Sermon for Pentecost 5: "Christ Crucified is Our Rest"

+ 5^th Sunday after Pentecost – July 9^th, 2017 +

Series A: Zechariah 9:9-12; Romans 7:14-25; Matthew 11:25-30

Redeemer Lutheran, HB

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Now that summer is here I can finally rest and relax. Now that I’m retired, I’ll have plenty of time to rest. Now that the weekend is here I’ll be able to rest after a busy week.

We’ve all had these or similar thoughts before. But then the family calendar fills up with road trips and adventures; retirement proves to be busier than a 40-hour work week; and the weekend is always too short to finish the to-do list.

When we feel like we need a vacation from our vacation; or when we’ve had a particularly long or stressful week at work; or when family, friends, or dear brothers or sisters in Christ suffer illness or die - we grow weary. We long for rest.

Rest for our body and mind is important for our physical and mental health and we pray for this in the Lord’s Prayer when we pray “give us this day our daily bread”. We pray for our heavenly Father to provide all we need for this body and life. And he does, daily without any merit or worthiness in us, out of his pure, fatherly divine goodness and mercy.

But we also pray for daily bread from the Lord’s table, healing, strength, and sustenance for our spiritual well-being as well. Rest for our soul.

This is the kind of rest our heavenly Father gives us in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s day as we receive the Lord’s gifts.

But right about then our sinful flesh chimes in with a lame excuse like, “I just love to rest and be close to God on the beach” or wherever. Problem is, Jesus never promised eternal rest, forgiveness, life, and salvation to be given on the beach with our toes in the water and rear-end in the sand. Jesus promises to be with us in the word and water of Holy Baptism, the forgiveness of Absolution, the body and blood of the Lord’s Supper.

We rest in the grace, mercy, and peace of Jesus crucified for you. In the rest and peace of sins forgiven. In the rest Jesus provides: As the Psalms say… As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. (Ps. 42:1)

My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. (Ps. 84:2)

Or, as St. Augustine once wrote, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until we find our rest in Thee.” The rest we need - the rest we long for - Jesus promises: Come to me, all who labor 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.”

Israel longed for an eternal Sabbath rest. They were weary from from sinful rebellion, burdened by false teachers and idolatry; they were dead tired and dead in sin when the prophet Zechariah declared words of hope and promise for Israel and for all...Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

St. Paul also longed for rest from his daily war with his own sinful flesh. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Oh wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

Paul found rest – not in himself - but in Christ Crucified. Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

The disciples too, longed for rest. As Jesus spoke of rest in Matthew 11 they were already beginning to feel the heavy laden cross of discipleship.

Like Israel, St. Paul, and the disciples we long for and need rest. Like Israel we’re daily surrounded by idols - both without and within - that threaten to lead us astray from Jesus crucified to the Jezebels and Delilahs of the world. The world offers ever increasing pleasures with an ever diminishing return. Hope and longing quickly turn to disappointment, despair and distrust.

Like St. Paul, we wrestle daily with (what Luther called) our maggot sack of the sinful flesh. St. Paul wrote Romans 7 when he was a Christian. He understood our heavy burden of sin. Paul doesn’t give us a spoonful of sugar with the Law. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

It’s not pretty, popular, or palatable, but it’s true. This body of death. That’s why we’re so weary and tired. It’ all symptomatic of our sinful heart of darkness within. Our conscience is heavy laden with the weight of our sins in thought, word, and deed, with what we have done and left undone. Who will rescue me from disease, disaster, despair, and death? Thanks be to God who gives us the victory in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And like the disciples, Jesus must reveal his easy yoke to us. It comes only by grace, through the cross. Jesus teaches them, and us in these words, that the way to find rest is to trade the heavy burden of our failure, weariness, and sin for Jesus’ easy yoke.

Come to me, all who labor 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.”

It’s worth noting that the noun for disciple and the verb “to learn” in this section are from the same root word in the Greek. It’s a reminder that the disciple - and that includes us - is always learning. And what are we to learn? Jesus’ promise:

Learn from me, that I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Jesus crucified is the refuge of the weary. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus’ death on the cross for you is our resting place. On the cross Jesus labored under the weight of our sin, bore the yoke of the cross, God’s punishment for sin, and the grave for you. Jesus exchanges the heavy burden of

our sin for his light and easy yoke of forgiveness, life, and salvation. Jesus had no place but the cross and the grave to rest his head so that you receive eternal rest in him.

Like Israel, our rest is found in King Jesus, who gives us his righteousness and victory over sin and death in the Absolution.

Like St. Paul, we find the end of our war against our sinful flesh in the flesh of Jesus crucified for us, given to us in his body and blood given in the Lord’s Supper.

Like the disciples, Jesus promises not to take us out of the world, but to overcome the world for us, and call us into his family by adoption through grace in Holy Baptism.

We may not always find lasting rest in this life. But the rest we need and long for is given just as Jesus promises: in his word, water, body and blood, we have an eternal Sabbath.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.