What to do for the Church that is doomed

Posted on August 8, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 10

1 Corinthians 12:1-11  +  Luke 19:41-48

I want you to think about the state of the Christian Church today. Think about all the Christian churches you know of here in Las Cruces, in New Mexico, in the U.S., around the world. Think of the message you hear from churches, about churches. Think of the worship practices you have heard of, and about the public stance Christians have taken on doctrinal issues or societal issues. How much is focused on Christ crucified and risen from the dead? How much is rooted in the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His name? How much is grounded in the absolute truth of His holy Word? How much is centered on Word and Sacrament? In preparing people to bear the cross patiently, to face death bravely, and to prepare for eternal life with God earnestly? Honestly? Not much.

Does it make you weep? It should, at least on the inside. The Christian Church, in its outward form, is God’s house, God’s city. But it’s crumbling, and it’s destined to crumble. It’s doomed. The Scriptures foretell the great apostasy, the great falling away, the growing number of false teachers and those who believe them. As Paul writes to Timothy, the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods. And again, The time will come when they will not put up with sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. My friends, that time is upon us.

A similar time was upon the Jews and the capital city of God’s Church at that time, the city of Jerusalem. We can learn a lot about our own times from Jesus’ tears and words for Jerusalem, and also from His actions afterward, because the same actions are called for in our time. Today in the Gospel we learn what to do for the Church that is doomed.

As Jesus approached the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, five days before the leaders of that city would successfully bring about His crucifixion, we’re told that he looked at the city and wept over it, saying, “If only you knew, on this your day, the things that would bring you peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will put up an embankment around you and will surround you and besiege you on every side. And they will raze you to the ground, you and your children within you; and they will not leave one stone upon another within you, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Jesus wept, not because Jerusalem was about to crucify Him, but because, after crucifying Him, the people of Jerusalem, the Old Testament visible Church, would not repent, would not acknowledge their sins, would not believe in Him, would not make use of the atonement He was about to provide with His death. And so the city, less than forty years later, would be mercilessly attacked by the Roman armies and utterly destroyed, not because God truly wanted it that way, not because God chose them for destruction or predestined them to it, but because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. God sent the Messiah to Jerusalem, as promised. God the Holy Spirit made it absolutely clear, both by Jesus’ words and by His deeds, that this was the promised Savior. But they shut their eyes and closed their hearts to the Spirit’s work. And so only the remnant, stragglers, a small number of leftover Jews, would be saved.

But that remnant would indeed be saved. Some members of the Old Testament Church would repent and believe in Christ Jesus and would escape not just the destruction of Jerusalem, but eternal condemnation in hell. Jesus saw those people, too. He wasn’t paralyzed by the sadness He felt for Jerusalem or by the certain knowledge of the doom and destruction of the city and the people as a whole. Instead, He went on to do the only things that would save the remnant.

First, He went to the temple and cleared it of the things that didn’t belong there. He went into the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in it, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer.’ But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” Buying and selling are not sinful activities. But the house of God is no place for them. Zeal for God’s house—for His house—consumed Jesus, and He drove out the things that distracted from prayer, and from the ministry of the priests, and from the architecture and the furnishings and the sacrifices that all pointed to Him.

And then, He sat down in the temple daily, for the next few days, for His last few days before His death, and taught the Word of God to all who would listen. And then, as we know, on that Thursday evening, He instituted the New Testament in His blood. On Sunday morning He rose from the dead and commissioned His apostles to do as He had done, to preach and teach until the end of the world. Fifty days later, a relatively small church of 3,000, a New Testament Church, was born, just a few decades before the Old Testament Church was destroyed, after having existed for some 2,000 years, since the first Testament was made with Abraham.

Well, now it’s been almost 2,000 years since then, about 1,988 years since 33 AD, when Christ died and rose again and the Church of the New Testament was born. The Christian Church has lasted almost as long as the Church of the Old Testament. And we see it in about as bad a shape as Jerusalem was in when Jesus wept over it. The Church, in its outward form, has become a den of thieves, filled with teachings and practices and activities that only distract from Christ, whether it’s the so-called “speaking in tongues,” or Millennialist teaching, or social justice, or manmade rules, or entertainment based, man-centered worship, and on and on and on. Christians who believe and teach the Gospel rightly, and who use the Sacraments devoutly, according to Christ’s institution, are scattered all over the world, gathering in small pockets here and there. Some we know of, some we don’t. They’re stragglers. They’re a remnant. Jesus looks out at what the Church that bears His name has become in the world, and He weeps, because He knows destruction is coming, and He knows it’s the fault of the preachers who preach lies in His name, and the fault of the Church members whose itching ears have driven them away from His Word and to the nice-sounding-but-deadly doctrines of men.

So it shouldn’t surprise us that there is always turmoil within the Church. It shouldn’t surprise us that church bodies come and go, rise and crumble, that they remain faithful for a while, and then go astray, including Lutheran ones. It’s the history of the whole Church. It’s painful to watch it unfold. And I have often been close to real tears for the downfall and the impending destruction of Christian churches and Lutheran church bodies.

But we learn from Jesus not to be paralyzed by such knowledge or by such pain. We learn that the godly remnant’s survival doesn’t depend at all on the larger church’s survival. It depends only on Christ and His Word. And there will always be a remnant on earth. The only question is, will we be a part of it?

And so we learn from Jesus in the Gospel to do the only things that will still save some, including us.

We learn to drive out the things among us that distract from prayer, from hearing God’s Word, from focusing on the Sacraments. We learn, by daily contrition and repentance, to get rid of things that don’t belong, either in Church, or in our private Christian lives, like false doctrine, like willful sin and pride, like hatred and bitterness, backbiting and cruelty. We learn to toss out man-centered worship practices, and also an overemphasis on politics and public policy, as if the Church existed to fix human society instead of becoming the society that will prosper beyond this world, as this world crumbles.

And we learn to keep teaching the Word of God to all who will hear. Both in the Church and in our private lives as Christians, the Word of God has to take priority, to hear it, to know it, to learn it, to put it into practice, and to support its ministry in the world. The Lord Jesus still sits down in His temple, in His house, in the Holy Christian Church, to teach. Only He now does it through men who have been called by His Spirit, through the Church, to do it. Preachers aren’t Jesus, but, if they are legitimately called by Him and if they teach according to His Word, they are His ambassadors and His instruments for gathering and for preserving the remnant in the world.

Yes, the Church, by and large, is doomed. But we don’t have to be. We can mourn over the downfall of outward Christianity. But we can’t be paralyzed by it. The Lord Jesus has given us all we need to escape the eternal destruction that will come upon the apostate Church. He has given us vital tasks to be doing. And He will continue to give us the strength to do them, through His Word and through His Sacraments. Let us be devoted to using this house of prayer for prayer, and for receiving the instruction and the strength we need to keep doing what needs to be done for the salvation of the remnant in the midst of the Church that is doomed. Amen.

 

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Catechism Review: The Fourth Commandment

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

We’ve quickly run through the first three commandments, sometimes referred to as the First Table (or the first tablet) of the Law. Since Moses received the commandments from God on two stone tablets, we speak of the commandments about love for God—the first three, as we have numbered them—as being the First table and the commandments that deal with our interactions with our neighbor, the other people God has placed in our life, as the Second Table, regardless of how the commandments may have been divided on the original stone tablets.

The first three commandments are about loving God above all things by (1) honoring and worshiping Him alone as God, (2) honoring His name and using it correctly, and (3) honoring His Word and the ministry of it. The other seven commandments are about loving God by doing as He says with regard to our neighbor in some general and some specific ways.

The Fourth Commandment: You shall honor your father and your mother. What does this mean? We should fear and love God, that we do not despise or anger our parents and those in authority over us; but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.

Let’s start with the parents, father and mother, the most basic form of authority God has given on this earth. God designed it into His creation that it takes a man and a woman to come together to have children, gifting to every child both a father and a mother, who are supposed to stay together for life, and to work together, as God’s own representatives in the home, to provide for that child and to raise that child in the “fear and admonition of the Lord,” to care for their child, both body and soul.

Our modern society, as you know, has largely shoved aside God’s design, even promoting homes with a mother only, or a father only, or a father and a “father,” or a mother and a “mother,” or with multiple sets of parents after divorce and remarriage or divorce and living together outside of marriage. But that was not God the Creator’s intention. His design was for children to benefit from both a father and a mother, married to each other for life, living together in the same home. Anything else is either the direct result of sin, or the sad consequence of the sin that has ravaged our world.

In turn, God has revealed His will for all children of all time, that they are to honor their parents, both father and mother.

What does that look like, to “honor your father and your mother”? First the catechism explains what children are not to do. We should not “despise” our parents or “anger” our parents. How might you despise them? By getting angry at them; by thinking evil about them in your heart; or by assuming the worst about them. How might you anger them? By outright disobedience, bad behavior, or rebellion; by obedience that is careless, sluggish, or reluctant; by grumbling or complaining to them or about them behind their back; or by speaking ill of them or showing disrespect toward them. That’s what children are commanded not to do.

What are children commanded to do with their parents? To honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them. Now, each of those words is pretty self-explanatory. To honor is to show them the dignity they deserve as God’s appointed representatives in our homes. That includes our actions (serving them and obeying them), and it includes our attitudes (loving them and cherishing them, respecting them, thinking highly of them). And while the “obedience” part of the commandment only applies to children before they reach adulthood, the “serving” part of honor may become even more necessary as their parents get older, and the “loving” and the “cherishing” parts of honoring their parents apply even after their parents are gone. So even for those of you who no longer have parents around to obey or serve, you can still love and cherish those you had and give thanks to God for them, and rejoice that those who fell asleep in Christ are resting safely with Him in Paradise.

How serious is God about this? This was the civil law in the Old Testament: Everyone who curses his father or mother shall surely be put to death. Or again, If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. Even in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul lists being “disobedient to parents” among the serious sins for which those who practice them deserve death, and, Paul says, the Fourth Commandment came with a promise, “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth,” as God’s extra incentive to get children to obey, because a stable family, with devoted father and mother and with obedient children, is necessary for civilization to remain intact. That’s all too obvious as we see the Biblical concept of family being rejected by the world, which is at the heart of all our culture’s decay.

What if parents don’t deserve your respect or honor? Well, sometimes they don’t. No parent is sinless, and some, sadly, are truly wretched and we don’t have to pretend they aren’t. But their God-given role as parents is still a role that God infuses with honor, and every bit of goodwill and obedience, love and respect that can be given in good conscience should be given. But if your parents tell you to do something that God has forbidden, or command you not to do something that God has required, that’s when “civil disobedience” is called for in the home. As the apostles said to the Jewish authorities when they were commanded not to do what Jesus commanded them to do, namely, to preach the Gospel, “We must obey God rather than men.”

That brings us to the extended application of the Fourth Commandment, where Luther explains that it’s not restricted to honoring your father and your mother, but also those in authority over us. The German uses just one word for all that: “Herren,” lords. We don’t use that word anymore, except for THE Lord, but in German it included everyone in a position of authority over you, from your boss to your king, in the secular realm, and it also included your pastor in the spiritual realm.

The Scriptures back up that extension of the Fourth Commandment. We’re told, especially by St. Paul and St. Peter, to submit to the governing authorities and to honor the king. We’re told by the writer to the Hebrews to Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, to obey them and to be submissive, for they watch over your souls.

Spiritual authorities have a God-given duty to watch over the souls of those entrusted to their care—not unlimited authority, but the authority to teach God’s Word and administer the Sacraments, to rebuke sin, and to forgive it.

Secular authorities have a God-given duty to watch over, not the souls, but the bodies of their subjects, but only in certain ways; they don’t have God-given authority over every aspect of life. According to Scripture, the secular authorities exist to maintain justice, not allowing one person to mistreat or steal from another. The authorities are to ensure the safety of their citizens, that is, to prevent evildoers from harming their person or property, to protect them from foreign and domestic threats. That duty does not extend, by the way, to preventing the spread of disease at all costs; there is not even a hint in Scripture that the government has the authority from God to punish people or to restrain people on the off chance that they may have some disease, the one possible exception being the quarantining of a person who had been formally examined and diagnosed to have leprosy, which had more to do with ceremonial uncleanness than with the prevention of contamination—nothing like the authority we’ve seen the government grant to itself over the past year.

Still, when acting in their God-given roles, the Fourth Commandment extends to authorities in the church and to authorities in the state, and we are all commanded to honor, to serve and obey, to love and cherish those authorities. That certainly also includes praying for them and trying to work together with them for the good of the Church and for the good of society.

Where have you failed to honor? Where have you failed to obey, to serve, to love, or to cherish, in the home, in the Church, or in society? Where have you despised or angered parents or those in authority over you? Are you always careful to defend their honor? Are you always careful to obey? Always eager to love them? To pray for them? A sin against the Fourth Commandment is a sin against the God who put those authorities in place in your life. And so the Fourth Commandment, like the rest, shows us our sin and condemns us in the courtroom of God’s justice.

Which is another reason why only a fool would plead his case before God on the basis of how well he’s obeyed the Law. Our only plea must be, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who honored both His earthly parents and You, His heavenly Father, in my place, and who suffered and died for my dishonor and disobedience! Then, clothed in Christ’s righteousness and having God’s forgiveness, let the Fourth Commandment guide you each day into the new obedience of God’s beloved children, and may He grant us all the wisdom to know when the authorities are acting as God’s representatives, and when not. Amen.

 

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Helping your friends for eternity

Posted on August 1, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 9

1 Corinthians 10:6-13  +  Luke 16:1-9

Often times in Jesus’ parables, He tells a story in order to walk us patiently toward a certain understanding, to draw a certain conclusion. Sometimes, He comes right out and spells out that conclusion for us. That’s what He does in today’s Gospel of the unjust steward. His first hearers had to wait till the end for the conclusion, but since we can read the whole parable now, let’s begin today with the conclusion Jesus draws and the main point He makes, and then go back and see how the parable gets us there.

For the sons of this age are wiser toward their own kind than are the sons of the light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon, so that, when you become destitute, they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings.

What’s the problem Jesus is addressing in the parable of the unjust steward? What’s the sin He wants His people to recognize in themselves, to repent of, and to avoid and correct in the future? Well, He makes a comparison between the sons of this age and the sons of the light.

He calls unbelievers the “sons of this age,” people as they are naturally born, born of the flesh only. They’re the people who live only for this age, whose life centers around getting by in this world, having the best life possible here, enjoying life here. They’re so concerned with this life, in fact, that the threat of a disease, a virus that could end their earthly life “prematurely,” even the minimal threat Hisposed by C-19, makes them willing to upend society and life as we know it (or knew it) in order to preserve their earthly lives at all costs, even if it means trampling on the rights and the freedoms and the beliefs of everyone else. They are the sons of this age, and they will perish with this age.

Christ calls believers the “sons of the light,” those who have been born again, born of water and the Spirit, born of God, who is Light. As St. John says, God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. These are the ones who have come to acknowledge their sins through the preaching of God’s Law and who have come to believe the promise of the Gospel, that God will forgive us and accept us as His own, free of charge, for the sake of Jesus, and through faith alone in Jesus. The sons of the light (which includes both men and women, of course) know better than to live for this life. They know that this life is short, that our lives are in God’s hands, that our goal is not to prosper in this world, but to reach the life that is with God, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. They know that they have to bear difficult temptations in this world, as St. Paul described in today’s Epistle, but that these things are for our good, to teach us, and that God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also create such an outcome that you are able to bear up under it. The sons of the light know that this world, this age, and everything in it is perishing. They know not to cling too tightly to anything here, because here is where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But the Lord has prepared treasures in heaven and a crown of life for those who remain faithful unto death. The saints know that “here” is simply a preparation for the life to come.

But…While the saints, the sons of the light, know all that and believe all that, we can still be influenced and even led astray by our sinful nature, so that we don’t live like that. And so St. Paul pointed to the horrific example of the Israelites, who began as sons of the light, but who gave into idolatry and adultery and ended up dead on the desert floor. Or as Jesus says in the Gospel, The sons of this age are wiser toward their own kind than are the sons of the light. How so? Well, look at the unjust steward, one of the sons of this age, as he deals with his own situation and the people he could affect with his use of mammon, that is, the earthly wealth he had at his disposal, the wealth that turns into a god for so many people.

The steward was a steward. The wealth at his disposal wasn’t his own; it belonged to the owner of the business, to the rich man for whom he worked. Now, whether the steward started out his job as a lazy bum or whether he became that later, we’re not told. He probably started out OK and so kept his job for a while. But he grew lazy, haphazard, careless with his management of the rich man’s wealth and was eventually called to account for it. He knew he deserved to be fired, but he also knew that being fired meant no income for himself, so he would end up begging or finding a job of hard manual labor, neither of which he found very appealing.

So the steward sat down and thought quickly. If the rich man won’t provide me an income anymore, then I’ll have to rely on others to do it. I have the rich man’s wealth at my disposal for a little while longer. How can I use it to make friends who will love me and invite me into their homes and take care of me after the mean rich man fires me? I’ll fudge the books and cancel some of their debt, anywhere from 20% to 50% of what they owe my boss.

Instead of being angry with the steward for basically giving away some of his money, the rich man commended him. Oh, he had lied and cheated and connived and, in effect, stolen from the rich man. The steward didn’t know anything of the cardinal virtue called Justice. But at least he was finally exercising the cardinal virtue called Prudence or wisdom. And, in the end, the rich man, by not firing the steward, would end up getting the credit among his debtors for being so generous with them.

But, Jesus laments, The sons of this age are wiser toward their own kind than are the sons of the light. Unbelievers often use worldly wealth to buy friends for themselves. Some people contribute to charity and give big, public donations to this or that good cause in order to gain favor and influence. Some do it simply for the sake of good karma! Politicians are famous for it, promising everything from debt cancellation to free money or health care or housing in order to buy people’s goodwill and votes. And shamefully, it often works, doesn’t it?

But Christians, who know better than to hoard up things for this life, who know that God has commanded us to love one another as Christians, to be devoted to one another, to live in service to one another, and to do good to all men, often become lazy, or haphazard, or careless about such things. We get wrapped up in our own stuff, we keep padding our wallets and stuffing our pantries and building up our bank accounts, and we don’t even think about using the wealth at our disposal—God’s wealth!— to do favors for fellow Christians, meaningful, substantial gifts that will make a difference in their lives, that will help take care of the earthly needs of those with whom we are to spend eternity, much less using our wealth to benefit those who are not yet Christians, in the hope that we might entice them to listen to the Gospel and so become sons of the light, together with us.

And so Jesus holds this parable before our eyes to bring us to repentance yet again, for our shameful, self-serving stewardship of His things. And to the penitent, Christ again holds out His blood as the price He paid for our mismanagement and apathetic service and calls on us to believe in Him for the forgiveness of all our sins. And then, just as the unjust steward wasn’t fired from his stewardship after proving that he could act wisely after all, so the Lord retains in His service those who have repented of their sins and who are now re-devoted to serving faithfully.

What does that look like? Jesus tells us very simply: I say to you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon, so that, when you become destitute, they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings. God, the Owner, calls on Christians to use their wealth in service to fellow Christians and to those who might become our fellow Christians. Now, that includes your Christian family, of course. And it also includes your offerings given to support your pastor and the ministry that serves our members here. It includes support for other pastors and parishes of our fellowship. It includes a pastor’s family in Colombia, and soon it could include supporting mission work in the jungles of Peru and in other parts of the world. It includes also looking for opportunities to help the unbeliever, so that he may be drawn to hear the Gospel by your acts of kindness.

The point is, the wise manager watches out for laziness and selfishness and worldliness. He seeks to avoid carelessness and apathy about the wealth God has put into his hands. He makes it his daily and primary task to consider, how will I use these material things today, these temporary, passing away things that I have in my hands, to help my brothers and sisters in Christ, or to try to gain new brothers and sisters in Christ with whom I will spend eternity, whose favor and gratitude are worth far more to me than building up a huge nest egg for myself here on earth?

I’ll tell you, dear members at Emmanuel, I see you doing these things in how you provide for me and my family and for the needs of our church, how you’ve provided for Pr. Marin’s family and for others in our diocese when they’ve needed help. I see your willingness to bend over backwards to help one another in a time of need, and if any of you falls on hard times, you should know that you have Christian friends here who will gladly lend a hand. And I’ve seen you just waiting for a good chance, a wise chance, to help anyone and everyone. That help and that desire to help are pleasing to God through Christ Jesus. Just remember, you have enemies in this world—the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh—that will always keep trying to turn your focus away from generosity and back toward selfishness and self-centeredness and the service of mammon. So stay vigilant. Listen to Jesus’ correction and instruction. And become better stewards, day by day, of the abundant wealth the Lord has given us all, to use for His glory and for the eternal benefit of our neighbor. Amen.

 

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The Third Commandment

Posted on July 28, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 8

Our Small Catechism focus this evening is the Third Commandment. As we have it in our Catechism: You shall sanctify the day of rest. 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. Luther’s explanation is short and sweet and blessedly simple. But how we get from the language of the commandment itself to the explanation of it does require some explanation. So let’s review it together this evening.

First of all, why does the Catechism say, “day of rest,” instead of, “Sabbath Day,” as it is in Exodus 20:8? In Exodus, it reads, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Or it could just as well be translated, Remember to sanctify the Sabbath Day. Luther used the word “Sabbath Day” in his German translation of the Bible, but not in his catechism. Why? As a helpful reminder that there is a difference between the Old Testament command and the New Testament observance.

There’s an explanation of the commandment right there in Exodus 20: 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 cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. (Or, “sanctified it.”) The “seventh day,” in Jewish reckoning, was Saturday, and according to their calendar, Saturday begins on our Friday at sunset and lasts until our Saturday at sunset. During that time, the Israelites were to do no regular work.

And this was also part of the Old Testament Sabbath law. God says in Ex. 31: Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. The civil punishment in Israel for breaking that ceremonial law was death. Maybe that jars your memory about the Law of Moses. It included three kinds of law: Civil law, prescribing punishments for certain things; Ceremonial law, prescribing the ceremonies the Israelites had to observe, which included everything from the Sabbath Day, to the sacrifices, to the many special festivals they were required to attend, to the clothes they wore, to the food they ate. The Civil and the Ceremonial laws were only for the people of Israel until the coming Christ. And then there was the Moral law, the commandments that taught right and wrong for all people of all time.

What kind of law is the Third Commandment? Well, Moses already told us that in Exodus 31: And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you… Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever.” The old covenant, or the Old Testament, was between God and the people of Israel. The new covenant, or the New Testament, is for all nations. The Sabbath law itself, like circumcision, like all the Kosher rules, like all the temple sacrifices, was a ceremonial law, detailing one of the many ceremonies Israel was to observe until the Christ came. If there’s any doubt that it has no part in Christ’s New Testament, listen to what St. Paul writes to the Colossians in chapter 2: So 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. The Sabbath law, the part requiring no work to be done on Saturday, was pure ceremonial law, and the punishment for breaking it was outlined in the civil law, neither of which is included in the New Testament.

But there is also Moral law to be found in the Third Commandment, which is why we’re even talking about it today, because the Moral law does still apply to us and to all people. What was the Moral law included in the Third Commandment? In Leviticus 23, it mentions something else that was to be part of the Sabbath day: ‘Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation.’ Or a “sacred assembly.” The people were to gather together for a holy purpose, to assemble around the ministry of the priests to hear God’s Word, to observe the temple rituals, and to pray, praise, and give thanks to the Lord. That’s why there were special sacrifices for the Sabbath day, and a special Psalm, Psalm 92, assigned for the Sabbath Day. That’s why synagogues sprang up after the Babylonian captivity, where Jesus Himself regularly attended to hear the Word of God both read and preached.

That’s how Luther got to his blessedly simple explanation in the Catechism: You shall sanctify the day of rest. 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. Notice, it’s “preaching and His Word,” the preaching done by God’s ministers whom He has sent to read His Word and to preach and teach and explain His Word to His people. Reading and studying the Bible at home is excellent and necessary and part of what it means to keep this commandment. But to despise the gathering together around the preaching of the Word, around the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, is still to break the commandment.

So we have a moral command from God not to despise preaching and His Word. To put it in a positive way, God still commands us to come together regularly as Christians around the ministry of the Word—to hear His Word, to use His Sacraments, to encourage one another, and to pray, and, of course, to do it all “gladly,” from the heart, with true devotion to God and reverence for His Word, as He says through the prophet Isaiah: On this one will I look, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word. Or as Paul writes to the Colossians, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

When should we do all this? Well, in the New Testament, there is no set time or day. Sunday has not replaced Saturday as the day on which no one is to do any work or else be put to death. The Church, early on, where possible, started gathering on Sunday because it was helpful to have a certain time and day to know when to gather. Sunday has been traditionally celebrated as the “Lord’s Day” to commemorate Easter Sunday and the Lord’s resurrection and what it means for us Christians. And it was also helpful early on to have a different day than Saturday, to make it clear that we Christians are heirs of the New Testament, not the Old. But today is Wednesday, and still we are “sanctifying the day of rest” by setting aside this time to come together around the ministry of the Word. It isn’t the day that matters, but our love for and devotion to God’s Word.

As with all the commandments, the Third Commandment, in revealing to us the attitude and the behavior God demands of us with regard to His Word, accuses us all of our sins against God; it shows us how perfectly devoted God commands us to be to preaching and His Word, and so it lays bare our sinful negligence, our distractedness, our half-hearted worship, our love for other things, even the most trivial things, that push preaching and God’s Word onto the back burner, or out the door.

And so the Third Commandment, like the rest, shows us our sin and threatens God’s wrath on all who have failed to show perfect devotion to God’s Word & the holy ministry of it. So repent and trust in Christ, whose perfect devotion to God’s Word and whose flawless worship will be counted to all who believe in Him. Remember, Sabbath means “rest.” And it was part of the ceremonial law that pointed to Christ, the true Rest-Giver, who did all the work for us to earn God’s favor and a place in heaven. To teach us to trust in Christ, to rest from our works, was the chief purpose of the Sabbath all along, as the writer to the Hebrews says: There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.

Only then, as you rest in Christ by faith and know God’s love and forgiveness and acceptance for His sake, let the Third Commandment guide you, as God’s dear children, children of the New Testament in Christ’s blood, to truly hold God’s Word sacred, and to gladly hear and learn it. Amen.

 

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Learning to drink the cup of Christ

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of St. James the Elder

Romans 8:28-39  +  Matthew 20:20-23

All twelve of the apostles were given a privileged place among our race; they were all called directly by Jesus, and they all got to sit at the feet of God and learn from Him directly for three years. But St. James was one of the privileged few, together with Peter and John, who also got to accompany Jesus on special occasions, like the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the transfiguration, and as Jesus’ close circle of friends in the Garden of Gethsemane. James and his brother John were likely cousins of Jesus, according to the flesh, which was in itself a great honor. James and John were fishing partners in their “former life,” the sons of Zebedee, and together they received the nickname from Jesus, Boanerges, which means the “sons of thunder.” James is never mentioned separately from his brother John; even when he was finally put to death by Herod, Luke writes that Herod killed “James the brother of John.” He was the first apostle to be martyred and the only one whose death is actually recorded in Scripture, so that we know with absolute certainty how it happened. That was how his earthly story ended, with the ultimate witness of faith, with the glory of martyrdom, with the willingness to die for Jesus.

Our encounter with St. James in today’s Gospel is less glorious. He and his brother John were overcome with selfish ambition, even as they were just about to enter Jerusalem for Holy Week, after Jesus had told them all that He was about to be mocked, scourged, and crucified. James and John, with their mother’s help, approach Jesus with this request: Let these two sons of mine sit in your kingdom, one at your right hand, and the other at the left.

Now, first of all, let’s understand what they were asking for. Throughout Scripture, sitting at the right hand of a king in his kingdom means having a position of honor and of power second only to the king himself, and sitting at his left was almost just as good. We already know all this, of course, because we confess in the creeds that Jesus sits at the right hand of God, that He was given that ultimate position of honor and authority after conquering sin and death. So, while James and John certainly recognized that Jesus deserved the highest honor, they thought they deserved the second and third highest, maybe because of their family ties to Jesus, or because they were singled out for those special events, or simply because they were the first to ask. And they figured this was the time to ask, because they were just about to enter Jerusalem for the Passover, and, in spite of what Jesus said about His going there to suffer and die, they apparently thought He was really going there to establish His visible, glorious kingdom on earth, once and for all.

You do not know what you are asking, Jesus told them. They had envisioned, as people still do today, a glorious earthly kingdom, where Christ reigns visibly and where His people flourish, where His disciples prosper all the time, where liars and cheaters and impenitent scoundrels are defeated, where truth prevails over falsehood, where the unjust suffering of Christians is a thing of the past. But You don’t know what you’re asking. This “kingdom” they had envisioned isn’t the kingdom Christ came to bring to earth. Oh, it will come, but only after this long age of the New Testament is done. For James and John, there was a lot of suffering and earthly defeat to be faced first.

Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and to be baptized with the baptism that I will undergo? This is the first time Jesus mentions drinking this cup, the same cup about which He eventually prayed in the Garden, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup be taken from Me.” But it wasn’t possible, and so, after praying, He asked, “Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?” It’s the cup of suffering that God would pour for His beloved Son to drink, willingly, obediently, and fatally. As for this “baptism,” there are three kinds of Baptism that Jesus talks about in the New Testament. There is the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, the washing of water with the Word. There is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire, which took place on the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out on the Church; that baptism was tied to the Sacrament of Baptism from that day on. And then there’s this baptism, this pouring out of suffering, this being washed in blood and in death that Jesus would have to undergo.

Are you able to drink that cup and be baptized with that baptism? Jesus asked the brothers. Because that’s how Christ would earn the right, as our human Redeemer, to sit on His throne, by drinking the cup and being baptized with that suffering and death. We are, they said. Of course, they didn’t even know what the cup or the baptism was; they didn’t know what they were claiming to be able to do. But they were sure they could do it, as their pride mingled with their ignorance.

You will indeed drink my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I undergo. “Even though you don’t know what it means now, you will. You will be My witnesses, and that means you will be treated as I am treated. You’ll drink the cup of the world’s hatred and injustice and mistreatment, just as I will. You already share in My Baptism in the sacramental sense, so you will also share in the baptism of My suffering.”

But to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give; it will be given to those for whom it is prepared by my Father. Even the Son of God, who is equal with the Father according to His divinity, defers to His Father as the One who chooses whom to exalt and whom to humble. If Jesus doesn’t take that authority for Himself, then James and John (and you and I) have absolutely no business seeking glory or privilege for themselves or for ourselves. It’s My Father’s business, Jesus tells them, whom to glorify, not yours. Your only business is to be faithful.

And they did prove faithful. James and John humbled themselves before Jesus’ gentle rebuke. They repented of their sinful, selfish ambition, trying to exalt themselves above their fellow Christians and even above their brothers in the apostolic office. They humbled themselves and resigned themselves to drink whatever cup the Father should pour for them. Yes, James became the first to drink it and to be baptized with martyrdom as his blood was shed by King Herod. And the two brothers, James and John, who were never separated in Scripture ended up being separated more than any other apostles, with James being the first of them to die and John being the last, so that their deaths were like bookends of the apostolic era, almost as if one were sitting at Jesus’ right hand and the other at His left.

What do we learn from the example of James? We see in St. James an example of a faithful and devoted follower of Jesus who was not immune to selfish ambition and pride, but who also humbled himself when rebuked, who trusted in Christ for forgiveness, who confessed Christ in the world, and who willingly drank the cup that God the Father poured for him.

Watch out for that pride and ambition in yourselves, thinking you deserve a place of honor in God’s kingdom — or a place at all! — because of how faithfully you’ve followed, trying to exalt yourself above your fellow Christian. You know the example that Jesus set for us all, of humble service that put the needs of everyone above His own, who never sought glory for Himself, but was glorified by His Father precisely because He didn’t seek His own glory, who did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Your place in heaven depends on Jesus and faith in Jesus, not on how well you’ve served here on earth.

What about that cup that James so willingly drank? You and I will have one, too, whether it’s martyrdom or some other cross to bear. How does all this fit with what St. Paul wrote in today’s Epistle? We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. How can a cup of suffering and a baptism of death work together for good?

Well, we tend to make some terrible assumptions. That every painful thing is a curse, that suffering is to be avoided at all costs, that death is always a tragedy, or a failure, or a loss. We think that the real blessing from the Lord is to avoid suffering, to be raised up to a position of joy and happiness and special privileges without going through the turmoil and the pain. That’s what James and John thought, too, in that infamous moment of weakness.

But they were wrong, and they eventually learned the truth as they watched Jesus willingly suffer and die, that God uses the suffering, self-sacrifice, and service of His children to accomplish His good purposes for His children, that God is always ruling the events and the outcomes in this world so that everything does turn out for the good of each one of His children, and most importantly, that not even death will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The death of a Christian is not a tragedy, but a victory, just as Christ’s death turned out to be.

So learn to drink that cup of Christ, whenever that moment comes, to suffer for His name, to serve humbly, to trust boldly. And give thanks today for St. James, whose service in the apostolic office was the shortest of all the apostles, but whose willingness to drink the cup of Christ gave him a privileged place among our race, and in the Church, and has become a pattern for all Christians who share the same hope in the same Lord Jesus. Amen.

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