"We Need What God
Gives"
based on Exodus 20:8-11
Third
Sunday in Lent -
Pastor
Troy Slater, Our
Our
text for this morning's meditation is taken from our Old Testament reading from
Exodus chapter twenty where the Lord gave the 10 commandments through
Moses. Our text is the third
commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or
daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien
within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the
heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the
seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it
holy." Here ends the reading. …
I
suppose that it might be right here in this third commandment that Christians wonder
the most whether or not we should really be concerned with the Ten Commandments
at all. After all, that was the Old
Testament, aren't we in the New? That
was the Law, aren't we under grace?
Didn't
Besides,
that word "Sabbath", it means "to cease" or "to
stop" or "to rest". What
can be more restful than to get an extra hour or two of sleep on Sunday
mornings rather than taking the time to get dressed up and add one more thing
to do in our already busy schedules? Plus,
God said, "remember the Sabbath day" that is, "take a day of rest", well we've
bettered God's command, we've got two days off now in our work week, not just
one for our "Sabbath" rest. So
what's the big deal here? …
Obviously
I'm being a bit facetious here, otherwise we wouldn't even be talking about
this right now, truth is I might even be home sleeping right now if this
commandment was but a suggestion. And so
what's it really mean to "remember
the Sabbath day by keeping it holy."?
Of course
Luther asks a similar question, doesn't he?
At least in that little book some of us might have heard of before -
that "Small Catechism." "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it
holy." What does this mean? ….
Beings I picked on some of our younger mid-week students a few weeks ago, to be
fair I should probably put our older ones on the spot now. You three - Matt, Mackenzie, Ashten - we've learned this commandment this year, haven't
we? "Remember
the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy."
What does this mean? … … "We should fear and love God that we do
not despise preaching and His word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and
learn it."
But
you know I don't recall hearing anything about preaching and God's word in our
reading from Exodus on the Third Commandment.
So where did Luther get this? Is
he on to something or is he just inserting his own opinions in this explanation
of the third commandment? After all, we
look to Scripture, not Luther for truth, right?
So let's examine Scripture and see if Luther got it right here in his
explanation. Let's look at the words of
the commandment itself.
And
of course that first word is "remember." "Remember
the Sabbath day by keeping it holy."
And here that word "remember" obviously means more than to
simply "recall". In fact it's
much like the phrase that a wife might say to her husband who just got home,
"Did you remember the bread."
Obviously she won't be happy if he replies, "Yes, I remembered
it. I remembered it as I drove past the
grocery store. .. Oh, you meant that you actually wanted me to 'get' some
bread." Here the term "remember"
obviously means much more than simply "to recall", it means "to
do", it means "to take appropriate action." ..
Hopefully no one, at least in any seriousness is going to say to their pastor,
"Pastor, I just want you to know that every Sunday, right before I hit my
snooze button, I remember 'Yep, it's the Sabbath day.' And then I go right back
off to sleep." Yes "to
remember the Sabbath" means "to do", "to observe",
"to keep", "to take appropriate action" in regard to the
Sabbath. .. Yes "remember the
Sabbath day."
But
probably not quite as obvious is that word "Sabbath". But, as I mentioned earlier, that word does mean
"to cease", "to stop" or "to rest". In the Old Testament Israel was to stop work
for one day. They were to imitate the Lord
God who rested - who ceased His creating work and enjoyed the fruit of His
labors after creating the world in six days.
For God's people the Sabbath was to be an oasis from the busyness and
distractions of life. That's why Jesus
says in the Gospels, "The Sabbath
was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." The Third Commandment wasn't an extra duty;
it was a break from duty. The Sabbath
was a gift from God to His people - a break from the painful toil. And so "remember the Sabbath day" -
remember the day of rest. …
Now,
up to this point it does appear that all God is commanding here is a break - a
physical rest from our labors. A commandment that even the unbelieving pagan can
observe. But we still have the last part
of this commandment, don't we? And here
is where I think we can see that Luther got it right in his explanation of this
commandment. "Remember the Sabbath Day .. by keeping it holy." …
Now
let me ask you, can you make
anything "holy"? Can you "keep" anything
holy? … Well that word "holy" means "to be sacred", or
"to be set apart". To be "holy"
is to be "set apart" from the mundane; to be "holy" is to
be "set apart" from the profane. And because Scripture makes plain the truth
that even "all our righteous acts
are like filthy rags", the truth is that we cannot "keep"
anything holy, let alone "make" anything holy. Truth is we are a part of the mundane, we are a part of the profane. We can't make ourselves holy, let alone make
any day holy.
But
God can, can't He? The Holy One can make
holy; the Holy One can "keep" holy any thing or any one or any
day. And how does He do that? Well, in John 17:17 for example, Jesus, in
praying for His disciples says to His Father, "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth." "Sanctify" means "to make
holy". So in other words what Jesus
says here is, "Make these disciples of mine holy by the truth, and that
truth is Your Word." "Make
them holy by Your Word." It's God's
Word that makes things, that makes people, that makes days
"holy". I mean what makes a baptism
to be a "Holy Baptism"? Is it
the water? No, by itself the washing
with water is nothing but a bath. But
with the Word of God - "I baptize
you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit", with that
Word that water, that baptism is now "a
washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit." … And what is it
that makes the ordinary, the mundane bread and wine to be a "Holy"
Supper? Again, it's the Word of God,
right? I mean for without the Word of
God, it's just a snack. But with the Word - with God's Word - "Take eat, this is my body given for you. Take
drink, this is my blood of the covenant which is shed for the forgiveness of
all your sins", with that Word of God it becomes Christ's Holy
Supper. … And what makes you one of
God's holy ones - one of His saints? Certainly nothing from us or about us. For again, it's that word, isn't it? God's Word that says, "I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit."
God's word sanctifies - it sets apart - it's makes sacred and holy that
which otherwise isn't. It's the Word of
God.
And
so what "keeps" the Sabbath day holy?
What "makes" that day of rest to be more than just a few hours
of physical rest from our ordinary labors?
The Word.
God's Word.
And so maybe Luther is on to something here when he says that to
"remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy" is to "fear and
love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word but hold is
sacred and gladly hear and learn it."
Maybe
when God says, "Remember the Sabbath
Day by keeping it holy", He's not just saying
"Take a break. Put your feet
up. Sleep in." No. No
maybe rather He's saying, "come to me through
that Word that I have given you.
Meditate on that Word. Be in that
Word and receive that rest that I give to weak and weary souls." … Jesus
says in the Gospel of Matthew, "Come
unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I
will give you rest." In Jesus -
the Word made flesh - the one who comes to us through that water and His Word, in
Jesus we receive the comfort of an eternal rest that God gives to His redeemed
people. In Jesus, the one who feeds us
with His very own body and blood given and shed on His cross, we find the
strength to carry on in a world of painful toil. In Jesus, the one who speaks to us through
His Word of absolution, we are given the peace of sin forgiven. In Jesus we find THE Sabbath rest; a rest
that far, far surpasses all human understanding; a rest that is so much more
meaningful and so much more enduring than anything this fallen world can give.
And
so what a tragedy it is, what a horrible lie of Satan
it is when we convince ourselves, "I don't need to be with God's people
this week. I don't need the preaching
and the reading, the singing and the praying, I don't need the eating and the
drinking, the absolution." What a
tragedy it is when we fall into the trap of substituting the world's temporary
rest for God's eternal rest.
For we
need it. I need it. You need it.
And God knows we need it. In a
world of worry and destruction, in a world of pain and sorrows, with lives
marked by sin and death, we need not just a few hours of physical sleep or of
rest; but we need God's Word. We need
what God gives. And so let us indeed "remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it
holy." Let us indeed hear God's
Word of grace and mercy, let us rejoice in that Word. Let us rejoice in Jesus and that rest - that
eternal rest - that He freely gives to us and our weak and weary souls. Amen.