A, Post Pentecost 6 Proper 9 - Matthew 11:28-30 A Balancing Yoke

When you read or hear God’s Word, does God reveal His message to you? Does hearing or reading His Word leave you wanting to know more, or do you find yourself thinking, “I’m glad that’s done; now I can do something more constructive”?

If so, you may be weighing up God’s Word in the wrong way, and the depth of God’s power in His Word may remain hidden from you. Perhaps you are not allowing God the Holy Spirit to open God’s Word to you. Perhaps it is not important enough in the scheme of your life.

Or perhaps your stubborn, independent self-sufficiency is not allowing the Holy Spirit the time to work His will in you. Like stubborn Pharaoh placing a harsh burden on the Israelites through hardheartedness, you may be placing a harsh burden on yourself through your own stubborn self-sufficiency.

The question we must ask ourselves is this: “Do I want to continue in self-sufficiency, letting my heart become darker and harder through stubborn perception and deception, with the very real possibility that God hands me over to drown in my sins and their consequences?” No! I believe most of us don’t.

Next Sunday we’ll hear Jesus’ address what can happen to the Word of God when it has been sown in the heart. For now, He invites those who are weary from human hardheartedness to come to Him, take on His yoke, and learn from Him.

This invitation from Jesus is not simply a comforting saying; it reveals what God is doing with our weariness. He is drawing us away from the exhausting burden of self-sufficiency and towards the rest that comes from being yoked to Christ.

Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30 ESV)

We’ve all heard the saying, “there’s no rest for the wicked”.  This saying finds its origin in God’s Word where in Isaiah 48:22 we hear, “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.” (Isaiah 48:22 ESV)

But we’ve also just heard in Zechariah chapter nine, “Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.” (Zechariah 9:12 ESV)

We are prisoners from our wickedness, but ones with hope of restoration from the strength of God!

Chances are God is allowing your weariness to reveal something about yourself, just as He has done with individuals and groups throughout history. Perhaps God is teaching you how you relate to Him, especially when self-sufficiency leads you to forget or refuse to let Him be your God. Yet He remains the God whose kingdom, power, and glory are, were, and will continue to be.

God’s kingdom, power, and glory manifest themselves to us through His steadfast love. Our God is a God of generosity and mercy. So too are God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit invite us to receive Their generosity and mercy, and to live in the steadfast love of Their providence, salvation, and will.

We mostly think our heavy burden and weariness is a negative that has been inflicted upon us by the sins of others.  However, the reality is unlike Jesus, we are far from gentle and lowly in heart.  When push comes to shove from the sins of others our meekness or gentleness vaporises like an oasis in the desert, proving to be a mirage or deception.  Any lowliness of heart hardens in the heat of the moment.

Yet Jesus invites you to take on his yoke. A yoke still sounds like a burden to us. Most of us picture oxen yoked to a plough in the paddock, or a dray hauling heavy loads up a hill while the bullocky breaks the sound of shackles and chains on straining cattle with his most colourful language.

Jesus is not like a coarse bullocky, nor does His yoke make beasts of burden. No! “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” (Psalm 145:8–9 ESV) So too is our Lord Jesus since He and the Father are one!

But what is His yoke if it is not a beastly yoke? Another yoke is similar to that which rests on the neck of the beast, and it does carry things. However, the focus is more on balance than burden. In fact, if the balance is not right on a yoke the burden can be unbearable. So, what can we learn from Jesus about His yoke and the balance of what He bears and how He bears it? In other words, what does Jesus invite us to learn from Him?

As humans, we tire and weary ourselves with the old knowledge-of-good-and-evil narrative. As we all know, this is as old as humanity itself, reaching back to Adam and Eve. Since then, we have embellished this knowledge in countless ways. Unfortunately, these embellishments exhaust humanity more and more, as each of us uses this knowledge on others while it’s used on us.

As humanity prides itself on advancement in technological, social, academic, and practical knowledge, how much do these advancements become the very things that create a greater burden upon us? The things we thought would make life better often make us more anxious and burdened about living. This tiredness ends in eternal death when the knowledge of good and evil remains as one’s yoke.

What we learn from Jesus is that our balance is way out of whack! Judging ourselves and each other with a yoke of good and evil misjudges and misunderstands the yoke of Jesus. His yoke is a yoke of holiness built on the Law, that shows us that both the good and evil deeds that come from our natures are wicked. Our wickedness is that we do not fear and trust God but that we would prefer to fear and trust the desires of our hearts above God.

Jesus’ yoke rebalances the holiness of God in human life. In His meekness and humility, He removes the burden we place on ourselves and each other. Jesus’ yoke took Him to the cross, and He calls us to bear our cross. Yet the yoke of our cross is not the yoke Jesus bore in His death. That yoke has already been borne.

We learn from Jesus that bearing our cross is about putting off the very things that weary us. What we learn from Jesus is not that we must be good like Him and use Him as a method for our salvation. That would place Gospel before Law: Jesus did it, showed us what to do and how to do it, and now we must do it to be saved. Put simply, this is just a revised version of the knowledge of good and evil.

Paul shows us the reality of trying to make ourselves self-sufficient in Romans chapter seven, where he cries out, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”(Romans 7:19 ESV)

In the exhaustion of Paul’s good and evil he celebrates, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25a ESV)

What we learn from Jesus while on earth, during life, ministry, cross, death, and resurrection is that He rested His divinity as the Son of God and was wearied with what worries every human being. But in the weakness of yours and my flesh He remained holy and without sin. Unlike us He was not wicked, and unlike us He lived life solely to please God the Father, setting Him aside in all holiness. And He did not do this from His own divinity but was led by the Holy Spirit in hallowing God and His name before all.

This is what it truly means to be gentle and lowly in heart, or meek and humble in heart. Where we become soft and sin making us hardhearted, Jesus was hard against sinning while becoming soft towards those who know their reality and call on the name of the Lord for help.

Jesus now yokes us with His Word of Law and Gospel. The Holy Spirit uses that Word to show you the weight of your sin and the weariness it brought upon Jesus Christ on the cross. Yet the same Word gives you the gift of His sinless life, which did not deserve the cross. By the power of God’s Word, you are made holy and given rest in the holiness of the Father’s presence, in peace.

Since this yoke balances yours and my debt with our Father, surely it gives you and me the will to walk in meekness and humility, to love others as Christ loves us, and to serve others as Jesus served us at the cross and as He continues to serve us before the Father in Heaven. Amen.

Heavenly Father, we bless You for blessing and balancing us with the yoke of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Help us to speak of the glory of Your kingdom and tell others of Your power. Let the Spirit dwell in us so Your power is made manifest in meekness and humility to others. Let us make known the glorious splendour of Your everlasting kingdom, now and forever. Amen.

***

Sermon Summary

This sermon calls hearers to recognise how easily God’s Word can be treated as something weighed, judged, and managed by human self-sufficiency rather than received as the living Word through which God reveals Himself. The burden addressed is not only the suffering caused by others, but also the heavier burden created by stubborn independence, hardheartedness, and the old knowledge-of-good-and-evil narrative by which people judge themselves and one another.

Against this weariness, Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:28–30 is presented as more than comfort. It is the gracious call of Christ to come to Him, take His yoke, and learn from Him. His yoke is not beastly oppression but holy rebalancing. By His Law and Gospel, Jesus exposes the weight of sin and gives the gift of His sinless life, which has already borne the burden of the cross for us.

The sermon therefore moves from human exhaustion to divine rest. Christ, gentle and lowly in heart, does not leave sinners to carry the crushing yoke of self-justification. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus joins us to Himself, we’re taught meekness and humility, and willed to rest in the Father’s presence. To bear the yoke of Christ is to be freed from sinful self-sufficiency, rebalanced by grace, and drawn into a life of humble service.

Bearing the yoke of Jesus in the wider context on Matthew 11

Matthew 11 places before us the picture of children in the marketplace calling, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” Jesus uses this image to expose a generation unwilling to respond to God’s visitation, through Him and John the Baptist. John comes with the solemn dirge of repentance, yet they will not mourn. Jesus comes with the joyful music of the kingdom, eating and drinking with sinners, yet they will not dance. They reject both because they do not want God to set the tune. 

Reflection: What unrepentant things do I do to set the tune for my life?

This refusal is unrepentance. Christ’s mighty works are the music of God’s kingdom breaking into the world: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor receive good news. Yet Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum remain unmoved. They have heard both flute and funeral song but answer neither. Their burden is not lack of revelation but resistance to it; their hearts remain yoked to themselves.

Reflection: What goods and evils need to be unyoked from my life with the yoke of Jesus Christ?

At that time Jesus rejoices that the Father has hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. These little children are not childish in stubbornness, but childlike in dependence, receptiveness, and trust. They receive what the Father reveals through the Son. Here the mourning of the burdened becomes blessed: those who labour and are heavy laden know the dirge of sin, disappointment, judgement, and death, yet Jesus does not leave them under that load. He reveals the Father and calls them to Himself.

Reflection prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, send the Holy Spirit to move me to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and to respond with thanksgiving when I hear it.  Help me to mourn over my sin, so in repentance I daily place it on the cross.

To take the yoke of Jesus Christ is allowing the Holy Spirit to teach and move us to respond to God’s music. His Law teaches and moves us to mourn what sin has done; His Gospel teaches and moves us to dance before God’s mighty works in Christ: His mercy, healing, forgiveness, cross, resurrection, deposit of the Holy Spirit, and promised rest. His yoke is not the heavy yoke of performing for God, nor the stubborn yoke of refusing God. It is the gracious yoke by which Christ brings mourners into joy and the weary into rest.

Reflection:  How does the yoke of Jesus encourage me to be humble in my blessings, and endure in the hardships, of this life?  How does the yoke of Jesus enable me to be “like Jesus” to my neighbour? 

A, Trinity Sunday - Genesis 1 A Creation Community

After half a church year today we arrive at Trinity Sunday.  Last week we heard how the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost; ten days before that the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ; another forty days again and it was Easter Sunday, Good Friday, and Lent.  These days introduced the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus after the proclamation of his divinity in Epiphany, his humanity at Christmas, and his coming into the world at Advent, way back in the four weeks of December.

Now from today we focus on the Christian life in God’s fallen creation, redeemed and being redeemed by the blood of Christ who is seated at the right hand of God the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God.

However, there is a tendency for us to believe if Jesus is at the right hand of God, in heaven, he is no longer here with us.  That perhaps we have been left to our own devices to fend for ourselves.  Or we might recognise the presence of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the power to escape this world so we might ascend with our hearts and minds to a place where we see God.  Since he is not attainable by our natural senses anymore!   Right?  Well, no it’s not! God’s written word from Genesis one to Revelation twenty-two tells us otherwise!

In fact, the thought that God is not with us in our creation, is a thematic thread right the way through the bible demonstrating the sinfulness and faithlessness of humanity.  But rather, the Trinity is present in creation, giving us God’s creation, so we might dwell with God in his threefold holy community of being and love.

Atheism and atheists, mock us because of our confession of an unseen Triune God and our hidden communion with him in his creation.  However, these western infidels and scoffers of the Christian faith only exist because of Christianity.  The Romans, who believed in a pantheon of gods, scoffed at the Jews after bursting into their temple in Jerusalem some two-thousand years ago, finding no visual God in the Holy of Holies.  Go to a Hindu or a Buddhist country today and atheism is basically nonexistent. 

Yet in the Christian world where God is hidden and there are no idol images of gods, it’s not a big step to believe there is nothing.   So today the modern cynical atheist claims there is no God and the word of God is just “pie in the sky, for those who are going to die”.

On the other hand, we in the church in the second half of the church year celebrate the victory of Christ in his creation.  However, neither the victory in creation, nor the God of this creation, is seen in the normal sense.  God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, is not seen, and our world still seems to be spiralling out of control into greater and greater turmoil.  Perhaps we might be tempted into the epitome of negativity with the atheist and believe there is no God and therefore lose hope.

 But God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit call us back into his word, and today especially his “word of beginnings”.  His victory calls us to see creation as it was at the beginning and as it will be at the end.  And we’re called to see what it is today with the eyes of faith in a world that would rather look into the misery and darkness of the hopeless self with human reason.

When we look at the creation account in Genesis one, God reminds us he loves us.  He created the heavens and the earth for one purpose; for an environment where we might be with him in a threefold community of peace.  In his creation he created a paradise garden so that he might rest in it with us.  However since the fall, it’s been lost to our sin. But now since the cross, access has been won by Christ’s bloody death and glorious resurrection.  And all creation now rejoices and looks forward in hope to the full restoration of creation.

So for us who believe in Christ’s incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension; for us who believe the Holy Spirit has been sent to reveal Christ to us in this creation; and for us who believe the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ exist and work together so we might live in the presence of God the Father in peace — can turn back to the beginning and see the unseen reality of a hidden paradise won for us by Jesus Christ on the tree of life.  Added to this we can examine the last chapters of Revelation and see the exact same reality, and continue in the same hope.

Many get caught out when looking at the creation account by falling into the debate on whether creation is seven literal days or perhaps something different.  This argument only leads one away on a tangent from a correct emphasis on the creation text, regardless of what position one takes. 

For us everything is a distant second from the little phrase in Genesis one, “And God said”.  In fact, in our search for answers to creation, this simple phrase is in danger of being overlooked.  But the whole point of the creation account is to draw our faith to God’s word, in all its power and glory.  God’s word needs not our proofs or reasoning, but rather it demands our trust.  God said it, it happened — do you now believe it?

The other thing we need to take notice of is the order of creation, and in understanding its order, we soon come to realise its function.

First, we hear, “In the beginning God created…”  To imagine nothing in the beginning, is impossible, and added to it pondering the beginning as an eternal timelessness, will only make you go completely crazy.  We are beings in time and place and have not the capacity to contemplate boundless nothingness.  But having said that, God was there before any of it, and this can only be believed by faith.

At the other end of the creation account, in Genesis 2, after all had been created by the word of God, God now rests in time and space in his creation.  But God created this day of rest for a holy community – us and him together in peace. 

All the events of creation fall between these two events in a very deliberate order, so this community of peace can exist in a perfect paradise with a thrice holy God.  In fact, creation’s order rolls along like a snowball growing, or like an onion having its layers put on one after the other.  In this way the first event of creation, serves the second, and so on until God rests in its completion. 

The second last event God commanded in creation is the making of us, and in seeing the order of creation we learn that God created one thing after the other for you and me, in community.  And at the very last he desires to be present with humanity in peace and perfect joy.

Now we know a lot has happened since God created the heavens and the earth.  But he also calls us to now know that this reality has been restored in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

So, as we travel through the next half of the church year, we are called to see with the eyes of faith that the Triune God is present, although hidden.  That we are called to peace with God, peace that passes all human understanding, peace that enables us to realise we are already in the arms of a loving God who calls us to rest with him, and trust that an eternity with him has been happening since our baptism and will continue on unto eternity.

We can all take stock from the last words in the bible from Revelation chapter twenty-two, where Jesus assures us that “Yes I am coming soon!”  And we rest in response, “Amen, Come, Lord Jesus come.”  As we trust the ever-present reality of the last verse, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people.  Amen.” (Rev 22:20-21)  

A, Pentecost Sunday - Acts: 2:1-21 The Forgotten God: Honouring the Holy Spirit's Work in us

Acts 2:17,18,21 (ESV) “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Cited from Joel 2:28-32)

Because I am a poor lowly sinner, with a human heart that needs every bit of help it can get, I thank our Heavenly Father, and our Saviour Jesus Christ for sending the Holy Spirit.  Yet because of my nature, the Holy Spirit seems to be relegated to fourth place behind me, God the Father, and Jesus Christ. Whereas in reality I should happily be standing in fifth place behind God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and everyone else whom God calls me to help.

Throughout the history of Christendom, it seems the Holy Spirit continually has suffered just as much rejection inside the church, as He does outside the church. 

On might expect this outside the church, but inside!  Surely churches who worship the triune God know the Holy Spirit and let Him do what He was sent to do! 

So, what is it that the Holy Spirit does? Why does He need to do it within us!  And are you allowing Him to do, what He does, within you?  We’ll return to these questions in a moment.

Firstly, why was the Holy Spirit sent at Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead?  Ten days after Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father the Holy Spirit was given.  We know that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, to call alongside us to be our help after He was raised. But before all this occurred the Holy Spirit first rested on Jesus at his baptism.  Why, did the Holy Spirit rest on Jesus?  Why did Jesus need the Holy Spirit to rest on Him?

John the Baptist was baptising the Jews with a baptism of repentance, preparing Israel as the last prophet, before Jesus came.  To John Jesus was, “one whose sandals he was not worthy to carry.”  Who would, “baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Mattew 3:11)  But when Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptised, He demanded of John to be baptised, saying, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15 ESV)

John the Baptist was not expecting this, he was expecting to be baptised by Jesus with the Holy Spirit and fire.  Yet Jesus expected John to function in what he was called to do, baptise!  And Jesus was baptised along with all the other Jews who came to the River Jordan.

Why would this be?  What was this” all righteousness” that Jesus was fulfilling?  Our answer comes from God’s Word, as the Holy Spirit rests on Jesus and God says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17 ESV) The Son of God was baptised to please God.

Whereas the Jews were being baptised in preparation for a saviour, Jesus was baptised into his three-year ministry to be the Saviour and please God the Father. 

Now one might think that since Jesus is the Son of God, sent from the Father to be the Saviour of all people, He should have been able to do this by himself!  Instead, we hear He receives the Holy Spirit.  This was an essential part of God plan since Jesus, born into the flesh of humanity, had to put aside His divinity as the Son of God and live in the flesh as we live in the flesh. (Philippians 2:1-11)

Jesus had to experience all the garbage and filth of sinful humanity and pay the price of that sin, while being without sin to please God the Father.  And the Holy Spirit rested upon Him as He went through all the rot—we face and fail—in His faithful walk to the cross. This pleased God the Father.

Two things need to be highlighted here!  One, this is God the Father’s work of preparing us to receive a helper in the Holy Spirit, and two, through the Son of God receiving the same Holy Spirit as His helper!  Why?

Hear what Paul says to the Philippians encouraging them to be like Jesus who emptied himself to become obedient to death on the cross.  Paul teaches all who want their lives to be worthy of the gospel of Christ, saying, “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” (Philippians 2:1-2 ESV)

Paul lists five things here in chapter two, calling the church, the body of Christ, at Philippi into full, “co-spirited love” and “the mind of Jesus Christ”.  The worthiness of the gospel is worked within by the five things that make us the body of Christ, that make us one with Him our holy Head!  But it’s the Holy Spirit that works these five things, the human spirit cannot do it because of its fallen flesh.

The first is encouragement in Christ trusting you and I are being called alongside of Him.  The second is comfort and true realisation of God’s love.  In other words, believing we’re brought alongside God the Father who is steadfast in His compassion and love towards us.  The third is participation in the Holy Spirit, the same fellowship enjoyed amongst the Godhead of the Trinity, in heaven, and on earth during Jesus’ ministry .  This is more than fellowship over a cuppa, although it can happen over a cuppa too, but it’s seeing with the eyes of faith that we too are included in God’s fellowship as the body of Christ, the second member of the Trinitarian fellowship.  Then there is affection or compassion; that is to have a Christ-like desire to help as we have been helped.  And sympathy or the desire to be merciful as you and I have received God’s mercy. 

Here we come back to the initial questions: What is it that the Holy Spirit does?  Why he needs to do it within us!  And, are you allowing him to do what he does within you?

It’s the Holy Spirit that works the five within us, he works any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy.  

If Jesus received the Holy Spirit to continue the Trinitarian fellowship of heaven while He fulfilled his ministry at the cross in “all righteousness”, how much more do I need the Holy Spirit to help me since unlike Jesus I am full of “all unrighteousness”?  As we have just sung in the last hymn, and confessed in Psalm 25:11, “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” (Psalm 25:11 ESV)

Most of us are flat out remembering our forebears much past our great grandparents.  If we didn’t have photos or pictures of them, we would long forget what they looked like, even when we had opportunity to live at the same time as them.  Yet two thousand years after Jesus ascended into heaven we not only know Him who was seen, but we also know the Father whom we have not seen.

This is not the work of the human spirit; it’s not found in the minds of a faithful humanity!   This is the work of the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps us in the one faith as God’s church and as individuals of it.  Individually or collectively, none of us have the ability or knowhow to do it because of our humanity, sinful that it is in being or doing, nature and deed! 

Jesus is the only human who has done it and He did it perfectly!  Even so, He still did it with the fellowship of the Holy Spirit as a man who put aside his Godly divinity!  Therefore, no one can say, “Jesus is not like us because He relied on his divinity to be the perfect man.”  No!  Rather we hear in Hebrews chapter two, “ He [Jesus] had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:17 ESV)

So, the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps Christ’s church in the faith.  His work is one of giving us encouragement in Christ; bringing us alongside Jesus. He gives us comfort in receiving God’s love.  The Holy Spirit gives us the eyes of faith, so we see our fellowship or participation in the oneness in Christ with His hidden church on earth and His church in heaven where the angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven worship around the throne of God.  And the Holy Spirit works outward affection and sympathy that otherwise would be forgetful, cold, and heartless.

So let us worship the Holy Spirit whose is sent from the Father and the Son, by allowing Him to do his work of bringing us before the Father and the Son, to receive and believe the forgiveness of our sins.  The Holy Spirit works within to make us holy when we hear his Holy Word preached and when we repentantly receive the Holy Sacraments as the holy body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

C, Easter 7 - John 17:20-26 "Perfectly One"

John 17:20–26 (ESV) Jesus prays, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,  that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,  I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.  Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.  O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.  I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

In the fictional movie, Gladiator, released in 2000, two Roman Senators, Gracchus and Falco, discuss Emperor Commodus’ attempts to win the hearts of his people by staging games that are bloodthirsty and barbaric for our times.

Gracchus comments, “Fear and wonder, a powerful combination!” To which Falco responds, “You really think people are going to be seduced by that?”  Gracchus suspecting what Commodus is up to continues, “I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the Colosseum. He'll bring them death - and they will love him for it.”

Although Gladiator is far from a correct portrayal of Roman history, Gracchus’ monologue, we’ve just heard, pretty much sums up the hearts of humanity then and now.  The seduction of the human heart through fear and wonder, is as real today as it was back then when people gathered at the Colosseum.  Rather, today the mob is wowed and wooed at coliseums like the MCG (the Melbourne Cricket Ground), the State of Origin at Lang Park, the Olympics, a theatre of some kind, perhaps even a large church gathering.  Wherever the mob masses, there will be someone there, to capitalise from the gathered crowd.

It seems sound, that as the masses gather around a central belief, they are one.  Their oneness draws others in.  The popularity of the gathering brings out desires in others, individuals want to join the group, to be a part of an ideology, to feel a part of something, to fill the hole of loneliness in the heart, to be accepted by others, to be one.

Others see the masses gathering and use the opportunity to ingratiate themselves to them.  So, having become popular with the mob, the mob makes them masters of the mob.    In Roman society the two senators realise democracy, the rule of the people, can be manipulated by the pleasures of the Colosseum, albeit bloodthirsty and brutal.  Democracy, the rule of the people, can easily be “corruption of the people, by the people”.

If a crowd is corrupt, those who want to adhere to it, cannot continue uncorrupted if they want unity with it.  To remain unspoiled and untouched by the ideology of the masses means sticking out in the crowd as one being at odds with the crowd.  Those who stood their ground against the mob, usually became the deadly entertainment for the Colosseum crowd. Life is defined by the mob, and death is delivered by the mob.  Or, is the mob delivering itself over to death through its own desire?

Our society, today, doesn’t have a coliseum, that hands over those at odds with the mob, to death!  Or, does it?  Perhaps the advancement of our society over the Romans, is that, at the moment, we have many more subtle ways of assassinating those who stand at odds with the mob.  Hidden coliseums where the sports of gossip, slander, half-truths, and the good of the whole are carried out!

This oneness is far from the perfect oneness to which Jesus calls you and me.  Unfortunately, our sinful human nature tries to incorporate democracy, the rule of the people, with the perfect oneness of God, the rule of God.  

However, the oneness of God does not grow out of the mob, or popularity. It starts with one and it ends with one.  Jesus is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end!  When Jesus prays to our Father in heaven, he prays as one man.  He did not ingratiate himself to the mob.  In fact, he didn’t suck up to the mob that welcomed him into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  Rather, the mob wanted to make him the leader he was never meant to be.  Once the mob realised this, the unbelieving Jews used popularity to turn the mob on him, to crucify him.

Knowing all this was about to happen to him Jesus prayed for those who were given to him.  Not only was this prayer for the apostles and disciples!  It was for the many who would not see but would still believe the apostolic witness, throughout time.  It was for those for whom Jesus prays, who died in many ways, at the hands of the mob, defending the perfect oneness of Jesus and his holy body.  It’s for those today whose witness of Jesus Christ puts them at odds with the common defilement of the masses.  And to be clear, the biblical Greek word for “witness” is “martyr”. 

“But we don’t martyr witnesses of Jesus Christ, in our society today”, you might say!  But the words of the Roman Senator in the fictitious Gladiator movie reveals the truth of our society just as much now, as it did, then!  As magic is conjured we’re distracted. Take away the freedoms given by God and still we roar! Bring us death - and the mob will love their leaders for it.

The only problem is the death we’re brought to is our own. Our fear and wonder, for the mob, distracts us from fearing and loving God.  Jesus did not fear the mob, your opinion nor mine, but out of fear and love for God, he loved the masses, you and me, by becoming the spectacle of death for which we, the mob, so desperately thirst.

Starting from one, Jesus was raised by our Father and the Holy Spirit from death and calls you and me out of the mob that has brought death on itself.  The mob is dying.  The ideals of the mob are dying.  Jesus is coming soon!  But until he comes the Holy Spirit and the “one true church” says, “come”!

In Jesus’ day the mob were the Jews, God’s very own people.  Those who followed Jesus, were called from the mob.  Many were martyred, for their departure from the mob, and for their witness of Jesus’ perfect oneness, with our Father and the Holy Spirit. But they were united in Jesus’ perfect oneness, together with the Triune God, in one accord, as his body, his bride, his church.

At the Reformation, Luther and the reformers were accused of departing the one catholic church which had gone the way of the Jewish mob.  Instead of being catholic, gathered as one in the oneness of Jesus Christ, the church prided itself in being Roman Catholic and became the mob from which the Lutheran Church left.

Many of our forefathers and mothers, came to this country and other countries when oneness was forced upon them in Germany.  A oneness that had nothing to do with the oneness of Jesus Christ, rather a political oneness from a German mob. 

Powerful fear and wonder to generate the mob, persists today in a seemingly new world order, distracting people in so many different ways, to a worldly oneness, away from the oneness of Jesus Christ.  Fear is created by those who want to control the mob, and great wonder is attributed to institutions that emphasise this unity.

But the unity of the cross begins with one and calls us to be one with our Lord.  Each day this unity calls for the death of self, institutions, ideologies, and mob rule.  Anything that takes the place of the perfect oneness that Jesus won for us in his death and resurrection by the will of our Father, and the work of the Holy Spirit, needs to daily die.

We are known by God and made known to those whom God leads us, as we die to self, and become known witnesses or martyrs to the masses—witnesses of God’s glory in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord.   Like Jesus, and many before us, the Holy Spirit seeks to lead you from the mob, to witness to the mob, the perfect holy oneness of God in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

In God’s way, the mob will then know that we’re being made perfectly one, in, by, and with Jesus, so that the world might know that God sent Jesus to them, the masses, in the same way that the Father loves Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord.  Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, the world does not know us, but we are known by you.  Send your Holy Spirit into our hearts so we can make Jesus Christ known to our mob, here in Australia, surrounding our congregation gathered in the oneness of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

B, Post Pentecost 2 Proper 4 - 2 Corinthians 4:5-12 "Clay Jars that We Are"

Clay jars need rest!  But the power to rest in the right way does not come from the clay jar!  In its fragility the clay jar does not know how to rest, it needs a knowledge greater than the lack of knowledge it contains.  Clay jars can hold many things, but one thing they cannot hold is knowledge.

Saint Paul speaks of us as the clay jars holding the light that shines out of darkness.  A clay jar that has an absence of light contains only darkness.  Like creation we are clay jars without form and void.  Likewise, to creation, we need God to say, “Let light shine out of darkness,” “Let there be light”.  We need God the Holy Spirit to shine, “in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  (2 Corinthians 4:6 ESV)

Clay jars need rest to be reformed and recast.  I’m not talking about pottery anymore, but the earthenware of our humanity, our flesh, our soul or being, both physical and spiritual.  We need the light of God that’s more powerful than the strongest laser light.  To cut with greater precision than a plasma cutter.  To open us and expose what’s hidden within.  And to burn out what’s rotting away inside of us!

Some clay jars believe that the darkness within is light, and therefore do not want to be reformed or recast.  At some point though, without rest, clay jars will return to the dust from which they’re made.  “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19 ESV)

All clay jars will crack and fall apart, explode in a shower of shards from pressure, or on Christ’s return God’s decree will be fulfilled in him.

From Psalm two we hear, “I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.  Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.  You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’” (Psalm 2:7–9 ESV)

We, clay jars, need rest in God!  Why do we need this rest?  And what does this rest do?  How do we get this rest?  What does this rest look like? 

Returning to Second Corinthians four, we know that without God, there is nothing within shining the necessary light to recast and reform us in Jesus Christ.  Even Paul says, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants (slaves) for Jesus’ sake.”  (2 Corinthians 4:5 ESV)

Even Paul needs rest as a servant slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, as do all who preach and teach for Jesus’ sake!

So, why do we need this rest?

The fragility of our being is evident in this world.  This world is one bound by death.  In fact, death is the great unifier of all people, all animals, all things, in all of creation.  Everything is dying!   You, me, the person next to you, your animals, everything ever built, everything ever created.  This is fact, this is the world in which we die.  It’s not life we’re living, but death we’re dying!

After God created the heavens and the earth, on the seventh day he rested.  God called Saturday the Sabbath, to repose from work.  After the fall into sin, where humanity’s being got its clay jar fragility, to sabbath, or to rest in God, requires more than just a physical sabbath, but our fallen nature also needs a spiritual sabbath.  After God chose the Israelites as his own, he called them through the law to faithfully rest with him in repentance and atonement through the sacrifice for sin, performed by God’s representatives in the temple.

After the Word became flesh, Jesus Christ fulfilled the Word of the old covenant.  The Word enfleshed, revealed the fragility and futility of our flesh, and finished what Israel could not finish in the weakness of its human flesh.  The sabbath, the day of rest, had become for the Jews, a day of rules, rather than a day of faith where one could rest with God after atonement was made for sin.  Jesus said to the Jews, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27 ESV)

What Jesus was saying is, the day of rest, God’s holy day, or holiday,  is made for us to faithfully rest with God.  It’s not a day for a self-justifying stoppage of work.  The Jews had turned the Sabbath into a work of righteousness, by their good works of not working.  The focus was on themselves doing, rather than being with whom they were called to be!  Their motivation was on what they did, rather than being with God!

What is your motivation in coming to church?  If it’s for a work of some kind, let the example of the Jews of Jesus’ day, stand as a warning to you!  If your primary reason for coming to church is for community, morale, making an appearance, to be seen, to be a leader, to do a certain job, to move others by one’s own motivation, or for good morals, then you’re coming for the wrong reason!

As honourable as the tasks performed might be, (I include myself as your pastor in this), if I or you come for reasons other than to rest in God, through the forgiveness of sins, atoned for by Jesus Christ, you and I have come for the wrong reason!  We’re not here to work for God, but to be arrested by him, to allow him to work for us, in us, so we can rest in him.  And in doing so we glorify the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in their honourable tasks of reposing, recasting, and reforming the clay jars that we are!  

In Paul’s leadership as a slave or servant of Jesus Christ, even he needed to rest in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  So too with you and me, now that we have been recreated and recast in Jesus Christ, as Sons of God in his works of righteousness, having been reborn with water and the word, as kings in God’s creation.  We are returned to Psalm two where we’re reminded, “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.  Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”  (Psalm 2:10–12 ESV)

Every one of us who remains and rests in God’s Son, glorifies God by acknowledging God’s righteous judgement.  As we have just heard,  “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”  What does this rest do?  It blesses us or balances us in the truth of God’s Word.  Hence, we find ourselves fleeing to this rest for refuge. 

We might think God’s judgement is Jesus’ anger as Psalm two says!  But it says this for us and others when we focus on ourselves.  When we kiss ourselves, someone, or something other than the Son of God.  However, when we’re led to kiss the Son, we trust in him and what he’s done to balance us with forgiveness and blessed rest with God our Father.

So, how do we get this rest?  We get this rest or sabbath, firstly, through Jesus Christ who being the only one to rightly rest in God the Father, paradoxically died for us who through sin struggle to rest with God.  Ironically Jesus’ rest was so perfect, this “Holy Clay Jar” rested in God’s holy judgement on Holy Saturday,  “that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,  in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.”  (1 Peter 3:18–19 ESV)

In the continuation of Jesus’ perfect work and rest, the Holy Spirit continues this work by bringing us in faith into God’s rest.  We kiss the Son because the Holy Spirit brings us to the Son through his holy word and holy sacraments. 

The Holy Spirit calls you and me through the holy work and holy rest of Jesus, in other words, the gospel.  The Holy Spirit enlightens you and me with God’s gifts, of forgiveness, to confess, and forgive as we have been forgiven.  This happens with the enlightenment of God’s holy word and faithful trust in Jesus’ holy communion for the forgiveness of sins, continuation of life in the midst of death, and salvation from eternal death.  The Holy Spirit also makes us holy; he covers us with the robes of Christ’s righteousness, so we have free access into God’s holiness to pray and confess.

So, what does this rest look like?  We are still clay jars, fragile and easily broken.  We are holy with “the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”   But the darkness of our original state still lingers.  However, the Holy Spirit now works within you and me, so we, “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”, as we hear in the Third Commandment.

In his explanation, Martin Luther says in the Small Catechism, “We are to fear and love God so we do not neglect his Word or the preaching of it, but regard it as holy and gladly hear and learn it.”

The Holy Spirit leads us to church to hear the word, to stand under it in understanding, to unpack it in its truth and relevance for us, and to give us joy in gathering as forgiven people in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  However, we, being clay jars, don’t always appreciate the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  Our fragility and futility, tends to lead us to see without eyes of faith, where we overlook the reality of what resting in God is all about.  Then we neglect his word and the preaching of it, regarding it as common, and turn against hearing and learning it. 

Every person struggles with this.  After all we are clay jars!  This is where we have the Holy Spirit to help us, to once again fear and love God, in a way where we no longer “have got to” read the bible.  Where we no longer “have got to” go to church.  And where we no longer “have got to” serve our neighbours as Christ serves us. 

Rather, we keep knocking on God’s door in prayer for the Holy Spirit to give us a hunger “to want to” read the bible, to give us a desire “to want to” go to church and rest in God, and to give us a longing “to want to” serve our neighbours as Christ serves us.

When you keep praying for the Holy Spirit to give you a love for God’s Word, he will lead you to Jesus Christ, deepening your knowledge of his grace and the depths of your sin in your self-justifying knowledge of good and evil.  You will get understanding as to why you might have struggled to find true joy in church, and why being daily in the Word is difficult. 

In God’s time you will find yourself looking forward to coming into rest in God.  To be forgiven and fed!  Rather than coming in cold to hear the Word of God on Sunday morning, your joy in the Word of God, will see you put off the world, so the Holy Spirit can prepare you, the clay jars, in the Word of God for rest with God in his word and sacraments.  Amen.

B, Trinity Sunday - Isaiah 6:3 & Romans 8:14-15 "Holy Abba"

Isaiah 6:3 (ESV) “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 

Romans 8:14-15 (ESV) For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba!  Father!” 

Today is Trinity Sunday and we celebrate God in his thrice holy being.  We can do so only because of Jesus Christ who gives us access into the presence of one who is so almighty, if we dared to have an audience with God without Jesus’ atonement we would drop dead.  Such is the omnipotent glory of God in heaven and our human impotence.

If anything comes into the presence of a Holy God without his chosen covering of mercy, one of two truths has to occur.  God’s purity is diluted, and he is not really holy!  Or, any impurity, be it ever so slight, has to be consumed by the radiance of his holy glory.

Isaiah was very well aware of this.  He knew that to be in God’s presence demanded nothing but perfection.  Such is the holiness of God, it cannot tolerate any error, lest it be unholy.  Like Moses and Gideon before him, Isaiah knew, to see God, meant death.

Isaiah also knew that the king of Judah, Uzziah[1], sought under his own power to enter the temple of God in Jerusalem and burn incense, not “consecrated”, or “made holy” to do so.  Because he did the king lived the rest of his life in separation as a lepper, despite doing what was right in the eyes of God right up until this unauthorised entry into God’s holy presence.

So, when the vision of the Lord was revealed to Isaiah, of God’s presence shaking the temple and filling it with smoke, with the seraphim singing, “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of hosts”  Isaiah cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”  (Isaiah 6:5 ESV)  Like the King who died in that year, Isaiah lamented he too was lost to death!

But rather than leprosy appearing on his forehead as it did with King Uzziah, he didn’t die.  Being completely right in saying he was unclean and deserving of death for just seeing a vision of the Lord in the temple, the seraph took a burning coal from the altar and touched his mouth saying, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:7 ESV)

The holiness of God took away Isaiah’s guilt and atoned for his sins.  God now gave him the lips with which to proclaim his word to his people who did not recognise their uncleanliness before a Holy God.  And it wasn’t a pleasant message God sent Isaiah to say…

The Lord said, “Go, and say to this people: “ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’  Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”  Then I (Isaiah) said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste,  and the LORD removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.  And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump.  (Isaiah 6:9–13 ESV)

Immediately we will recognise a couple of things.  God was disciplining his chosen people with the harshest of judgements, to turn away from the Lord so that the Lord will remove the people far away and the tenth who remain would be burnt to a stump. 

We also recognise the burnt stump that appeared to not have any life within it, is in fact, the holy seed, the stump of Jesse, the promised Son of David, Jesus Christ.

The prophet Isaiah proclaims the fullness of God’s Law and Gospel.  The holiness of God the Father, the holiness of God the Son, and the holiness of God the Holy Spirit.  The full supreme holiness of the triune God in his perfect justice and jealous love, pours out his word of on his chosen people. 

In human eyes and understanding it appears we, like Isaiah, and the Israelites, are dead men!  And rightly so before a God whose holiness cannot partake of anything short of perfection, lest he has made himself out to be a liar.

But God is no liar, he is our God of truth, exposing what needs to be exposed, so he can fix what needs to be fixed.  God’s word is holy and with it he works to make us holy.

Against this picture of God’s almighty threefold holiness, shaking and filling the temple of Isaiah’s vision with smoke, is the picture Paul paints for the Romans and us.  Worked by the Holy Spirit and not a human spirit of slavery this is a most beautiful and gracious picture.

It’s a picture of Fatherly love, a picture of nurturing, a picture of adoption, a safe picture of submission and stability, a picture of inheritance together with our Lord Jesus Christ.  This is a picture of the stump with the Tree or Life growing out of it.  This is our Stump of hope.  It’s our connection with the holiness of God, it’s a picture of Jesus our brother putting us in our Father’s arms.

Because of the truth of this picture, you’re called to believe and receive you’re being gathered with God the Father and his Son by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit enables you and me to put to death the deeds of our flesh, through repentance, the uncleanness that Jesus Christ has covered with his robes of holiness.

The Holy Spirit now touches our mouths with his holy fire of faith, so rather than crying out, “woe is me in unbelief.”  We can joyfully sing to each other before our Loving Father, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3 ESV)  This God who is so huge and almighty, who fills heaven and earth with the hem of his holy, holy, holy glory, intimately takes us in his arms, and as his children wills us to call him “Abba”, “dadda”, “daddy”, “Father”.  

A couple of weeks back there was much excitement over the auroras present at both poles of our planet.  It was the strongest it’s been for a couple of decades.  I was fortunate to see it and photograph it. 

I wonder if the sense of smallness I had was similar to that of Isaiah when he saw his vision.  But not only Isaiah’s vision but that of John’s revelation of the throne of heaven where he saw, “one seated on the throne.  And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.”  (Revelation 4:2–3 ESV)

Picture that display of holiness!

As I remember marvelling, in my smallness, at this spectacle of nature in the colours of the aurora, it makes me look forward to the reality of finally being face to face in the Father’s holiness, through the holy atonement of Jesus Christ, in the holy fulfilment of the Holy Spirit.  Where around the throne of God all the holy will join the angels, the archangels, and the whole company of heaven, praising God, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8 ESV)

Picture this reality in your adoption as sons of God.  Amen.

Let us pray.  Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.  (Revelation 4:11 ESV) For the kingdom, and the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever, Amen.

 

 

---

[1] 2 Chronicles 26:1-23 (Uzziah was known as Azariah in 2 Kings 15:1-7)