Trinity 17
Dear friends in Christ. I’m sure we are familiar enough with the Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy; and Luther’s explanation: We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Notice in our understanding of it we do not hold to the outward day as being the most vital but the keeping it holy, that is, that we gather around our Lord’s word and sacrament that we may grow in the faith and be strengthened in it.
Remember, the Sabbath Day as God had set it up in the OT was actually Saturday, the seventh day of the week. That’s a reminder to us of the creation—that God created the world and everything around it and in it on 6 normal 24 hour days; and then on the seventh day—what would be our Saturday—He rested. Sabbath means “rest.”
When God gave the OT Israelites the 3rd Commandment, saying [Leviticus 23.3], There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a holy day, a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly... that outward form of having Saturday as the Sabbath, as the required day of rest and worship, applied only to the OT people. Precisely because the Sabbath day was a day of rest and worship, it was really about the coming Savior, Jesus Christ. It pointed people ahead to the true spiritual rest they would have in the coming Savior. Since the Savior has come, the OT Sabbath on Saturday, has fulfilled its purpose of pointing the people ahead to the Savior and the rest He would bring about. That’s why the Holy Spirit could have the blessed Apostle write [Col. 2.16, 17]: Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Although we in the NT still have a day of worship, a day of sacred assembly, we are not bound to Saturday, to any particular day.
Christians, already from Apostolic times, have chosen Sunday as a day of sacred assembly. That’s because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday—each Sunday, then, being a mini celebration of Easter; the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Church—the Day of Pentecost—was on a Sunday; and Sunday, the First Day of the week, reminds us of God creating the world and that now in Christ, in holy Baptism we are a new creation. For the Christian, the vital thing that remains of the 3rd Commandment is not the day, Saturday; but the “keeping it holy”, that is, spending time around our Lord’s holy word and Sacrament—whatever day that may end up being in a world in which Sunday increasingly means nothing but another day of more business.
These blessings that the Christian receives as he/ she Remember[s] the Sabbath Day –whatever day that may end up being— by keeping it holy, we see in our text. Whenever we gather around our Lord’s holy word and sacrament, there our Lord is in our midst giving us His most precious gifts and we, in faith, receive them.
1. Now it happened, as Jesus went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they were watching Him closely.2 And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy.3 And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" 4 But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go.5 Then He answered them, saying, "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?"6 And they could not answer Him regarding these things.
Here is the great blessing of coming to church and gathering around our Lord’s word and sacrament—Jesus is there! Jesus went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath. Even though these religious leaders who had invited Jesus probably only intended evil by it as they were watching Him closely, probably trying to catch Jesus making some sort of rash statement, Jesus still went and was there!
What a glorious comfort this is for us! Let there be no one who thinks “I am too unworthy to go to church” or “I am too great a sinner” or “Christ would not want anything to do with me.” What do we read here in our text? Jesus went into the very midst of His enemies. Now if Jesus does that, certainly He will not turn away from us—no matter how great our sin! Here, in church, in this room full of sinners, we can be certain that Jesus is here in our midst. If He even goes to His enemies, certainly He will come and be in the midst of us sinners who love Him.
Not only is Jesus here in our midst, but He is in our midst for blessing. When Jesus went to that Pharisee’s house to eat bread on the Sabbath, His enemies may have intended evil by it—but Jesus only came intending good; He came in love to them to save them. He didn’t come to flatter them to be accepted by them. Instead, He came to chastise them—to call them to repentance. He did that as He healed the sick man—showing them that they had a skewed understanding of the Sabbath laws; and as by His parable He called them to humility and repentance.
Today, when we are in church gathered around our Lord’s holy word, He isn’t here to give us our weekly affirmation, to say that our sin is no big deal, that it’s all OK, or to build up our self-esteem. Church isn’t day-time TV. Instead, He is here—in blessing—wanting to save us, calling us to repentance. What we hear in church in His holy Law will be painful—just as what He spoke and did was painful for the Pharisees that day. But ultimately it was for blessing—that they might turn from their sins. We keep the Sabbath Day holy as we gather around God’s word, hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it—even when it is unpleasant; when it is a call to turn away from sin; when we are condemned by the law.
The blessing of Sunday is that as we are gathered around our Lord’s word and sacrament, He is in our midst! Yes, we may be crushed by His holy word of Law—but again Jesus’ purpose, like it was that day for the Pharisees, is to call us sinners to repentance. But let us not forget, that that day Jesus was there in the presence of a man who had dropsy. And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy… And Jesus took him and healed him, and let him go.
It doesn’t matter whether this man was brought there by the religious leaders to try to trick Jesus: if Jesus didn’t heal him, He was cruel; if Jesus did heal Him, He was a breaker of the Sabbath. The man was there. Jesus was in presence of a man with the disease of dropsy—which was a swelling caused by pockets of water collecting in the body’s connective tissues and cavities and usually was a sign of a more serious medical problem. And what does Jesus do? He heals the man!
We can summarize the scene like this: the blessing of that Sabbath was that Jesus was there in the midst of that dinner party to proclaim His holy law to those who needed to hear it; and to give health and healing to that sick man who needed it.
That, too, is the blessing of our Sunday as we gather around the word and sacrament—Jesus is in our midst. He is calling us to repentance by His law, but He is also giving us the spiritual health and healing we need by the forgiveness of our sin. The description of Jesus healing this suffering/ sick man is a perfect description of what happens to us in church. And Jesus took him and healed him, and let him go. St. Luke isn’t exactly too clear, but somehow/ someway Jesus grasped the man with His loving divine hand and by that Jesus assured the suffering man of His sympathy and his willingness to help.
That’s exactly the same way Jesus comes to us and deals with us sinners in church. In church, gathered around our Lord’s holy word and sacrament Jesus assures us that He wants to help us and He comes and deals with each of us personally and individually. He comes to us in the Gospel word assuring us of His help and actually giving it to us. In the holy absolution, we do not just hear the pastor say “I forgive you all your sins.” The pastor is merely the “mouthpiece” of Christ, announcing that forgiveness “in the stead and by the command of Christ.” When you hear the pastor, you are really hearing Jesus saying “I forgive you all your sins.” The glorious thing is that Christ is not “millions of miles away”, locked up/ away in heaven somewhere but He is in our midst as He promises [Mt. 18.20]: For where two or three have been gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them. If there is any doubt, we look at the Blessed Sacrament. There Jesus plain as day tells us—This is My Body…This is My Blood. Because He is actually with us, He can give us His very Body and Blood. Just as Jesus grasped this sick man in our text, so too, in the sacrament He comes and grasps us giving us His very Body and Blood because He can, because He is in our midst He heals us—giving us true spiritual healing: the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. That’s the blessing of Sunday—of the day/ time that we are in church, in our Lord’s presence.
2. That blessing is not just for the hour or so we are in church. Instead, it is for us every moment of every day—just like that man suffering from dropsy was healed and from that moment on was enjoying health. And Jesus took him and healed him, and let him go. Jesus dismissed the man—just like after the Sacrament, we rejoice with St. Simeon as we sing [Luke 2.29], “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace…” We are forgiven and healed. We are certain of it, for not only did we hear that our sins are forgiven but we received in our very mouths Jesus’ body that suffered for our sins and the blood He shed to reconcile us to the Father. In Christ we are healed and forgiven and we leave church healed and forgiven!
Just as Jesus sent that healed man away from the dinner party, away from all the hub-bub, so he could go someplace undisturbed and ponder the miraculous blessing he received that day, may we ponder the word of the Lord that we heard in church that day. We do well to reflect on that word, undisturbed, lest it go in one ear and out the other without it having any effect on us. The few moments after the sermon are a start, but hardly sufficient. May we throughout the day and week occupy ourselves with the word we had have heard and the blessing we have received being in Christ’s presence in church.
With simple faith we receive these blessings from Christ in church, pondering and taking them with us into our daily life. That’s the other vital part of today’s text:
So He told a parable to those who were invited, when He noted how they chose the best places, saying to them: "When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; and he who invited you and him come and say to you, 'Give place to this man,' and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, 'Friend, go up higher.' Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted".
Remember: the word that we hear in Church is God’s word/ His pronouncement and the gifts of life and forgiveness we receive are divine gifts Christ gives us. They can be and are received only in faith—in faith by the one who recognizes his/her need for these gifts. Faith in Christ gladly hears and receives His word—both His word of law which shows us our sin and need for a Savior but especially His word of Gospel—in the word, in the absolution, in the sacrament as the present Christ speaks and gives us that forgiveness of sin and life He won for us. As we recognize our sin and confess it—as we go and sit down in the lowest place, Christ comes with His graces and forgiveness and says to the repentant sinner, Friend, go up higher. What a tremendous blessing we receive each week in church—the present Christ gives us in the word and sacrament what we need the most—forgiveness of sin. And He creates the faith that we may believe and receive it. What a blessed time it is around our Lord’s word and sacrament in church. INJ