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. (Amen.)
The Fourth of July yesterday meant a three-day and even a four-day weekend for some people, while others may be continuing longer vacations from school or work, and still others may not work anymore at all! But, having a picnic, or hosting a barbecue, or even going to watch the fireworks somewhere might have added stress and taken away from the extra time off. Many of us are already tired. We may plan to do things each day and not get them done. Things do not run as smoothly as we think that they should; new things pop up; we get behind, and we hurry to catch up; we feel the stress, and it wears us down. (Confer Fickenscher, 178.) Some have sleep apnea, others have pain-induced insomnia—what is called “painsomnia”—and still others have a depression that either keeps them from falling or staying asleep or causes them always to be sleepy and to prolong sleep—what is called “hypersomnia”—sometimes as a way of escaping from reality. To us tired people, Jesus’s gracious enabling-invitation in today’s Gospel Reading to come to Him for rest should have special appeal! Jesus is not offering a Calgon bath to take you away from all your trouble for a short time with a relaxing soak, and the “rest” that Jesus offers is far more than catching up on sleep, if that is even possible. The “rest” that Jesus offers is the benefit of all of His saving work that He has done, is doing, and will do for us. This morning, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we consider today’s Gospel Reading, directing our thoughts to the theme, “Jesus enables tired people to receive rest”.
After three weeks of appointed Gospel Readings telling us about Jesus’s calling and sending His twelve apostles (Matthew 9:35-10:42), we have moved forward some 24 verses in our more‑or‑less continuous‑reading of St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired account, skipping over things such as Jesus’s describing what might be called the “fickle nature” of His hearers (Matthew 11:16-19) and Jesus’s denouncing the cities where most of His mighty works had been done because they nevertheless did not repent (Matthew 11:20-24). At that time, when His ministry might be said to have appeared to be failing, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus thanked His Father for how the Father hides and reveals His salvation; Jesus said that the revelation of the Father took place through the Son, Jesus Himself; and then, as St. Matthew uniquely reports, Jesus extended His gracious enabling‑invitation to those who labor and are heavy laden to receive rest (confer and compare Luke 10:21-22).
I mentioned earlier some of the ways that we labor and are heavy laden, and I am sure we could add a laundry list of other ways—maybe even including the laundry! We are physically, mentally, and spiritually fatigued! (Confer Fickenscher, 178.) Even those of us who are not so “fickle” and refusing to repent as to stay away from the Divine Service, still at times are impossible to please and unwilling to give up our favorite sins. By nature, we cannot come to Jesus on our own. As Jesus made clear in today’s Gospel Reading, we need God to reveal to us His will to save us and all people, and so God does reveal to us His will to save us and all people. We do not arrogantly think that we are so smart as on our own to have faithful teaching and practice, but, like our Lord, we are thankful to the Father for His revelation to us of faithful teaching and practice! As part of that faithful teaching, based solidly on today’s Gospel Reading, one of our Lutheran Confessions identifies first our labor and being heavy‑laden as our having sorrow over our sin, anxiety, and the terrors of sin and death, and then it identifies our coming to Jesus to find rest for our souls as our believing that for Jesus’s sake our sins are forgiven (Apology of the Augsburg Confession XII:44). When we so repent, then God forgives us: our sinful natures and all our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be.
As we heard Jesus describe Himself in today’s Gospel Reading, He is gentle and lowly in heart. As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Zechariah 9:9-12), our King comes to us righteous and having salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, speaking peace to the nations. We should be reminded of Jesus’s Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem with crowds shouting “Hosanna”, that is, “Save us” (for example, Matthew 21:1-11). We should be reminded also of the Palm Sunday Epistle Reading’s telling us that Jesus humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-11). And, as we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 145:1-14; antiphon: v.19), the Lord hears the cry of those who fear Him, and He saves them. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus said that the Father had handed over all things to Him, according to His human nature, in which human nature God is in a sense hidden, and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus enables us to receive Him, the Son, as the revelation both of the Father and of His gracious will to save us through faith in Jesus. We come not to the Blessed Virgin Mary or to any other saint, but we come to Christ and to Him alone, and so our sins are forgiven, and we have peace with God and joy in Him (confer Luke 2:14).
God forgives our sins as He works resistibly both through the reading and preaching of His law and Gospel to groups such as this group and through the application of His Gospel to individuals: with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are Christ’s Body and Blood in the Holy Supper. The mention of “little children”, or, perhaps better, “infants” (NASB), in today’s Gospel Reading reminds us that in Holy Baptism God saves us no matter our age, not because of anything in us. The mention of the Father’s giving Jesus all things in today’s Gospel Reading reminds us that Jesus in turn gives to His apostles and their successors, pastors today, the authority to forgive sins in Holy Absolution for the benefit of the Church (for example, Matthew 18:18). And, the mention of the blood of the covenant in today’s Old Testament Reading reminds us that in the Holy Supper the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen and preserve us in body and soul to life everlasting.
In a paraphrase of the words of today’s Gospel Reading, movement number 21 of George Frederick Handel’s oratorio The Messiah has the Chorus sing in intertwined, complex, overlapping layers that bounce with rapid, running notes, the words “His yoke is easy, and His burden is light”, set to a joyful, dancing, and lively fugue, written in B-flat major, a light, radiant, and optimistic key. The quick, bubbling musical themes reflect the liberating nature of the text, so that listeners are audibly reassured that faith is not an oppressive burden but a restful and liberating gift of God. (Google AI Overview.) We need such reassurance! For, we are at the same time sinners and saints! As St. Paul describes in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 7:14‑25a), the members of our body, our sinful natures, that are captive to the law of sin, are waging war against our inner‑beings, our redeemed natures, that delight in the law of God. We recognize our own wretchedness, and, with St. Paul, we ask Who will deliver us from this body of death, and we give thanks to God, Who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord (confer 1 Corinthians 15:57)! Despite our laboring through and being heavy laden by the afflictions that God in His wisdom permits us to face, we have that victory as our possession already now, even if we do not fully appreciate that victory until the Last Day, as we asked God in the Collect of the Day to be our strength and support amid the wearisome changes of this world, and at life’s end to grant us His promised rest and the full joys of His salvation.
This morning, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we have considered today’s Gospel Reading, directing our thoughts to the theme, “Jesus enables tired people to receive rest”. Whether this Fourth of July weekend, or any other time of the year, as we sang in today’s Psalm, every day we will bless the Lord and praise His Name forever and ever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
