Saturday of Trinity III - Devotion in semi-Exile

Lection for Saturday after Trinity III 
Joshua 10:1-25      Acts 11:19-30

Today I am driving home from Oregon, Ohio (I know, I know, but didn't we do this the other day...in this same spot? This time I can answer, for I googled it. No, there is no city in Oregon named Ohio.) As today is the 4th of July, I looked through old sermons to see if I preached one on the 4th of July. You know what? I could not find one. To be fair, I did not really try very hard. But I found this one preached a couple days after - it is for the 6th Sunday after Trinity. I thought I would use it for this devotion because it mentions Independence Day as having happened "this past weekend," and addresses Independence Day in a Christian manner. I remember preaching it back in 2013 and a couple people mentioning that they appreciated how I addressed it then.
So, for your meditation today I present (click the text link below to read it before reading the sermon):

What Does This Mean?

Exodus 20:1-17

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

In this passage from Exodus twenty, we have eleven ‘you shall nots,’ one ‘remember,’ and one ‘honor’ command.  This passage of Exodus is where we find the Lord’s giving of the Ten Commandments. And as good Lutherans, we might well ask here, “What does this mean?” Don’t you think you’d like to know the answer to tha??  

Thank you, I am very glad you asked. I’d love to explain it to you.

Did you pay attention to what you have been commanded by God to do?  He gives these commandments for what reason? He tells us, “for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.”   He also adds, “for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” 

The Lord God also explains the third commandment in great detail, much of which we leave out, simply summarizing it with “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”  But to that God added, “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

If you will notice, the greater explanations and threats of punishment come from God in regard to what we would call the first Table of the Law.  That is, those things having to do with our fear, love, and trust toward God. God will not share us with any gods of our own imaginings.  Nor does God like it when we misuse His name.  And as you can see, He really wants us to take seriously the idea of resting on the Sabbath – devoting a day simply to Him.

There are some definite things that we should not be doing.  But if you noticed, the last two commandments are a bit more nebulous, they have to do with coveting.  Coveting is an attitude of the heart, a desire in the heart which can consume us, or lead us to consider how we might obtain that which we desire – whether we follow through with it or not.  For example, coveting a woman who is not your wife is called lust.  We know what Jesus says about lust in the heart being adultery.

After seeing these commands from God, and the threats they contain, we realize something very quickly. We do not keep these commandments.  The love God promises to those who keep these commandments could not possibly be ours.  As we consider that fact, we realize that we must stand under His jealousy and He must visit our iniquities upon us.  We are not guiltless, but guilty.

This past week, most people celebrated the 4^th of July.  You heard people say, “what are you doing on the 4^th?  Or, what did you do on the 4^th? Did you get together with family on the 4^th? Did you get fireworks for the 4^th? What is was the 4^th of July?  It is Independence Day.  It is a day that we celebrate our nation’s independence from English rule – and from any other nation’s rule for that matter.  But how many really celebrate Independence Day?  I’d say that the majority of people enjoyed the “4^th” with a cook-out and some fireworks, but very few thought about the sacrifices of those who declared their independence and then fought to gain us our freedoms as a nation.

I bring that up so that you might consider our text from Exodus again, in light of God’s Christ.  You see, God also gave a promise after His threat of visiting iniquity of the fathers upon those who hate Him by saying that He would show “steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

If it were up to us, knowing that we do not love Him nor keep His commandments, we would have to suffer the wrath of God against our continuing in the sins of our fathers.  Our sinfulness moves us to do things we would rather not do, but we still do them.  It is like we are in slavery.  If left to our own devices, we are, simply put, in slavery to sin. We would not be able to free ourselves from our bondage to sinfulness, and be in any way, obedient to the will of God.

But it is not left up to us.  Did you hear how this text began.  "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”  God brought about Israelites’ independence day, their freedom from slavery – from the bondage they had endured at the hands of the Egyptians.  There is also their hope in the midst of all these commandments.

God is a god of mercy and grace.  He desires to show mercy.  And so he does.  He gives the Law so that we might know the depth of our depravity, so that we might understand how truly enslaved we are.

But we do not remain there.  Jesus speaks about what is contained in our text when He addresses the crowd on Judean Mount in the Gospel lesson for today, telling them the He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets.  He did not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.  There is not a single stroke of the pen, neither the crossing of a ‘t’ or the dotting of an ‘i,’ in all of God’s Law that shall pass from the Law till it is accomplished. 

To be in the Law, to keep it as God intends, we need to keep it with a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees – we need to keep it perfectly.

Thankfully, Jesus came to fulfill the Law for us – and the prophets.  He fulfills the Law in doing what it requires, and doing it in complete perfection.  He also fulfills the prophets, being the One God they had promised through their mouths and their pens, to send in order keep the Law and be the sacrifice offered for those who fail to keep it.

What does this mean? Your independence day came when you were baptized into Christ’s death.  His death atoned, that is, made satisfaction to God for our sinfulness.  He is the One who redeems us, that is, He buys us back, He pays for our independence from sin and guilt.  That redemption becomes yours in baptism.

What does this mean?  Today is your independence day.  You have been made God’s royal people.  In a declaration of independence, forgiveness was spoken into your ears.  You are freed from the guilt of sin.

What does this mean?  In a declaration of independence, Christ’s body becomes your holy food and His blood becomes you blessed drink.  You feast at His table and are strengthened to live toward God as His beloved children, freed from your slavery to sin.

When you hear His Word, when you eat and drink at the table Christ sets, there you are loving God and keeping His commandments – and there God showers your with His steadfast love unto life everlasting.  Today is your independence day for life everlasting.  Amen.