Trinity 17
Beloved. There are several themes in today’s Gospel. One that comes right away to the fore is that of the Sabbath, as Jesus asks: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” We are right away reminded of the various times Jesus had run ins with the religious leaders of the Jews on this question of the Sabbath. In the Law, God had commanded the Sabbath Day. It was the 7th day, Saturday. It was to be a day of rest. Over the course of time, the Jews added law upon law so that the main thing of the Sabbath was the absolute stop of work. That focus on absolutely no work was wrong. That’s why Jesus asks them here: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” and “Which of you, if your son or an ox would fall into a well on a Sabbath day, would not immediately pull him out?” The Sabbath’s day of rest was vital physically—people need a time of rest; and the OT Sabbath law served another purpose—it pointed forward to Jesus’ great Sabbath rest in the tomb on Holy Saturday.
As Christians, we don’t observe the Sabbath Day, that is, the 7th day, Saturday. Instead our day of rest is Sunday. So are we disobeying the 3rd Commandment by not worshipping/ having a day of rest on Saturday? Hardly! The Holy Spirit, through St. Paul, tells us [Col. 2.16-17]: Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. All the ceremonies of the OT can be omitted because their purpose was to point to Jesus’ coming and His work. Now that He has come and carried out His saving work, their job is done and can be omitted.
So, yes, we do not observe the outward part of the 3rd Commandment—namely worship on Saturday—but the key part of the 3rd Commandment, the inner part, we do observe: the worship of God, gladly hearing and learning God’s Word. To help people gather together around our Lord’s word and sacrament, Sunday, the 1st day of the week, was chosen already in the days of the apostles [1 Cor. 16.2]. Sunday is the obvious choice since Sunday is the day of our Lord’s resurrection—each Sunday is a mini-celebration of Easter—and Sunday is the day when the Holy Spirit came on the disciples on Pentecost, and Sunday is the day God began to create and so Sunday is a reminder that we Christians are a new creation in Christ.
Although the events of our text happen on a Saturday, the OT Sabbath, what we have here is a wonderful picture of what happens on a Sunday in church: One Sabbath day, … Jesus went into the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat bread. In church, as we gather together around His holy word and sacrament, Jesus is with us. And then we read they were watching him closely. They were watching Jesus with suspicion, perhaps even trying to find Him guilty of some sort of sin. But as we gather in church around His holy word and sacrament we too watch Jesus closely, but out of love knowing that He has the words of eternal life [John 6.68].
We also now come to another theme of our text—humility. The very fact that Jesus was there, that one Sabbath day… Jesus went into the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat bread, [and] they were watching him closely, that shows Jesus’ great love and His humility. Jesus went to where the sinners were to bring them to faith in Him, to save them. We read elsewhere, after Jesus had called St. Matthew to be His disciple [Mt. 9.10], and so it was, as Jesus sat at table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. Jesus—the holy and righteous God Himself—was in the midst of and eating with open and notorious sinners. These sinners wanted to hear what Jesus had to say and in humility, Jesus welcomes them, comes to them, makes Himself available to them. As the holy God, He could have refused them, had nothing to do with them. But He didn’t. This is His love for the sinner. This is His humility as He, the holy God, came to seek and save sinners.
And even here in our text we see the humility of our dear Lord. Even though these religious leaders of the Jews were regarded as the “super holy”—especially by themselves—it was in great humility that Jesus came there that day because as the all-knowing God, He knew what was in their heart, He knew they were disingenuous, He knew that they were self-seeking later evidenced by all that they were selecting the places of honor, He knew they would be watching Him. In humility Jesus comes to sinners—both notorious sinners and here to the self-righteous. And why? To call the sinner to repentance and faith. In our text Jesus shows the people their sin of pride and self-righteousness, of selfishness and greed. “Which of you, if your son or an ox would fall into a well on a Sabbath day, would not immediately pull him out?” On the Sabbath, when they would have to expend much effort simply to get an ox out of a well. It’s not compassion that moved them but greed, property is money. And in reality, money, then, trumps, the Sabbath laws.
Jesus never failed to testify to the truth and to proclaim the Law of God; He never failed to speak the truth in love. And, yes, the Law of God that Jesus proclaimed was sharp but ultimately it was His mercy in calling the sinner to repentance. Jesus also deals with the same way. By the holy Law of God that we hear, when we are very much aware of/ feel our sins, when our consciences bother us, that is Jesus dealing with us in mercy as He is calling us to recognize and sorrow over our sin and to seek that forgiveness in Him. In our text, Jesus’ mercy shows itself front and center so that there can be no doubt to the people there—and to us today that He is merciful and deals with us in mercy. Right in front of him was a man who was suffering from swelling of his body. His body swelled by the excess accumulation of fluids. And Jesus shows His divine mercy and His eagerness to help people in their affliction. Jesus addressed the legal experts and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” 4But they were silent. So he took hold of the man, healed him, and let him go. And if He shows this mercy to those suffering bodily, certainly He also shows this mercy to us suffering in soul and conscience. Even when the Lord must deal with us in the severity of His holy Law, He is only doing so in mercy on us sinners and so He may show us mercy.
The whole saving work of Jesus is nothing but His pure mercy on us sinners. For Jesus to show us mercy He also humbled Himself. We sing/ confess in the Te Deum Laudamus: When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man [that’s mercy], Thou didst humble Thyself to be born of a virgin [that’s humility]. St. Paul writes: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus’ entire saving work was pure humility—and all for us and our salvation. It is a humility that is grounded in His mercy. Now, as we gather, around His word and sacrament in His holy house here on Sundays, Jesus is still coming to us in mercy and giving us His gifts and blessings He won for us by His holy life and innocent suffering and death—that He brought about for us in His humility.
Now as our Lord’s dear Christian, following Him, we are called to humility and can be humble because Jesus was humble first. Our text: When [Jesus] noticed how they were selecting the places of honor, he told the invited guests a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline in the place of honor, or perhaps someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him. The one who invited both of you may come and tell you, ‘Give this man your place.’ Then you will begin, with shame, to take the lowest place. “But when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will tell you, ‘Friend, move up to a higher place.’ Then you will have honor in the presence of all who are reclining at the table with you. “Yes, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
Jesus’ parable is terribly misunderstood if we read it as a way of how to get honor by using some sort of false humility. It is not humility to have honor as your goal. Instead, true humility is following Jesus in His humility; it is following Jesus in service and serving others; it is following Jesus in love.
To put it a different way for us Christians: our humility is a fruit of our faith in Christ. Where there is faith in Jesus, there the Holy Spirit has worked mightily. He has worked in us a full and true knowledge of our sin, that by our sin we earn and deserve nothing but God’s wrath and punishment now and eternally in hell. He has also pointed us to Jesus, who by His life, suffering and death is our Savior from sin, death, devil and hell; that in Him we have the forgiveness of all our sin and the promise of eternal life—and His resurrection is proof positive of it.
To believe that we are sinners and that we deserve rejection and punishment from God, certainly keeps us humble. How can we think highly and be proud of self when we realize this? How can we think we have a holiness and righteousness that is acceptable to God? But our humility is grounded in Jesus and faith in Him. Merely recognizing that we are sinners keeps us humble, yes, but ultimately will drive us to despair. That humility is not the fruit of faith. The true humility, which is the fruit of faith, recognizes that “yes, I am a sinner” but also that Jesus has great pleasure in welcoming/ receiving sinners. What great love there then is for the merciful Savior of sinners! That love for the Savior then translates into love and service toward others—humbling ourselves to serve others as we have been.
A Christian humility is one that boasts of nothing in ourselves, but it boasts and finds comfort in God’s grace. To put it differently, our humility as Christians is carried out and shown in our life of daily repentance. We daily examine our hearts and lives in the light and mirror of God’s holy Law; we see our sin and how we deserve nothing but God’s wrath. That’s But when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place. But as we then by faith receive the forgiveness of sin, as we Sundays and in private confession hear the absolution and in faith cling to it, that’s the one who invited you comes, he will tell you, ‘Friend, move up to a higher place’. Recognizing who we are—sinners—and what we have been given—the forgiveness of sins and eternal life all by God’s grace through the work of Jesus—how can we be prideful in self? How can we, then, not be humble? –We, the unworthy, have received the greatest gifts. Yes, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. If one has great pride in self before God, how could they even receive these great gifts of God—they don’t think they need them and so they are left with nothing. But we, dear Christian, feeling our sin and unworthiness, in faith come to the Lord, humble ourselves before Him seeking and imploring His grace, and guess what? He gives us His full grace and showers us with every heavenly and spiritual blessing. And receiving His graces and gifts, telling us ‘Friend, move up to a higher place’, honoring us, we are humbled. And in that humility, having experienced God’s great gifts and graces, we love and serve others, and fight against our old sinful nature that rises us and wants us to exalt ourselves, to put self number one. We take great comfort in this battle from the words of the apostle [1 Pt. 5.5]: God…gives grace to the humble. He gives us His grace to continue on in our lives of humility—of confession, of receiving absolution, and serving others. Because Jesus humbled Himself to be our Savior, we can now be humble. INJ