seed. The faithful student studies. The faithful Christian gladly receives God’s gifts and responds with prayer and praise. The faithful father brings his family to the Divine Service and teaches them about Jesus. The faithful employee does her job to the best of her ability. But the faithful people of God also know this: the results of our work and our labor—the results are in God’s hands—not yours. Plant the seed and leave it alone. Let God give the growth. The results are in His hands.

God is already getting results in your life. In you that Gospel is giving growth and life and faith. The seed of the Word is growing in your heart, ripening ever so surely that you will be ready to depart this life in peace—to be a part of that great and grand harvest of humanity that will spend a blessed eternity with Christ—and with those we love who have already departed to be with Christ.

Let there be no doubt. The Lord Jesus laid down His life for you. His death on the cross was the payment for your forgiveness. He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and was raised again for our justification. Let there be no worry, for in the midst of all your troubles and struggles, God is at work. The faith and life He gives is growing and maturing and ripening through every earthly trouble. So let go and let God, as they say. Believe what you cannot see. For God always gives the growth.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

That's Crazy

In Nomine Iesu
St. Mark 3:20-35
June 10, 2018
Proper 5B

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

In last Sunday’s Holy Gospel Jesus was accused of being a Sabbath-breaker—of doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath Day. And that was a very serious allegation to make against a Rabbi in those days. But today we learn that there are things much more serious, scandalous and salacious that can be said about the Savior. It turns out that being a Sabbath-shirker is pretty tame stuff compared to the two accusations that get leveled against Jesus in today’s gospel reading from Mark chapter three.

And it begins, surprisingly, with the family of Jesus—with His mother, Mary, and His brothers. Jesus had been healing people all over Galilee—casting out demons, preaching the kingdom of God, calling disciples to follow Him. The crowds were constant. They followed Jesus everywhere—so much so that He could hardly get a bite to eat. And when His family heard about this, they thought Jesus must be crazy—beside Himself—out of His mind—not playing with a full deck. And so, with the best of intentions, Jesus’ own family showed up with a strait jacket to take Him into protective custody.

You have to appreciate the brutal honesty of the Bible. The gospels tell the whole truth even when it’s not very pretty. That’s one of the earmarks of accurate historical narrative. You write down the embarrassing stuff right along with all the good stuff. People
who say that the Bible is largely “made up” after the fact to push an agenda—they need to take another look. If you were writing a document to sway public opinion in favor of Jesus of Nazareth, you wouldn’t include this part about how His own family thought He was crazy. No, you’d include quotes from His mother and His siblings about how they always knew Jesus was special and was destined to do great things. But that’s not how it happened. Jesus’ own family thought He was mentally ill.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the religious elite from Jerusalem had a decidedly more negative take on Jesus: “He’s possessed by Beelzebub,” they said, “and He casts out demons by the prince of demons.” He’s just a demon disguised as the Messiah. He’s really a starting shortstop for Team Satan. He’s not the Christ, but the anti-Christ. Jesus’ opponents demonized Him—literally—much like we see today in the world of politics and power plays.

On one level it makes sense. This was the only card the opponents of Jesus had left to play. I mean, Jesus had been going around doing good—healing scores of people including lepers and paralytics, the fevered and the disabled. Jesus was restoring life and health to all who were oppressed and suffering. And if you accepted that those healings were from God, then you also had to accept that Jesus’ teachings were the Words of God. You had to accept that the kingdom of God had come in His coming—that He was in fact the Son of God in human flesh, the Messiah sent from the Father to save the world from sin, death, and the devil. But to the enemies of Jesus that was crazy talk. It was much easier to assert that Jesus was just a demon-possessed deceiver.

As it was for Jesus, so it is for His Church of every age. For two thousand years the one holy Christian and apostolic church has been a force for good in this fallen world: caring for the poor, setting up orphanages and hospitals—including hospitals for the mentally ill. The church has affirmed the dignity and value of all human life, including the unborn, the aged, and the disabled. The church of Jesus Christ has reached out in love to educate and elevate women and children, to protect the family, to clothe the poor, to feed the hungry, to minister to the dying, to point the way to heaven for all people of all nations.

We Christians are engaged in a battle to help save the world. But the world looks at the church today in her good fight—a fight based on love for the Lord and the truth of His Word . . . and the world doesn’t understand. The world assumes the worst about the church just as it did about Jesus. Speak the truth in love today and don’t be surprised when the world calls you crazy and evil. Speak the truth in love today about God’s gift of marriage and family, about maleness and femaleness, about the value of sexual purity and the sanctity of life in the womb, about the great value of fathers and mothers. Do this and you can expect to be judged like Jesus was judged. Expect to be slandered like the Savior. Expect to be told that you’re crazy or evil or both.

The danger is that you start to believe it. When you hear the teachings of Jesus constantly ridiculed as crazy and evil—when you hear your own deeply held beliefs about Jesus and His Word constantly labeled as crazy and evil—well, you just might start to wonder. It would be so easy to give in and go along with the world—to jump on the bandwagon and go down to celebrate Pridefest. And there’s no denying that some of our beliefs do seem somewhat crazy: Forgiving those who sin against us? Sounds crazy. Leading a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do? Sounds crazy. Managing our family finances such that our number one priority isn’t getting rich, but returning a first-fruit percentage of everything to the Lord Jesus each week? Sounds crazy.

And if the whole world, including your mother and brothers and sisters think you’re crazy or even demon-possessed for believing all of that, well, welcome to the asylum. You’re in good company. Remember, they said it all about Jesus first. He came to do battle with the devil—to bind that strong man and to liberate what is rightfully His—the souls He died to save. That’s us! We’re the Savior’s stolen property now rightfully returned to the One who loved us and gave Himself for us—the woman’s offspring who bruised the serpent’s head and defeated the devil forever by dying on the cross. He takes all of our bad—all of our crazy—and He gives us all of His good—His love, His forgiveness, His peace, and life that lasts forever.

That’s what we call the “gospel,” and it sounds really crazy—how Jesus defeated the devil by dying. Who could have imagined a love so strong? Who would have scripted a story like this? That Jesus would take our death—the wages of our sin—and make it His own? That Jesus would bind the devil by being bound to a Roman tool of torture? And that by His resurrection He would ransack the devil’s domain and rescue a world of sinners? And the result of all this is that your sins are forgiven and the kingdom of heaven is wide open to all believers?

And all of this is God’s free gift to all who trust in Him. And there’s no sin so terrible that the blood of Jesus cannot wash it away. Listen to Jesus, “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter.” Did you hear that? All sins bar none. Nothing so horrible, so messy or messed-up that Jesus doesn’t have it covered. Name your worst. Confess your “crazy.” Jesus Christ has answered for it. All the crazy stuff that we do to others and all the crazy they do to us—it has all been addressed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

What can possibly go wrong? Nothing on God’s part. On our part, well, we might confuse God’s complete forgiveness of every sin with the permission to keep right on sinning. But by no means can you casually continue in the same old sins. You are baptized! Sin is no longer the boss of you. The other possibility is that we just refuse to trust and believe this good news. This is what Jesus meant when He spoke of the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. To refuse the gift of Jesus and to call His work the work of the devil—well, that’s unpardonable, unforgiveable. Not because it’s so bad, but because it refuses to be given to. It refuses to receive.

In the end, look who gets it right this morning. Look who gets commended by Jesus. Not the mother and brothers of Jesus. Not the super-religious scribes. It was all those desperate, broken, crazy people who wouldn’t leave Jesus alone—who kept after Him—who kept receiving what He was giving, such that Jesus could hardly scarf down a sandwich. It was that bunch of misfits who had nothing better to do than follow Jesus, and listen to Jesus, and look to Jesus for help and healing and hope and forgiveness.

Jesus looked at them and called them His family. And Jesus says that about you too. Right here this morning we have the Lord’s mother and brothers and sisters. The world may call you crazy. The world may call you evil haters. But Jesus calls you kin. Here the family of faith gathers together tightly around our Lord to hear His Word, to eat the bread that is His body and to drink the wine that is His blood—to pray, praise and give thanks to a God we cannot see for a salvation that we can only believe in by faith. That may indeed be crazy—as in, out of this world and outlandish. But it’s true. It’s what we believe. It’s who we are in Christ our brother.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Monday, June 4, 2018

Rest and Remember

In Nomine Iesu
St. Mark 2:23-28
June 3, 2018
Proper 4B

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

The topic for today is the Third Commandment—which most of us learned a long time ago: Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. And this is arguably the easiest of the Ten Commandments to keep. I mean, if I’m one of the Israelites, and I’m scanning through that list of Commandments for the first time, my initial reaction would be, “Well, at least there’s one I can keep. At least there’s one that doesn’t look too terribly difficult to carry out. At least there’s one that shouldn’t give me too much trouble.”

You heard Moses spell it out in today’s Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy. The forty years in the wilderness were coming to a close and Moses was catechizing a new crew of Hebrews to cross the Jordan and finally take possession of the Promised Land. He spelled out the importance of the Sabbath: Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. . . And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. What it all boiled down to was that, on the Sabbath, you needed to rest and remember. That’s all. Just rest and remember. Not run a marathon, or climb a mountain, or pray continuously from sunup to sundown. Just rest and remember.

But leave it to human beings to take the easiest, least burdensome commandment, and turn it into a weapon of mass destruction—a club for bashing and beating up anybody and everybody. That’s how messed up we are, spiritually speaking. God says, “Rest,” and we say, “Now what exactly do you mean by ‘rest?’” God says, “Don’t do any work,” and we say, “Do we have to rest? And what exactly do you mean by ‘work?’” God says, “Remember that you used to be slaves,” and we say, “My calendar is so full this week. I’ll just remember to remember some other time.”

By the time Jesus walked the earth with His disciples, the rabbis had constructed thirty-some categories of work—slicing and dicing “rest” to include things like not carrying, not burning, not writing or erasing or cooking. You can be sure that soccer and shopping and golfing and video games would eventually make it onto that list too. And also among those prohibited tasks: harvesting and threshing grain. It was verboten to cut or pluck any growing thing, including flowers and fruit. No mowing the lawn either.

Then, along comes Jesus and His disciples, walking through a grainfield on the Sabbath. As they were going, they plucked some heads
of grain and rubbed them between their hands—and right there, two Sabbath strikes against them, harvesting and threshing. And the Pharisees with their reams of Sabbath regulations were right there ready to pounce: “Look,” they exclaimed in horror, “Why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”

But says who? Whose laws were being broken? Man’s laws or God’s laws? God had simply said to rest and remember. It was the Pharisees who had gone above and beyond what God had commanded. They had evolved into the “Sabbath Police,” who could take a handful of grain on a Sabbath stroll, and turn it into a capital crime punishable by stoning. But then Jesus brought up that story of King David, how he and his companions ate the consecrated bread of the Presence which was lawful only for priests to eat. Yet they ate and lived to tell about it.

What’s it all mean? Jesus tells us: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath was God’s gift to Israel. No other nation had a god who said, “Hey, take a day off once a week.” In fact, the other nations thought the Israelites were a bunch of slackers, only working six days a week. The Lord’s free, chosen people had divine permission to rest and remember—to sample a slice of eternity at the end of every week. Who could say “no” to that? Sinful human beings, that’s who. The Sabbath was God’s gift to Israel, and the Israelites turned resting and remembering into a religion of works—a way to impress God and bribe God and measure themselves against one another. Hardly what the Lord had in mind.

Now, before we go any further, I need to remind you: The Sabbath—the seventh day of rest—was God’s gift to Old Testament Israel. There is no New Testament Sabbath. Sunday is not the new Sabbath day any more than Jesus is the new Moses. The early Christians wanted to be clear that the Law of Moses had all been fulfilled in Christ. So, instead of gathering on the seventh day of the week, they gathered for worship on the first day of the week—the Lord’s Day—the day when Jesus rose from the dead.

What does it all mean for us? Well, Luther nailed it in the catechism when he saw the true gift of the Third Commandment to be remembering and hearing and learning the Word of God. In fact, in the original German of Luther’s catechism he never mentions a “Sabbath day” at all. Instead, Luther writes that you shall keep the festival day holy—keep the feiertag heiligen—keep the holy day holy. No “Sabbath” talk at all.

The Word of God is what makes a holiday a holy day. Without the Word, it’s just a holiday—a day off, a chance to go to the beach, throw some steaks on the grill, cut the grass. But with the Word of God, any day can be a holy day—sanctified, made holy by the Word of God and prayer. Hearing and learning the Word is the heart and center of the Third Commandment.

Unfortunately, more and more Christians these days are finding that this “easiest” of all the commandments is just too much—too burdensome to keep. We all know baptized believers who have evolved into ABC Christians—anything but church. Sports, recreation, hobbies, family schedules, work schedules, busy calendars, running around from one activity to the next. God gives us over ten thousand minutes every week, but oh how we struggle just to set aside ninety of those ten thousand minutes to hear and hold sacred the Word of God—to gladly hear and learn it, and as we receive His gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation. It’s very simple: Faith is nourished by the Word. Without the Word, faith in Christ will wither and die. When people can’t make the time to hear the Words of eternal life, you have to wonder whether there’s any faith to be fed there at all.

And as for you . . . well, good on you! You made it here today. But you know how much your old Adam hates all this. He hates the notion of resting and remembering in Jesus. He hates it when you hear and learn the Word. He wants your faith to wither and die. And that’s why it’s such a chore to get to church, but so easy to go out for brunch. It’s your Old Adam. That’s why church seems so boring to you, but golf and concerts and movies seem so exciting. That’s why we don’t hear God’s Word “gladly,” but grudgingly. That’s why the children always act up and you never sleep well on Saturday night. Because here in the Divine Service you are encountering the Word of Life—the only thing that can save you from sin and death. And the devil hates it. And the world hates it. Your Old Adam hates it. And these will throw any and all distractions at you and will provide you with thousands of excuses not to receive what the Lord Jesus has died to win for you.

This is how messed up we are—so sinful and corrupted that we can’t even keep the “easiest” of the commandments. But Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath; and His commandment-keeping is perfect. Jesus kept the Sabbath. The traditions of men He broke. Man-made religious rules and regulations, He broke. But Jesus kept the Sabbath more purely and completely than any Jew who ever wandered the Promised Land. And Jesus did this for all of us—for the whole world, including the Jews and the Hebrews and every son of Shem. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He created the Sabbath. Yet, He kept the Sabbath to pure perfection—as with every other commandment. And you get this pure perfection of His as a gift—by grace, through faith.

Jesus still offers rest for your weak and weary soul—not on a particular day of the week, but in Himself. “Come to me,” He once said, “all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” In His blood-bought forgiveness, you can find rest from your sin, rest from Satan’s accusations, rest from the unrealistic expectations of this world.

The Old Testament Sabbath—the God-ordained day of rest—reached its final fulfillment late on a Friday afternoon we call “good.” The Lord of the Sabbath had been reduced to a corpse on a cross. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus took Him down, wrapped His body in linens and spices, and laid Him to rest in the tomb, and closed the door. Back in Genesis, on the seventh day, God rested, having completed the work of creation. And on the seventh day of Holy Week—on the Jewish Sabbath—the Son of Man, the Son of God—He also rested—rested in His temporary tomb—having completed His work of your redemption—having completed the sacrifice of His own life for yours. He rested . . . but only to rise again.

One day you too will be laid to rest. You will be immediately with Christ, even as your body rests and waits for the day of resurrection. With faith in Jesus Christ, you can rest in peace. You can live in peace. You can die in peace. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.