20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

When we focus on the promise, we don't fall into the trap of legalism. The focus isn't on what we can't do, it's on what we can do. Jesus frees us to invest our Sabbaths to be renewed in body, mind and spirit. Our American individualism sometimes encourages us to be 'lone eagle' Christians and think we can do it on our own, without regular fellowship. That's not the Biblical model. We join together weekly, as Hebrews 10:25 says, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. That's why we sanctify the Sabbath.

So, how much can I work on Sunday? How many hours can I work? Can I cut the grass? -Those kinds of questions keep going back to focusing on my 'remembering'- if we keep focusing on the Gospel- How can I be most open to hearing God's Word? How can I join with my neighbor in prayer? How can I serve my neighbor for their good? If I have availed myself of God's Word, and made that the focus, the rest will fall into place. Am I receiving adequate rest so I can continue to serve my neighbor? Those become the Gospel questions that then carry us, not drive us, to a higher sense of Christ's freedom.

Freedom, it's one of the quick tests of the Gospel- freedom, balance, grace, love- those are the hallmarks of the Gospel. That's what Jesus showed us healing on the Sabbath. Jesus invites you to live in that freedom- Invitation, Amen.

Lent 3 - March 23, 2003

Exodus 31:12-18

Then the LORD said to Moses, [13] "Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.

[14] " 'Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people. [15] For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death. [16] The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. [17] It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.' "

[18] When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.

Col. 2:8-17

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

[9] For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, [10] and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. [11] In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, [12] having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

[13] When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, [14] having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. [15] And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

[16] Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. [17] These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

John 5:2-18

Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. [3] Here a great number of disabled people used to lie--the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [5] One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. [6] When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

[7] "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

[8] Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." [9] At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, [10] and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat."

[11] But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'"

[12] So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?"

[13] The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

[14] Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." [15] The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

[16] So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. [17] Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." [18] For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Vol 51, p.338

Let this be said with regard to the beginning of this Gospel concerning the Sabbath and how and why and to what extent we Christians should make use of it, namely, that we are to come together at a time and place which we are agreed upon, deal with and listen to God's Word, bring to God our ordinary and unusual needs and those of others and thus launch up to heaven a strong, effectual prayer, and also together laud and praise God's goodness with thanksgiving. And of this we know that it is the right service and worship of God, a service which is well-pleasing to him and in which he himself is present. We know that we need not build any special church or temple at great cost or burden and that we are not necessarily bound to any place or time, but have been granted liberty to do this whenever, wherever, and as often as we are able and are agreed together. We know that, just as we are always obliged in our whole Christian life to use our liberty in these external things in love and for the service of our neighbor, so in this matter also we should be in harmony and conformity with others.

Secondly, we see how Christ rebukes the Jews for their blindness and puts to shame those who would censure and cavil at him, and demonstrates to them by their own example how the Sabbath may be used in freedom according to our own and our neighbor's need. For here is where they began to argue with him about his healing the dropsical man, accusing him of breaking the Sabbath, imagining that now they had really hit home. Just as before, in the thirteenth chapter of Luke [13:11-17], when Christ healed in the synagogue on the Sabbath a poor woman who for eighteen years had walked bent over, the ruler of the synagogue, or, as we would say, the parson, rose up and spoke to the congregation, "Where are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day," when one should rest and not do any work. With that speech he felt he had administered a severe rebuke to Christ, whom, however, he did not dare to address to his face.

But he gave him a proper answer, which made his and his adherents' faces red and put them to silence: "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger, and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" [Luke 13:15-16]. And here again he says the same thing: "Which of you, having an ass or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" What he really wanted to say to them in our plain German was: You are just plain oxen and asses yourselves and even more stupid than those you untie, and it may well be that the ass can read better than you can, and the ox might lead you to school, for he can well teach you to untie him when he is thirsty and to water him on the Sabbath, or to pull him out of the well if he has fallen into it, so that he will not perish. Can't you understand or learn how much more necessary it is to help a person when he needs help? No, you are such utter blockheads that you even forbid anybody to help a person when he is in distress, even though you yourselves would not allow your cattle to go unhelped in even less distress. For your ox or cow would not die of thirst so quickly, even though you did not water them on the Sabbath, but yet you think that you must not let them suffer thirst for the Sabbath's sake. You therefore have far more regard for the need of a dumb animal than that of a man, who is your neighbor, created alter God's image, and Whom you have been commanded by God to love, since he says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" [Luke 10:27].

Beloved, put it on the scales and weigh it according to God's Word. You consider that it would be a great lack of mercy not to lead your cattle to water when they are thirsty; and yet you are the kind of devil who leaves in a lurch a man, to whom, according to God's commandment, you owe love and kindness and even your own life, and still you insist you are right in the bargain and want to punish me for helping a sick person. Yet you would want somebody to help you on the Sabbath if you were in need, and you would not like it or consider it good if your neighbor let you stick and then started debating about the Sabbath, as you are doing now against your neighbor, and then wanted to be considered a great saint, imagining that you have kept the Sabbath well. You don't understand what the Sabbath is or how it is to be kept; even your cow and your ass is wiser here than you, you scribes, who teach you what you should do to them in need, when they ought to be teaching you what you should do toward your neighbor.

Luther, M. (1999, c1959). Vol. 51: Luther's works, vol. 51 : Sermons I (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (Vol. 51, Page 338-340). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

The Third Commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." I learn from this, first of all, that the Sabbath day has not been instituted for the sake of being idle or indulging in worldly pleasures, but in order that we may keep it holy. However, it is not sanctified by our works and actions--our works are not holy--but by the word of God, which alone is wholly pure and sacred and which sanctifies everything that comes in contact with it, be it time, place, person, labor, rest, etc. According to St. Paul, who says that every creature is consecrated by word and prayer, I Timothy 4 [:5], our works are consecrated through the word. I realize therefore that on the Sabbath I must, above all, hear and contemplate God's word. Thereafter I should give thanks in my own words, praise God for all his benefits, and pray for myself and for the whole world. He who so conducts himself on the Sabbath day keeps it holy. He who fails to do so is worse than the person who works on the Sabbath.

Second, I thank God in this commandment for his great and beautiful goodness and grace which he has given us in the preaching of his word. And he has instructed us to make use of it, especially on the Sabbath day, for the meditation of the human heart can never exhaust such a treasure. His word is the only light in the darkness of this life, a word of life, consolation, and supreme blessedness. Where this precious and saving word is absent, nothing remains but a fearsome and terrifying darkness, error and faction, death and every calamity, and the tyranny of the devil himself, as we can see with our own eyes every day.

Third, I confess and acknowledge great sin and wicked ingratitude on my part because all my life I have made disgraceful use of the Sabbath and have thereby despised his precious and dear word in a wretched way. I have been too lazy, listless, and uninterested to listen to it, let alone to have desired it sincerely or to have been grateful for it. I have let my dear God proclaim his word to me in vain, have dismissed the noble treasure, and have trampled it underfoot. He has tolerated this in his great and divine mercy and has not ceased in his fatherly, divine love and faithfulness to keep on preaching to me and calling me to the salvation of my soul. For this I repent and ask for grace and forgiveness.

Fourth, I pray for myself and for the whole world that the gracious Father may preserve us in his holy word and not withdraw it from us because of our sin, ingratitude, and laziness. May he preserve us from factious spirits and false teachers, and may he send faithful and honest laborers into his harvest [Matt. 9:38], that is, devout pastors and preachers. May he grant us grace humbly to hear, accept, and honor their words as his own words and to offer our sincere thanks and praise.⁽³⁾