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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Old Testament reading. You may be seated. So, what day of the week is the Sabbath? The day of the week that really is the Sabbath is Saturday. So the whole reason we don’t worship on a Saturday isn’t because we’re trying to be rebellious. It’s because Jesus also rested on the Saturday when he stayed in the tomb. And he rose from the dead on a Sunday, the first day of the week. Also the eighth day of the week. The new creation.
But Saturday was the Sabbath. Sunday is not your Sabbath rest. It is what God has given to the church, the freedom to choose, but it is not commanded. That Sunday is the day. We have chosen that day as a church because it is our day of victory. It is our day of new life that came from old and dead. So when God first created the world and began with the six days of creation, Sunday through Friday, and then He did not need to physically rest because he had no body and he was not encumbered by tiredness.
When God created the world in those six days, He gave a seventh-day rest not so that man could check a block and fulfill a requirement, but so that man could receive from God his gifts. It has great application for God after the fall. All through man’s existence since the fall in the garden, man has had to work and has had to, by the sweat of his brow, feed himself and his family and had to be at the mercy of weather, bugs, disease, fires, and so forth. You don’t work, you don’t eat.
So the temptation for man, given that this is our life in this world, is to fear… That we won’t have enough, and so we don’t take that time to receive God’s gifts of spiritual rest, which is what the Sabbath was meant for, and instead devote ourselves to working more. Well, we’re far removed from that. And unless you grew up near a farm, I don’t even think there’s a farmer within our entire congregation. The concept of… Cows to be milked and chores to be done because if you didn’t, your livelihood would die. It’s hard for us to kind of grasp that.
On the other hand, when we don’t take the time to receive God’s gifts when His people gather, we show ourselves to be slaves to this world and its desires. Why do I say that? Scripture says this in the Old Testament reading. Before God says, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day, He gives the reason why they should. Listen again for the reason why the people of Israel should keep the Sabbath day. He says, you shall remember. You were a slave in the land of Egypt.
Did the Israelites have the ability to take a day off when they worked for the Egyptians? Yes. No, the Egyptians were wanting to get what they wanted out of them because they were slaves. They had no will of their own. The temptation for the Israelites, now that they had God’s feeding of them, they didn’t have to work for the manna, other than gathering it. They didn’t have to work for the quail, other than gathering it. There was no fear of not being fed. Now they had free time, leisure. Why fill that with… God, when I could fill it with myself?
Well, if I fill it with myself, I have enslaved myself again to this creation. So think about that. When he says to the Israelites, you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, he’s really saying, you shall remember that you were a slave to this world and its passions. I freed you with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Amen. Now, I freed you with that mighty hand and outstretched arm, but it didn’t look like the pillar of fire by night or a pillar of cloud by day. What it looked like was that arm and that hand. That’s what your freedom came by.
And I freed you so that you could dominate creation. You could subdue creation and not be subdued by creation and not be dominated by this world and its passions. So you know what it looks like to have rest for your body. Easy. A kid would say, well, what’s rest for your body? The kid would say, stop working. That’s right. What’s rest for your soul look like? It’s the ceasing of struggling with your sins. It’s having them taken off of your shoulders and laying upon His.
It’s being fed the bread and blood and body and cup of Christ Jesus’ forgiveness that you may be cleansed with the medicine of immortality, you and I who are dying daily. That’s what rest for your soul looks like. Was it not Jesus who said, take my yoke upon you and you shall find rest for your soul? It looks like sin’s forgiven is what it looks like. But boy does Satan and boy does your flesh easily listen to the temptations of something else to fill that time with.
When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, give us this day our daily bread, we’re praying for tomorrow’s daily bread? Nope. We’re praying for today’s daily bread. So as I prayed in the colic, which is on the front of your bulletin, and you can reread it at another time, when I prayed in that colic, our rest is found in Jesus Christ daily. Yes, we gather here weekly. That is the church’s practice and has been. But you also have time every day to receive God’s gifts for the benefit of rest for your soul.
Now, all of you grew up and have trouble sometimes coming to church because mom and dad made you get up, made you come to church, and some of you grumble and gripe about what was given to you, and yet I can tell you that there are some of your members who cry with tears, cry with tears to my face because they can’t be here anymore. Because the only thing that matters to them is they can get their rear in those hard pews for an hour to hear God’s Word and receive His gifts, and they can’t. But you can. It’s perspective, isn’t it? We take it for granted, like all gifts. Gifts are taken for granted. He comes to give you gifts.
The Sabbath was never meant for you to fulfill, which is why Jesus said in the Gospel reading, the Sabbath was not made for… That you could fulfill it. The Sabbath was made for you to rest, to receive His gifts. And as we said, what does rest for your soul look like but receiving forgiveness for your sins? Even Jesus, with all the dying souls that He could be saving and healing, took time for Sabbath rest with His disciples.
He also, as the Gospel reading said, said, because of that same Sabbath rest, they had to go pick grain off of the grain of the wheat to eat for the breakfast of the day, maybe. But that was their body. And it was the same Jesus who, when tempted by Satan in the wilderness, said this, that God had already said it in the Old Testament, man does not live by bread alone, but by Christ. Every word that comes from the mouth of God, which is where your spiritual Sabbath and rest is all about. You receiving His gifts.
It’s a picture. This time that we carve out and have agreed upon to gather, it’s a picture of heaven. Because heaven is going to be complete and total rest. Rest. What was Adam and Eve’s existence like before they took the fruit of the tree? Their life was one of nothing but rest. Only after sin came into the world did their life of rest end. There’s always more money to be made. There’s always more fish to catch. There’s always more house chores to take care of. There’s always more balls to hit at the golf course. There’s always more sleep to catch.
But there’s only one place in your entire week where His body and blood is given to you to eat and drink and find rest for your souls. Luther’s meaning to the third commandment, if you go back to that, is so profound. We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word. He’s not saying that to guilt you. Although many kids can think that. I better go to church. Think of what I just told you about the shut-ins. They would bawl to be able physically to sit in that hard pew because they know what they’re going to receive from God’s preaching and His Word. His gifts! His gifts!
The Sabbath rest is not a requirement to fulfill on your part. It is an opportunity to be filled. That’s the purpose. That’s why he not only said, despise preaching at his word, but added, gladly hear and learn it. Because that’s our Sabbath rest, His word and sacraments. That’s what feeds your soul. We’re so blessed in this country to not have to get up at sunrise and work until there’s no more light because that’s the only way we can live. We’ve actually got time that we call leisure time.
One of the first things that I learned after getting out of the seminary with a family and a church was, I really had a lot more time than I thought I did. All it took was me disciplining myself with it. To have time to make the day holy with a devotion. To receive His gifts in reading His Word. To express to Him what I need for the day in the prayer that He gives me to pray. It’s not a requirement that looms over your head, but a gift.
That is why Jesus truly is your Sabbath rest. And Augustine said it so well, “A soul does not find rest unless it finds rest in Thee, O Lord, alone.” Because there is where forgiveness is found. In Jesus, your Sabbath rest. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life eternal. Amen.