Third Sunday in Lent 03/15/09 Text: Exodus 20:1-17 Title: Stop and be made alive!
Third Sunday in Lent
03/15/09
Text: Exodus 20:1-17
Title: Stop and be made alive.
Lent is a time of Penitence. Penitence to most Lutherans is that time of the year when we make a shift from being preoccupied with the pleasures of life to being preoccupied with our sinfulness. Penitence according to biblical teaching is shifting our focus from self to focusing on Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
In the Introit, we cried out to the Lord, “Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good.”
In the Collect we prayed, “O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy.”
The Psalm for today read, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise he simple; the precepts of he Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.”
The Old Testament reading on the Ten Commandments which I would dare say most of us only see as accusations actually show the love of God in each one of them. He rescued us from slavery to sin as surely as he rescued the Israelites from slavery to the Egyptians. They are a call to repentance, as we focus on God’s love for us.
The Epistle goes even further in showing the lengths that God will go to, to show his love for us. He made himself low and despised, looking foolish and weak, for us.
The Gospel where we see Jesus’ righteous anger in cleansing the temple is not really about selling in the temple complex. Money had to be exchanged. Animals had to be purchased for the required sacrifices. People came from all over the known world and could not bring the required animals. There was nothing inherently wrong with what was going on that day. The problem was that, and this is almost always overlooked, the market was set up in the Court of the Gentiles. The Court of the Gentiles was the only place those who were not Israelites by birth could worship. They were crowded out of God’s house. There was no place for them to worship God. That is why Jesus did what he did that day. He was showing his zeal for all people being able to worship him.
All of our readings have a connection to each other, for they are all about God’s love toward his human creation and thus the entire world.
This morning I want to focus on our Old Testament reading particularly the Third Commandment, as it is written in Exodus 20:8 and following, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 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, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.”
I decided to talk to you about the Third Commandment, for the Sabbath is not just a remembrance of God’s rest after creation, but a foreshadowing of Holy Saturday, the day after Good Friday. While the Israelites kept the Sabbath in order to remember the day the Lord rested, it is to us today more than that. It is a remembrance of that day when Jesus body rested in the ground after his death on that bloody cross.
To better understand what I am saying about the Third Commandment you need to know the meaning of three Hebrew words which are translated in English as, remember, Sabbath, and keep holy.
In the Hebrew thought the word remember did not mean what it means to us today. We think of remembering something in terms of a past event of which we have memories. The event happened in the past and it is over with and will never happen exactly the same way again.
Mideast thinking which influenced the writers of the Bible, as they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, on the other hand have a different definition for the word remember. When they remember an event the event that happened in the past is brought forward to the present time, as in it is happening again in the present. That is why today we believe that Jesus’ very body and blood are present in the Lord’s Supper, even though he said the words of consecration so long ago.
The word Sabbath does not mean Saturday. The word means stop. You work six days and then you stop. Think about that for a moment. God stopped on the seventh day. He stopped creating and rested as an example for us. That is why Jesus says in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” He did not mean it to be an extra duty; he means it to be a break from duty, a time of rest in him.
We think of keeping the Sabbath as being one more law that we are to keep, one more thing that condemns us, but I want to put forward to you today that the Third Commandment is not that, but it is God’s gift to us.
Why should you observe a stop day? To keep it holy, that is why. Holy is an underrated word. In today’s way of living, rush, rush, fill every day with more and more, it can mean boring. Let’s see how the commandment sounds that way. “Remember the Sabbath to keep it boring.” Somehow that does not sound right.
The meaning of keeping the Sabbath day holy means in biblical terms to keep it sacred. Now I understand that that is not much of a help. But there is another meaning for the word holy. It means to set apart for God. That really does not help a lot, for it only tells me that God is set apart from us. As I read that, the thought came to me that maybe that is the reason why so few people don’t come to worship on Sunday. They feel set apart, not part of God’s family. Something to think about, that is for sure.
The word holy as it is used to describe God means that he is set apart from sin. That makes sense, since God cannot have sin. it would also mean that he is set apart from all the evils that befall us. But having said that we have to understand that God is not separated from his creation. He made it; it is alive. That is why I quite often say at the beginning of the service that we have entered God’s holy house. He is here with us in this house of worship.
Maybe it would help if we read the Third Commandment this way. “Observe the stop day, to keep it totally alive, because the Lord blessed the stop day and made it totally alive.”
God made the stop day, for us; not as something to make us feel bad about, but as something in which to refresh our bodies, minds, and souls. Each Sunday we, in just this short time we spend together each week in worshiping God are to stop and hear his words of forgiveness. We are to stop and hear his words from his Holy Scriptures. We are to stop and pray and sing in his presence. We are to stop and take into our bodies his very body and blood for our forgiveness, salvation, and life.
I have spoken to you this morning about the Third Commandment because like the rest of the commandments they are not to those who trust in Jesus hard demands, but invitations to live. After all, are they not all commands to love? Are they not commands to act like normal human beings and experience the life that Jesus lived?
That Sabbath when Jesus body lay in the tomb was the day that appeared to be foolishness to those witnessing it. The Messiah had died on Friday; the proof of that lay in the tomb. He was a failure, a dead king, who could no longer cause trouble or save his people, for that matter. But God had other plans for that Sabbath; for he was at work unseen by the world, but known to God.
We are to rest on the Sabbath which the Christian church has decided to be Sunday, for while Jesus’ body rested in that grave on the Jewish Sabbath, he rose on the first day of the week which we call Sunday. Sabbath rest then my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is the day in which you come to Jesus accepting his invitation as it is written in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
I am glad you remembered the Sabbath today. Don’t be afraid of what is out there in the world in which you live, for you have stopped for awhile and rested in the Lord’s mighty arms. Peace be with you this morning. Amen.
03/15/09
Text: Exodus 20:1-17
Title: Stop and be made alive.
Lent is a time of Penitence. Penitence to most Lutherans is that time of the year when we make a shift from being preoccupied with the pleasures of life to being preoccupied with our sinfulness. Penitence according to biblical teaching is shifting our focus from self to focusing on Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
In the Introit, we cried out to the Lord, “Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good.”
In the Collect we prayed, “O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy.”
The Psalm for today read, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise he simple; the precepts of he Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.”
The Old Testament reading on the Ten Commandments which I would dare say most of us only see as accusations actually show the love of God in each one of them. He rescued us from slavery to sin as surely as he rescued the Israelites from slavery to the Egyptians. They are a call to repentance, as we focus on God’s love for us.
The Epistle goes even further in showing the lengths that God will go to, to show his love for us. He made himself low and despised, looking foolish and weak, for us.
The Gospel where we see Jesus’ righteous anger in cleansing the temple is not really about selling in the temple complex. Money had to be exchanged. Animals had to be purchased for the required sacrifices. People came from all over the known world and could not bring the required animals. There was nothing inherently wrong with what was going on that day. The problem was that, and this is almost always overlooked, the market was set up in the Court of the Gentiles. The Court of the Gentiles was the only place those who were not Israelites by birth could worship. They were crowded out of God’s house. There was no place for them to worship God. That is why Jesus did what he did that day. He was showing his zeal for all people being able to worship him.
All of our readings have a connection to each other, for they are all about God’s love toward his human creation and thus the entire world.
This morning I want to focus on our Old Testament reading particularly the Third Commandment, as it is written in Exodus 20:8 and following, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 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, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.”
I decided to talk to you about the Third Commandment, for the Sabbath is not just a remembrance of God’s rest after creation, but a foreshadowing of Holy Saturday, the day after Good Friday. While the Israelites kept the Sabbath in order to remember the day the Lord rested, it is to us today more than that. It is a remembrance of that day when Jesus body rested in the ground after his death on that bloody cross.
To better understand what I am saying about the Third Commandment you need to know the meaning of three Hebrew words which are translated in English as, remember, Sabbath, and keep holy.
In the Hebrew thought the word remember did not mean what it means to us today. We think of remembering something in terms of a past event of which we have memories. The event happened in the past and it is over with and will never happen exactly the same way again.
Mideast thinking which influenced the writers of the Bible, as they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, on the other hand have a different definition for the word remember. When they remember an event the event that happened in the past is brought forward to the present time, as in it is happening again in the present. That is why today we believe that Jesus’ very body and blood are present in the Lord’s Supper, even though he said the words of consecration so long ago.
The word Sabbath does not mean Saturday. The word means stop. You work six days and then you stop. Think about that for a moment. God stopped on the seventh day. He stopped creating and rested as an example for us. That is why Jesus says in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” He did not mean it to be an extra duty; he means it to be a break from duty, a time of rest in him.
We think of keeping the Sabbath as being one more law that we are to keep, one more thing that condemns us, but I want to put forward to you today that the Third Commandment is not that, but it is God’s gift to us.
Why should you observe a stop day? To keep it holy, that is why. Holy is an underrated word. In today’s way of living, rush, rush, fill every day with more and more, it can mean boring. Let’s see how the commandment sounds that way. “Remember the Sabbath to keep it boring.” Somehow that does not sound right.
The meaning of keeping the Sabbath day holy means in biblical terms to keep it sacred. Now I understand that that is not much of a help. But there is another meaning for the word holy. It means to set apart for God. That really does not help a lot, for it only tells me that God is set apart from us. As I read that, the thought came to me that maybe that is the reason why so few people don’t come to worship on Sunday. They feel set apart, not part of God’s family. Something to think about, that is for sure.
The word holy as it is used to describe God means that he is set apart from sin. That makes sense, since God cannot have sin. it would also mean that he is set apart from all the evils that befall us. But having said that we have to understand that God is not separated from his creation. He made it; it is alive. That is why I quite often say at the beginning of the service that we have entered God’s holy house. He is here with us in this house of worship.
Maybe it would help if we read the Third Commandment this way. “Observe the stop day, to keep it totally alive, because the Lord blessed the stop day and made it totally alive.”
God made the stop day, for us; not as something to make us feel bad about, but as something in which to refresh our bodies, minds, and souls. Each Sunday we, in just this short time we spend together each week in worshiping God are to stop and hear his words of forgiveness. We are to stop and hear his words from his Holy Scriptures. We are to stop and pray and sing in his presence. We are to stop and take into our bodies his very body and blood for our forgiveness, salvation, and life.
I have spoken to you this morning about the Third Commandment because like the rest of the commandments they are not to those who trust in Jesus hard demands, but invitations to live. After all, are they not all commands to love? Are they not commands to act like normal human beings and experience the life that Jesus lived?
That Sabbath when Jesus body lay in the tomb was the day that appeared to be foolishness to those witnessing it. The Messiah had died on Friday; the proof of that lay in the tomb. He was a failure, a dead king, who could no longer cause trouble or save his people, for that matter. But God had other plans for that Sabbath; for he was at work unseen by the world, but known to God.
We are to rest on the Sabbath which the Christian church has decided to be Sunday, for while Jesus’ body rested in that grave on the Jewish Sabbath, he rose on the first day of the week which we call Sunday. Sabbath rest then my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is the day in which you come to Jesus accepting his invitation as it is written in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
I am glad you remembered the Sabbath today. Don’t be afraid of what is out there in the world in which you live, for you have stopped for awhile and rested in the Lord’s mighty arms. Peace be with you this morning. Amen.
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 2:36 PM
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