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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. This is Pastor Wolf Muller, and you're listening to the Sunday drive to church for June 2, the year of our Lord 2024, the first Sunday in the Trinity season or the first Sunday after Trinity.
[00:00:15] Today's episode of Sunday Drive to church is coming to you from Oxford, where I just woke up Sunday morning. So you're all probably in the middle of your dreams. Tonight. We're heading down to Fareham on the south coast of England for church there. Be wonderful. I'll be able to report back in a couple of weeks, but we're praying for you and that you'll have a glorious, blessed day in the Lord's mercy. Thinking about the scriptures and the hymns today, the theme is really the Sabbath. The gospel lesson, which is from the end of Mark chapter two and the beginning of Mark chapter three, is about two controversies on the Sabbath day. We'll talk about it more in a little bit, but that really sets the theme for the hymns, for the other scripture readings. In fact, the Old Testament is the Sabbath day commandment from deuteronomy. Again, more on that, but also the collect. So we'll start with the collect today, and you'll hear this Sabbath theme come up in it. Let us pray.
[00:01:17] Eternal God, your son Jesus Christ, is our true Sabbath rest.
[00:01:22] Help us to keep each day holy by receiving his word of comfort, that we may find our rest in him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit. One God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:01:37] I sort of want to start at the end with the gospel lessons today and work backwards because it's beautiful text. Psalm 81, deuteronomy, five second corinthians, four, mark two and three. So here's the first controversy. It starts with mark 223. And amazing, really, to think of how Mark front loads these Sabbath controversies.
[00:02:00] And so there's a couple of things that mark, well, just thinking about the gospel of Mark, and we'll be getting a lot of mark, I mean, I think starting now, all the way through the summer, we're basically working our way through Mark. And so it's good to think about this, the Sabbath controversies, which come later in Matthew, Luke, and even in John, the demonic controversy. So the spiritual warfare aspects come later in Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke both have the baptism, sorry, the birth of Jesus.
[00:02:36] Matthew has the flight to Egypt. Luke has the birth narrative that we're used to hearing at Christmas. John has the prologue, talking about the eternal nature of Christ. Mark is right into it at the baptism of Jesus. That's where he starts.
[00:02:49] And he wants to get these things on our radar really quickly. And so spiritual warfare is one of those things. And the Sabbath controversy is another one of those things. So this is already in Mark, chapter two, verse 23. It happened that he went through the grain fields on the Sabbath.
[00:03:09] And as they went, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees said, look what they're doing on the Sabbath. This is where Jesus says.
[00:03:18] The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore, the son of man is lord of the Sabbath. And then he enters into the synagogue, probably in Capernaum.
[00:03:28] And there's a man with a withered hand. And they're watching him so closely. Because they know that Jesus can't help himself from doing good and healing and blessing people. But it's the Sabbath day. And they think, well, you're not supposed to do that kind of work on the Sabbath.
[00:03:43] And Jesus knows that they're watching him. And listen what it says.
[00:03:47] It says, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts.
[00:03:52] He said to the man, stretch out your hand.
[00:03:55] So that Jesus is upset with the Pharisees here. Who were forbidden to do good on the Sabbath day. And then look at verse six, the last verse. The Pharisees went out immediately plotted with the Herodians against him. How they might destroy him. And so it's Jesus healing the man on the Sabbath.
[00:04:13] When the Pharisees see that healing of the man on the Sabbath. That then they plot to kill him. This is. There's a lot here. But one of the things is to remember that the Pharisees, many of them, knew that Jesus was special. They could see that he could perform miracles. And that not only was not motivation for them to worship him or follow him, but the opposite. In fact, that's what motivated their opposition to him.
[00:04:41] We think the Pharisees were the enemies of Jesus. Because they didn't believe. Really, they were the enemies. Because they did believe that he was the messiah. But they didn't believe in him. They believed that, but not in.
[00:04:53] Now, all of this is to give our attention. To the mystery of the Sabbath day. Which Jesus says here is made for man. And not man for the Sabbath. In other words, it's a blessing to us. And this has to do with the nature of the Sabbath day. So now, turning to the deuteronomy text. We'll notice a couple of interesting things here.
[00:05:13] The ten commandments are given to us in deuteronomy five and Exodus chapter 20. So deuteronomy means the second law that's the big sermon of Moses where he's preaching to the second generation, to those who were born in the wilderness, or to those who didn't die in the wilderness. All those who were younger than a soldier's age when they went out of Egypt, because remember, everyone who was of age when they left Egypt died in the wilderness because of the unbelief. When the spies came back, that's why they had to wander. And now this is the second generation, and they're going into the land, and moses is right there preaching on the edge, and he's reminding them of all the things that the Lord has done. That's deuteronomy. And in deuteronomy chapter five, Moses is preaching the Ten Commandments. What's very interesting is to compare the list of ten commandments in Exodus chapter 20 with Deuteronomy chapter five. The first thing that kind of jumps out of us is the different ordering of the commandments at the end. EXodus says, you shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not covet your neighbor's workers, animals, etCetera. Deuteronomy reverses the order and says, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's workers.
[00:06:28] So the order of house and wife is switched. In deuteronomy. It's the difference between the lutheran and catholic numbering of the commandments. By the way, the Lutherans, we follow the Exodus 20, ordering house, then wife. The Catholics follow the deuteronomy five, ordering wife, then house, so they understand the 9th commandment, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. As a intensification of the 6th commandment, you shall not commit adultery. And then the 10th commandment, your neighbor's house workers, is an intensification of the 7th commandment, you shall not steal, which is nice. We look at it in the deuteronomy ordering of things, and we say that the 10th command, the 9th commandment, your neighbor's house, has to do with the structures of law and doing right, doing wrong under the guise of right.
[00:07:20] And then the 10th commandment, has to do with everything that your neighbor has that has legs, your neighbor's wife, your neighbor's workers, your neighbor's animals. So that has to do with enticement. In other words, you can tempt them to come over here and they can walk all on their own, so you can get away with it, because it's not your fault. Anyway, no matter. The other thing that doesn't jump off the page but should be interesting to note in the difference of the Ten Commandments is when it comes to the third commandment, you should remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Why the Lord gives rationale for remembering the Sabbath day. And in Exodus chapter 20, he says, because I created the world in six days, and on the 7th day I rested so that the Lord ties the Sabbath day back to creation. But listen what you'll hear in a few minutes in deuteronomy, chapter five. It's very interesting. 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. The 7th day is a 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 strangers within your gates, that your male servants and your female servants may rest as well as you. 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, so that the Sabbath rest in deuteronomy is connected to the exodus, and especially to the Lord removing the people from the office of slavery. You do not work seven days a week. You rest. You are a restful people, which means you're not slaves. Even the slaves are not slaves. You're manservant, maid servant. They're resting on the Sabbath as well. So interesting that the Sabbath day is connected first of all to creation and then to redemption, first to the Lord creating the world in six days and the resting on the 7th, and then the Lord rescuing his people from Egypt. We're going to see that parallel in the epistle lesson as well. But we'll note that the Sabbath commandment is, again, it's a strange, it's something of a mysterious commandment. The Lord and all the other commandments is telling us what to do or not to do, defining the limits of our activity and compelling us to love and serve God and the neighbor. But here we have, in the middle of all these ten commandments, a command to not do anything, a command to stop, a command to rest.
[00:09:59] Luther identifies this rightly, as part of the ceremonial law. So remember, when we read the laws of the Old testament, we see that some are moral, how everybody all the time is supposed to live. Some of them are civil, how the people of Israel are supposed to govern their life together, and some of them are ceremonial, how Israel is to worship and practice their faith. And while the ten commandments are mostly moral law, this is how everybody always ought to live. The third commandment, remember, the Sabbath day is part of the ceremonial law. In other words, it's part of worship. It's in fact, defining worship. And in that way, it's speaking to us less about our love for the neighbor and more about our faith in God.
[00:10:46] So there's a rest for the people of God. The Sabbath day is teaching us that salvation is not about works. But when it comes to worshiping God, what the Lord is after is rest.
[00:11:00] Jesus will preach the Sabbath like this. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you Sabbath rest so that our salvation is not from doing, but from stopping the doing and letting the Lord be the one who's doing the work.
[00:11:17] And the Sabbath is pointing to this. Now, there's a mysterious verse in Hebrews that says, let us labor to enter into that rest.
[00:11:26] And that seems funny to us, that we have to work to rest. But I suppose in some ways we know that that's true. But on the spiritual level, that's really true. The labor that happens from the pulpit at St. Paul when Pastor Leblanc is up there preaching today, and when the scriptures are being read and when you're going there to believe this, this is working to rest.
[00:11:47] We're laboring so that we would lay down all our efforts at salvation and trust in what the Lord is doing.
[00:11:56] And so this is pointing us to the gospel, pointing us to the kindness of God, pointing us to the generosity of Jesus, pointing us away from ourselves and our own words works, and towards the mercy and kindness of God. Now, this is reflected, this twofold pattern of rest because of creation and rest because of redemption is reflected in our epistle lesson, which is an amazing text. This text, in fact, is the text that Pastor Warren Graff preached when I was ordained, oh, back in 1807, or whatever that was.
[00:12:32] This is. And it talks about how we're stewards. We carry these lights in clay vessels. But listen to chapter, sorry, second corinthians, chapter four, verse six.
[00:12:47] For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who is shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
[00:13:00] So the Lord is the one who said, let there be light, and there was light. That same Lord is the one who spoke faith into your heart and into mine.
[00:13:12] To give the light to the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, to teach us his love and his kindness in Christ Jesus our Lord. So we have this again. This parallel of the one who creates is the one who redeems. And the work of the Lord in the beginning is the work that he's doing in us now, when we speak of creation, we speak of creation out of nothing, creatio ex nihilo, that God made everything out of nothing.
[00:13:38] If you want to find that doctrine in Luther, it's amazing. You can't find it talking about creation, Genesis one. You can only find it talking about redemption, how the Lord saves us by the word alone. So there's nothing that he works with in our own hearts. It comes as a completely unique work of God to save and to deliver us.
[00:14:03] In the Magnificat, Luther talks about how mary, my soul, magnifies the Lord. He exalts the lowly, the Lord, he saves us out of nothing. And so it's true. The same God who spoke and the light leapt into existence is the one who spoke the gospel, and saving faith leaps to existence in our own heart.
[00:14:24] Now, Paul then goes into this parallel, which is amazing to talk about how because they're christians, they're suffering, in fact, because they're apostles. And he has this list, this but not that. This but not that. He says, we have this treasure in earthen vessels.
[00:14:43] We are jars of clay, but in the jar is the burning light. Remember Gideon, when the Lord had the torches and they had them in the clay pots? That's how we are. The spirit is in us. We're this mortal clay stuff, but the spirit is in us. And then he says, we're hard pressed on every side but not crushed. Hard pressed, not crushed. Perplexed, not in despair. Persecuted but not forsaken. Struck down but not destroyed. This is the life of the Christian. Really amazing. The hymn of the week. To round off the conversation, here is this ode to the Sabbath day by Christopher Wordsworth. Here's an interesting character, Christopher Wordsworth. I know a little bit about him because I found his New Testament commentaries some years ago, I think 1870 or 60, they were published and they're out of publication. And so I went to republish them. I use them all the time. They're brilliant. I don't know why it's not more well known, but Christopher Wordsworth was the nephew of William Wordsworth, the famous english poet. And Christopher was in fact the one who was in charge of Wordsworth's poems and estates and stuff like this. But he was a theologian and a poet in his own right. He was a bishop in the anglican church. He wrote commentaries on the entire Bible. He wrote a beautiful commentary on the Greek New Testament, very conservative. And he's part of the, he's resisting the early liberal progressive moves that are starting to take shape in Germany and the continent. He's fighting against them constantly. In a scholarly way, it's great. But he's written this hymn, o day of rest and gladness, as an ode to Sunday. And this is one of the nice things about the Sunday drive to church, I suppose, as we get to think about this poem, this hymn before you're singing it, because it could use some unpacking. It says, o day of rest and gladness. What day is that? Well, that's the Sabbath day. But we celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday, the day of the resurrection. Listen to what he says. O day of joy and light. O balm of care and sadness, most beautiful, most bright this day, the high and lowly, though angels joined through angels joined to bless. Sing, holy, holy, holy. The triune God confessed. In other words, everybody from every estate, high and low, rich and poor, sick and well, all gathered together on this day for the light of the Lord's word and to sing, holy, holy, holy. You guys will. We're singing it over here now, 6 hours later, you guys are gonna sing it over there.
[00:17:15] England, Austin, all around the world, the church gathers together to sing this angelic song, holy, holy, holy. And then listen to stanza two, where Wordsworth is gonna go through all the cool things about Sunday. This day at earth's creation, the light first had its birth.
[00:17:29] So remember, Sunday is the first day of the week. It's the day that the Lord said, let there be light.
[00:17:34] This day for our salvation. Christ rose from depths of earth. Sunday is the day that Jesus was risen from the dead.
[00:17:42] This day, our Lord victorious, the spirit sent from heaven. Jesus ascended into heaven, and he sends forth the spirit on Pentecost, which was also on a Sunday, 50 days after the resurrection, I guess 50. Yeah, 50 days, so. And thus, this day, most glorious, a threefold light was given. The light, let there be light, the light of the resurrection and the light of the Holy Spirit. So that creation, redemption, and sanctification all have their grand events on Sunday.
[00:18:12] This day, God's people meeting the holy scripture here, his living presence, greeting through bread and wine made near, we journey on believing, renewed with heavenly might from grace, more grace receiving on this blessed day of light. So we gather to hear the word to receive the body and the blood and the Lord blesses us in these things this day this light our hope sustaining we walk the pilgrim way at length our rest attaining our endless Sabbath day so that this day is pointing to the last day it's pointing to the day of the resurrection of all flesh. It's pointing to the day when it won't be a sabbath day one day of the week but it'll be a sabbath that never ever ends we sing to thee our praises o Father, spirit, son the church her voice upraises to thee blessed three in one. What a hymn. So we rejoice this day that the Lord spoke let there be light that the Lord came out of the grave that the Lord sent the spirit and that he continues to send the spirit and the word to give us life and joy and hope and peace.
[00:19:11] God be praised. Well, there you go. Sunday drive to church. We're praying for you. Pray for us. God's peace be with.