“CHRIST GIVES LIFE AND LIBERTY”
Saint Luke 14. 1-11
The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity: 18 September Anno Domini 2005
Fr Watson
"Righteous art Thou 0 Lord." That is your prayer because you are not righteous. Only the righteous will inherit the kingdom of heaven. You are not righteous, and you only deserve, (by your own actions, desires, and words) the anarchy of hell. One reason that you are not righteous is that you exalt yourself and try to humble others. You exalt yourself; you build yourself up by demanding your own way. You puff up by trying to always be in control. Your need to dominate is sin. This is that original sin of Eve and her husband.
Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? What a sad, desperate, evil question. It was permissible to eat and drink on the Sabbath; both of these activities help and restore the body. It was permissible to read, and hear read, Holy Scripture on the Sabbath. These encounters with the Word of the Lord would strengthen and fortify souls and spirits. It was commanded in the entire Second Tablet of the Law itself, to love your neighbor as yourself---everyday, the Sabbath included. What kind of twisted mind would object to healing a sick and diseased "brother" on Saturday; your kind of "old nature" mind. The sinful self always "hones in" on perceived injustices and imagined affronts. It is why younger siblings rage in "self- righteous" anger against their parents when the older brother or sister is granted some privilege or right that is not accorded to themselves: "it isn't fair the rules should apply to everyone equally" they squeal. Ah, hear the voice of Satan whispering in the garden; hear the voice of Eve justifying her own greed and ego.
Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? The Pharisees would have said yes. Is its Gods' command to love on the so called "day of rest?" The Pharisees would have said yes. But the Pharisees had put chains, limits, controls on love itself. They in their self-righteousness had decided to control and assert their will. The Pharisees had so interpreted the prohibition against "working" on the Sabbath, so as to object to, and condemn, Jesus for performing a miracle of healing on the Sabbath.
"Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? They wouldn't even answer Him. That's what sin does; it makes one obdurate, stiff-necked, and hard-hearted, even in the face of Grace and Love.The Law Kills. The fact is that you don't heal. We don't of ourselves do good, we don't love our neighbor.
The Gospel makes alive. The good-news fact is that Christ heals, Christ
does good, and Christ loves. And He heals and loves not just the sick and
diseased in body; He also heals and loves those, like the Pharisees, who are
so sick and diseased in soul, that they don't love their neighbor, but prate on
and on about loving themselves.
God did all in the first six days. God let the seventh day, the Sabbath, be a day filled with glory and appreciation of the Grace of Creation, of thankfulness for all First Article gifts. The Sabbath was not kept or honored by sloth, extra sleep, or boring indolence, but by "being in God," being in His word. The Sabbath was not to be a day of inactivity but rather a day filled with the holy leisure and satisfaction of worship and praise. All of this was an "arrow" pointing to the true rest and peace which would be delivered in the Person of the Christ.
After the "Fall," Adam had no rest, save in God. In the Egypt of Pharaoh and his taskmasters, the Children of Israel had no rest, save in God. When Canaan was referred to as the "Promised Land," a Land of Rest, it did not mean that it would be a land for the exalted and lazy, but rather a land for the humble and contrite heart to worship and praise God, and to receive His gifts. Canaan was a picture of the Church, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and the flock of the Good Shepherd.
To be "in God" is to be at Sabbath, at rest. To be "in God" meant to be in the Word, in Worship, or as we would now understand, to be in the Divine Liturgy. For the Divine Liturgy, is God's Liturgy, God's service to His tender and beloved lambs. Jesus Christ Himself is the fulfillment of the 3rd Commandment; Jesus is the true rest and peace of all God's children. The Lord tells you clearly: "Come to Me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you peace." [St. Mt. 11.28] Christ is rest in the flesh because He let His own flesh, His own will, His own life have no rest. He came to be active in the flesh for all of you. He lived a life of perfect obedience, of dutiful activity in obeying the law all for you. He humbled Himself and became a servant, your servant, and did all that you are incapable of doing. Christ now gives you peace, in the flesh, because His own flesh and blood had no peace during the Passion of His last week before Easter. His flesh was subjected to war, carnage, brutality, and satanic discord on the Cross of Calvary, so that your flesh and blood might have eternal rest in Him. For you are all buried with Him in baptism, so that even as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity you too might have the newness of life. The newness of life starts with rest and peace; the rest and peace that comes from forgiveness of sin!
Jesus promises to give you rest. What does He in actuality give you? He gives you Himself; everything that He is and has. He gives you His words; Himself. He gives you His teachings, doctrine; Himself. He gives you His healings; (Holy Baptism and Holy Absolution); Himself. He gives you His Body and Blood; Himself. And where does He especially give you all these inestimable gifts? Here in the Divine Liturgy, the Mass, the gathering of Saints around the Living and Present Savior.
The final Old Testament Sabbath was that fateful day we call "Holy Saturday," or the "Vigil of Easter;" it was the day after Good Friday; Sundown on Friday until Sundown on Saturday. Christ's work and un-rest for you took place during that Holy Week. He paid and died and then rested finally in the tomb. He rested on that Seventh Day, that Sabbath.
He rose again on the first day of the New Testament's eternal week. He rose on Sunday, the eternal Eighth Day of His Bride the Church. That's why you are here, now, on this particular Sunday, this Lord's Day. You didn't worship together as a family, yesterday, Saturday, the Sabbath. You didn't, because now One is here in the Flesh Who is greater than merely that day of rest He made for His Old Testament Saints. The perfect Rest and Peace is present now in His Means of Grace for all of you. You have been humbled by the Word of Law. You have been humbled in lowly seats of position during the Confession of Sin. Your lowly and contrite hearts are now ready for the rest of His words to you. To you He says: "friend, go up higher," come to My table for meat indeed; come to my meal for drink indeed. Eat and drink the Body and Blood of the Lord; have your sins forgiven; have your faith fortified; have "glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you;" with angels and archangels and all the host of heaven.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost