13 October 2019
Text: Luke 14:1-11
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
“Is
it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”
Our
sinful flesh just loves rules and regulations. We can use them to boss others around. We can use them to make ourselves look
good. We can use them to claim that we
are righteous by our works. We can use
them to tear others down.
But
what our sinful flesh doesn’t understand is that God made the law for our good.
For
when we keep the Law – even in a superficial manner – things go better for us
and for our life in a community of people. When we break the law, the opposite is
true. And so every group of people from
the tiniest village to the mightiest empire has had some kind of rules,
regulations, and laws.
When
God created the universe in six days, and then rested, He set a precedent for all
of creation: a Sabbath Day of rest. And
God commanded this rest for all people – and even for the animals who work for
mankind. This rest is a joy, not a
burden. It is for our good, not for our
manipulation and control. As Jesus said,
“The Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
But
what does our sinful flesh do, dear friends? We figure out how to take the gift of God and
turn it into a curse. We creatively find
ways to pervert something beneficial into a burden. And those who seek power over others use the Law
to leash others rather than to liberate them.
Our
Lord had to deal with this from the Pharisees and the scribes and the lawyers
all the time. Instead of using the Law as a curb, a mirror, and a guide – as we
Lutherans are taught are the godly purposes of the Law – the lawyers and
Pharisees were using it as a snare to try to trick Jesus into breaking a law so
that they could arrest Him, discredit Him, and, of course, to do what they
really wanted to do: kill Him.
This
is why, dear friends, they “were watching Him carefully.” And they got their wish to see Jesus fall into
the trap, for a man was very sick. Now
this was the Sabbath Day, and the Law says that a man may not work, but must
rest, on this Seventh Day of the week. This
sick man had a disease called dropsy.
Jesus
knew that He was under constant surveillance and that the lawyers and the
Pharisees were trying to trick Him. Jesus
wastes no time in turning the tables on them.
They are the ones who fall into the trap.
Seeing
the man with dropsy, our Lord poses a question to the lawyers (and as every
lawyer knows, you never ask a question in court that you don’t know the answer
to). Jesus throws the lawyers a curve
ball: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”
“But
they remained silent.”
They
already know where this is headed. The
Law says that work is prohibited on the Sabbath. But does this mean that doctors may not cure
someone? Does this mean that an
emergency worker must sit idle when a person is in distress? Does this mean that pastors must not preach
and parents must not feed their children? For we all know what the spirit of the law is,
and we also know how the lawyers and the Pharisees – just like lawyers and
politicians and others do today – play fast and loose with the meanings of
words to get the outcome that they want.
But
not today, dear friends. Not on this
day.
Our
Lord has cut right to the chase: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”
They
refuse to answer because they are lawyers and they know that the rabbis have
all addressed this question.
Jesus
shows compassion for the sick man, heals him, and sends him away. Then Rabbi Jesus addresses the legal question as
have teachers of the law for centuries: “Which of you,” He asks, “having a son
or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately
pull him out?”
And
once again, the cat has got the tongue of this proud cadre of Pharisees and
lawyers. Jesus has made them look
foolish by means of their own beloved Law.
Dear
friends, we are not under the various Old Testament regulations that applied to
the Sabbath Day – which was from Sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday. We are free from these ceremonial laws. But we are still subject to the principle of
the seventh-day rest, as well as setting aside a day as holy to the Lord in
order to allow Jesus to come and heal us, just as He did this man with dropsy.
For
we suffer with something far worse: sin. Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday, and
His body was removed before sundown as the Sabbath Day approached. He was laid in the tomb and enjoyed His
Sabbath rest. But on the first day of
the week, Sunday, the Lord’s Day, the visitors to the tomb found that He had
risen. His death and resurrection is our
cure.
We
Christians have sanctified the Lord’s Day ever since, and this is, for us
Christians, a new and greater Sabbath – not one of rules and regulations, but
one of liberation, one in which we are free to worship the Lord, free to hear
the Word of God, and free to partake of His body and blood! And we are indeed free regarding this Sabbath,
for if necessity prevents our worship on the first day of the week, we may well
worship on another day, such as Wednesday night, as has been the custom of our
own congregation for more than a century.
The
Law does not exist to enslave us, but to free us. And though we fail to keep the Law, our Lord
cures us of the dropsy of our sins. For
as hard as we try to keep the Law, we fail. For we are like the son or the ox that has
fallen, and we are rescued, we are pulled out of the well by our Lord.
And
this is what the Sabbath of the Lord’s day is all about, dear brothers and
sisters. We don’t come to church to show
how holy we are, but rather because we aren’t. We come to where Jesus is because only He can
cure us. We come on this day of rest
because it is indeed lawful for Jesus to heal us.
And
this is no cause for boasting. Indeed,
we have been invited to this wedding feast, and yet we “go and sit in the
lowest place,” right here in the pews of this sanctuary – which are reserved
for sinners only. This sanctuary is like
the waiting room of a hospital. We are
all here because we suffer affliction and are looking to be healed. And while lawyers and Pharisees may mock us
for being here, we know where we need to be in order to be healed. We are not too proud to take a seat here in
this waiting room.
For
our Lord Jesus Himself comes to us, right here, and He says to us: “Friend,
move up higher.” And we take our seats
with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. We join in their unending praise, their
Hosannas, and their joyful celebration of eternal life.
For
it is when the Lord declares us worthy to eat at His table, to come to this
altar, to kneel and feast with Him and upon Him, and we are “honored in the
presence of all who sit at table with” us.
So
let us come to the table, unworthy of ourselves, but made worthy by the blood
of the Lamb, by His never-ending Sabbath, and through His mercy in healing us
from all that ails us.
“For
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be
exalted.” Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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