It was the Sabbath. A man who was afflicted by dropsy knew on
this day where Jesus was to be found. He
knew that he needed to be where Jesus was.
But even before he could call for help, while he was still just sitting
there waiting in pain, Jesus healed him.
Jesus wasted no time. He didn’t
wait until the next day once the Sabbath was over. He healed him on the Sabbath, on the day when God had forbidden his people from
doing any kind of work. But Jesus didn’t
break the Sabbath. God’s law cannot
forbid love. Love does no harm to the
neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus didn’t heal this man to show that the
laws of the Old Testament had become a nuisance or that it was time for them to
pass away. No. What he did was show what the law was always
for. He fulfilled what the Sabbath law
truly required. He loved. As God, he extended himself from the heights
of heaven to the lowly dust of the earth to help a poor sinner in need – one
who suffered under the curse of a fallen world.
Jesus noted this man’s need and addressed it. God humbled himself in order to exalt the
lowly. Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath law
by showing love.
Man was not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was made for man. That’s what Jesus teaches. Sabbath means rest. It is God’s gift to us. Let’s take a look at what the Sabbath day was
originally in order to see what it became. Then we can understand what it still is.
1. What the Sabbath was originally:
Sabbath refers to Saturday, the last
day of the week, not Sunday, which is the first day of the week. God rested on the seventh day of creation
because after six days he was done with his work. Of course, he continued in his divine work in
upholding what he made; nothing can exist without his constant care. But his creation was perfect. There were no problems to solve. There were no creatures in need of
healing. Adam and Eve were perfectly
made and in no need of spiritual or physical remedies. All that existed perfectly served their needs
and did them no harm and caused them no pain and delighted them fully. Their work was joyful and they experienced no
fatigue. God rested because everything
he had made was very good. He set this
day aside and made it holy in order that man might be holy too.
Adam and Eve were called to join God in
his rest – but not because they were so tired.
It was God who had been at work, not them. God called Adam and Eve to join in his rest not
by telling them to cease from their labors, but by giving them to ponder the
work of his hands and to say Amen to what he said. They joined God in his Sabbath by going about
their work with joy, firmly believing his word.
This is what made them holy: they agreed with God and said, “Yes, what you have done is indeed very
good.”
But then everything became not very
good. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s word
and fell into sin. The devil came to
them as a serpent and persuaded them that God had withheld from them their true
potential. He persuaded them that God’s
creation was not good enough. It could
be more. They could be more. He persuaded them that they could be like
God. This is how they broke the
Sabbath.
By ignoring God’s word, and believing
the devil instead, Adam and Eve exalted themselves. So God humbled them. To the earth they would return. Like beasts they would labor in pain and
sorrow until they died. They took the
highest seat by seeking their own honor above God’s. God put them in the lowest seat by condemning
them for their sin.
But God is merciful. Just as he humbles those who exalt
themselves, so he exalts those who humble themselves. After the Fall, God did not spend earth’s
days and nights indignant that his creation had been spoiled. He did not undo what he had made. No, in love for his fallen creation he went
back to work to redeem what he had made.
He spoke a word of promise and revealed his plan to rescue them from
their sin. His own Son would be born of
a Virgin and suffer misery and death in order to crush the devil’s lying
head. God went back to work. He promised that he would do all the work to
save us.
And this is why he did not abolish the
Sabbath day. On the first Sabbath God
rested from his labor, because he was done.
He called everything good because it was. But now God was back to work to accomplish
our salvation. He did not, therefore,
retain the Sabbath day for himself. He
had work to do. Rather, God gave the
Sabbath day to man so that man might rest from his labor. Burdensome work
awaited them – true. “In
pain you shall bring forth children — In the sweat of your face you shall eat
bread.” But the work that they
were to rest from was the work of raising themselves back to God. They were called to rest in the knowledge
that only God’s labor would bring them redemption and not their own. Not by exalting themselves to God, but by
humbling themselves as sinners, would God once again decree that what he has
made is very good.
He makes this decree in the
Absolution. He declares sinners
righteous through the blood of his Son who bore the heat of God’s wrath in our
place. Creation was good because God
made it. And his new creation, that is, everyone
who is reborn to faith through water and his word, is also good and pleasing in
his sight because of the atonement which Christ has made.
Since the beginning, therefore, the
Sabbath day was set aside to hear the gospel.
That’s what it was for. It was to
take a much-needed break from the week’s labor and to hear the word of God
which taught about the promised Seed of the Woman.
2. What the Sabbath became:
God’s people are saved through God’s
work. Period. He calls his people to do great things. But he saves his people through the great
things which he alone has done. When God redeemed Israel from Egyptian
slavery, whose mighty works were made known?
When the Passover lamb was eaten while its blood marked their doors, and
the angel of death passed over, whose mighty work was made known? When the Red Sea divided and God’s people
were saved on dry ground while Pharaoh’s army was drowned, whose mighty work
was made known? It was because of this
that God gave the 3rd Commandment and commanded his people once a week to rest
from all their labors. It was so that
they might remember to distinguish their own works from God’s.
But the devil’s first lie was infectious.
Adam and Eve were persuaded to believe
that their own works might make them greater than God had made them. So also, the children of Israel were
persuaded that by obeying God’s law they could redeem themselves from the curse
of the law. This is at the core of every
sin. It is self-justification, self-trust,
unbelief. It is the notion that we can
earn God’s favor by what we do and by what we leave undone. Such efforts never find rest because they are
never complete.
The Pharisees in Jesus’ day only
pretended to rest. But they were working
as hard as ever to justify themselves before God. They did not believe the gospel. They trusted in the law. The reason they did not believe the gospel is
because they did not understand why God commanded observance of the
Sabbath. They thought that their
non-work was itself a meritorious work.
In reality, God told them not to work so that they might remember that
their work was useless for salvation.
Only God’s work can save. Only
Christ’s work is meritorious. God had
not hidden this from them. He made it
clear. Consider what Moses records in
Deuteronomy 5:12-15 concerning the 3rd Commandment:
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 the Sabbath of the Lord your
God. In it you shall do no
work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your
female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your
stranger who is within your
gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And
remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your
God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm;
therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the
Sabbath day.
“And remember that you were a slave.” And who delivered them? Whose work saved them? Certainly not their own! They were slaves. Observance of the Sabbath was a strict
command by God in order that his people might learn the most fundamental truth
of the gospel: We are saved by God’s grace alone apart from any work we
do. We are slaves to sin. But the Son sets us free by forgiving us, by
bearing our sin, by doing good to us when we are helpless to do good for
ourselves. It is as St. Paul writes, “to
him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith
is accounted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5).
3. What the Sabbath still is:
The Pharisees obeyed the Sabbath to the
letter of the law. But they completely
disregarded the spirit of the law. They
kept themselves from work on the Sabbath as though they were accomplishing
something by their idleness. They
imagined that this was how they showed their love to God – by fulfilling the
law. They were so devoted to earning
their salvation that they wouldn’t let anything stop them. Not even love for their neighbor.
But it was love for his neighbor that
compelled Jesus. It was love for man
that brought God down from his heavenly throne to live as a man in our place –
to make you his own neighbor – to see your affliction and the sin that causes
it, to suffer with you in your loss and to rescue you from the pit of
despair. Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath by
working for his neighbor whose own work could do absolutely nothing.
Jesus saw a man who needed rest from
his misery. He sat in the lowest
seat. Jesus asked the Pharisees if it
was wrong to heal him. He might as well
have asked them if it would be wrong to walk on water on the Sabbath. It was something they were incapable of. And that’s the point. God set aside the Sabbath so that he might do
for us what we are incapable of doing for ourselves or for anyone else.
The Pharisees would break the Sabbath – and Jesus got them to admit it – if their
own self-interests were at stake. “Which
one of you if a son or an ox has fallen into a well will not pull him out on
the Sabbath?” But our
self-interests are at stake right now.
Our greatest need must be met. It
is not only our neighbor who needs assistance; it is we who need to be lifted
out of hell. And that is why we need to
come where Jesus is. What self-interest
prevents us from serving our neighbor?
What self-interest compels us to focus on our own work rather than on
God’s work in us and for us? That is to
say, why do we break the Sabbath?
Remember the Sabbath
Day to keep it holy.
What does this mean?
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.
What does this mean?
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.
God knows our self-interests better
than we do. That is why we come to
church. We don’t come to accomplish
something for God. Our good works and
obedience do as little for us as the Pharisees’ idleness did for them. To think that we are doing God a favor by
being here is to place yourself in the highest seat. But such a one who exalts himself will be
humbled. He will be humbled with the
sinners, with the self-righteous, with the fornicators and adulterers, with the
murders and thieves. And so we come as
we are. We come as sinners who can find
no rest. And he who bids the weary and
heavy laden to come to him will give us rest.
He gives us peace by revealing to us how he has won our salvation.
Baptism is God’s work. It buries us with Christ who took the lowest
seat – even unto death and burial for us.
And it raises us with Christ who was exalted to the Father’s right
hand. We do not make it our work or sign
of commitment. Those who do will be
humbled. The Lord’s Supper is God’s
work. It delivers to the humble and
contrite sinner what Jesus came as a servant to give. It is a feast. We take the lowest seat by coming to this
altar for forgiveness. If we come for
any other reason – to show off our devotion, to just go through the motions, to
prove to God how faithful we are – we will be brought low. But the sinner who comes to benefit from the
work of God will be exalted.
And that is why we hold his word
sacred. That is why we hear it and learn
it. This is why we as a congregation of
Christians promote the preaching of the Gospel by supporting Christ’s mission
on earth. Because through his work alone
God gives us and many what we all need to find rest. He forgives us. He declares us righteous in his sight. He calls us to come up higher to be honored
with the confidence that we are his and he is ours. No sin can divide us from him who bore our
sin and from him who raised our Lord from the dead. He will raise us too. Amen.
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