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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me ask you, especially this Fourth of July holiday weekend, are you well-rested? Or, did your holiday get filled with other things that kept you from rest? How often also do our vacations from our jobs get filled by our working on other things, or our trips away turn out to be more exhausting than restful? Even those unemployed and those retired in their own ways labor and are loaded down. Perhaps all the more we all want to heed the Gospel Reading with both Jesus’s inviting those who labor and are heavy laden to come to Him and His promising to give them rest. This morning we reflect on that Gospel Reading under the theme “Rest for Your Souls”.
You may recall that last week’s Gospel Reading from the end of Matthew chapter 10 was the end of Jesus’s second major section of teaching in St. Matthew’s account. Today’s Gospel Reading, the only one we will have from Matthew chapter 11, picks up the account two dozen verses later: after John the Baptizer’s disciples came to see Jesus, after Jesus spoke to the crowds about John and Himself, and after Jesus denounced the cities where most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent (Matthew 11:1-24). Then, in today’s Gospel Reading, with praise and thanksgiving, Jesus openly confesses God the Father and His gracious will to reveal the meaning of those mighty works, and, on the basis of His own authority from the Father and knowledge of the Father, Jesus earnestly invites all who labor and are heavy laden to come to Him for rest.
Maybe even we Christians expect too much rest from our holidays and vacations. Maybe in some other way we lose sight of the source of our ultimate rest. Maybe even if we do come to Jesus for rest we put Him under our own wisdom and understanding. Tyler’s N-B-C station, K‑E-T-K, this Tuesday night in its ten o’clock newscast apparently will have a special ratings‑period report titled “Interpreting Faith”, and the promotional spots airing for the series say that people’s attitudes towards the Bible have changed over the years. Indeed, many come to Holy Scripture with a hostile attitude, neglecting parts that they do not like, denying its divine inspiration or otherwise criticizing it, thinking they have advanced beyond it or that they no longer need it. Such is the sinfully proud, worldly wisdom and understanding that runs the risk of having the spiritual meaning of Jesus’s mighty works hidden! Of course, by nature, each of us is no better. Even the great Apostle Paul in today’s Epistle Reading describes his human nature as “sold under sin”, unable to carry out the desire to do what is right, and rightly so a “body of death” (Romans 7:14-25a). We are accountable to God, and, by nature, death is what our sins deserve.
On our own, we labor in vain to free ourselves from our oppressive load of sin, but Jesus graciously invites us and all people to come to Him for rest. Put another way, He graciously wills that all people would be saved from their sin, and so, in words echoing Old Testament prophets (Jeremiah 6:16), He calls us and all people to repent. Repenting is what the people in the cities where most of Jesus’s mighty works had been done were not doing. In the language of the Wisdom literature, they were not coming to Him, taking His yoke upon themselves, and learning from Him gentleness and lowliness of heart. However, when we, with anxiety over our sin and with the terrors of sin and death, humbly come to Him trusting Him to forgive our sins, then God truly does forgive our sin (Apology XII:44). God forgives our sinful nature and our actual sins. He forgives them all, whatever they might be; He forgives them for Jesus’s sake.
Jesus is the Son of God in human flesh. As the Son of God, He has a transcendent relationship with the Father and the Father with Him. As the man Jesus, all things have been handed over to Him by the Father (SD VIII:85). So, Jesus the Son reveals the Father by revealing Himself as the source of the Father’s rest and salvation. As prophesied in today’s Old Testament Reading (Zechariah 9:9‑12), Jesus is the Righteous King Who has salvation and comes humbly, putting away the weapons of war and speaking peace, setting prisoners free by the blood of His covenant, shed on the cross. The world does not know God through its own wisdom, but, through what the world regards as the foolishness of the preached Gospel, God is pleased to save those who believe (1 Corinthians 1:21). As the angels told the shepherds the night of Jesus’s birth, there is peace on earth among those of God’s good pleasure (Luke 2:14). For, just as the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father, so the Son, our Good Shepherd, knows His sheep, and His sheep know Him, Who lays down (and takes back up) His life for them (John 10:14-15).
When the Father raised Jesus Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, the Father put all things under Jesus’s feet and gave Him as head over all things for the benefit of His body, the Church, (Ephesians 1:20, 22-23). The Church arguably is created at the Baptismal Font, for Holy Baptism gives the Holy Spirit, by which the Son reveals the Father. The Son reveals the Father even to little children, babies and infants, untaught and in some sense untainted by the world’s teaching. All who enter the Kingdom of Heaven do so in some sense like children, and judgment threatens those who keep such little ones from the Kingdom (Matthew 18:1-6), for God has prepared praise from the mouths of such infants and nursing babies (Matthew 21:16 citing Psalm 8:2 LXX). All of those who believe and are baptized are saved (Mark 16:16), at the Font receiving by faith the forgiveness of sins, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation.
Baptized believers also make themselves available for the other Sacraments of the Church that give the forgiveness of sins. We baptized believers privately confess to our pastor the sins we know and feel in our hearts, and so we receive (from our pastor as from Christ Himself) individual Absolution, forgiveness on earth and in heaven. And, instructed, examined, and absolved, we baptized believers come, most of all, to this altar rail, in order to receive in the Sacrament of the Altar Christ’s body in bread and His blood in wine, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins and so also for life and salvation. Do not miss the connection between the Sacrament and rest! After Jesus in the Gospel Reading speaks of our finding rest for our souls, the very next thing St. Matthew’s Gospel account tells is of His being Lord of the Sabbath, its rest, and the bread of the Lord’s House. Do you want rest for your souls? Come to Christ here. Here He offers all of His treasure, your soul’s highest good (LC V:66-67). Are you weak in faith, terrified because of your many and great sins? Do you consider yourself unworthy of this treasure and benefits of Christ and wish that you could better serve God? This Sacrament is for you (SD VII:69-70). He is here for you, though through such means He lets you potentially resist Him.
Still, by no means should you doubt that God wants you so to come to Jesus Christ and so be saved; though the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh might try to convince us otherwise, both the proclamation of repentance and the promise of the Gospel extend to all, as today’s Gospel Reading makes clear (SD XI:28, 65, 70). As with St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading, war does wage within our members, but, thanks be to God, He has delivered us from our bodies of death through Jesus Christ our Lord. Far more than any holiday or vacation, as we yoke ourselves to Jesus and His teaching, by grace through faith we find rest for our souls and rest for our bodies. God sets our souls free from our sins already now, and, with the resurrection of the body, He will give us the full joys of His salvation.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +