Good morning Children of God and Happy Independence Day! Here is your Sunday Message:
July 5, 2020
5th Sunday after Pentecost
Prayer of the Day
You are great, O God, and greatly to be praised. You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Grant that we may believe in you, call upon you, know you, and serve you, through your son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
First Reading Zechariah 9:9-12
Psalm 145:8-14
Second Reading Romans 7:15-25a
Gospel Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.
The first gift God gives to a person is life. The second gift is freedom. Adam and Eve were not made to be robots with no freedom of thought, will, and action. When they disobeyed God, they were exercising their liberty. The fall that they experienced landed them in foreign territory; a place of bondage … to sin.
Many of us grew up with the standard confession which mentions “bondage to sin.” Weekly we said, “We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole hearts; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.”
In Romans, Chapter 7, St. Paul describes what it is like to live in bondage to sin. With complete transparency he states, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7:19) He also gives us a shorter form for confessing our sin: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)
We are a wretched people who exercise their freedom in such a way as to fall from life to death, and from standing tall to being bowed down. God gave us freedom but through our decisions and actions we became slaves to sin. With St. Paul we ask, who will rescue us, who will set us free? His answer: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25a)
God, through Jesus Christ, “upholds all those who fall and lifts up those who are bowed down.” (Psalm 145:14) A humanity that has been laid low with sin has been lifted up through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We have been set free from our bondage to sin. We have been rescued from our bodies of death. Jesus has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He has saved us.
In saving us, Jesus has revealed the Father to us. Through the cross and empty tomb of Jesus, God has been revealed as gracious, compassionate, abounding in steadfast love, good to all, and faithful; precisely as alleged in Psalm 145. Jesus has shown us that the Father has promised eternal freedom as our inheritance. We live today with the blessed assurance that we shall be released from our bondage to sin and death. In this life when we experience the wearisome and burdensome slavery of sin we do so with hope of a future freedom; our salvation.
Zechariah 9:9-12 speaks to a people who felt like prisoners in a “waterless pit.” A waterless pit is a striking way to define our bondage to sin. It is not pleasant and there is no way out under one’s own power. In these hot days of July, we can especially appreciate the metaphor.
The prisoners, Zechariah says, are not without hope for they will return to their stronghold and be restored double. (Zechariah 9:12) Life will get better. Prisoners to sin can rejoice because freedom is coming. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey … he shall command peace to the nations.” (Zechariah 9:9-1) The King of Peace will come and establish his peace. He will set the prisoners free.
The early church saw that these verses from Zechariah were fulfilled in Jesus. His triumphant entry into Jerusalem on the Sunday before his death made the statement “your king comes to you; he shall command peace to all.” Freedom and peace for all people is what Jesus established through his death and resurrection. As it is written, “Lord, you are good to all, and your compassion is over all your works.” (Psalm 145:9) The peace given by Jesus is premised upon the promise that you will be set free. You are forgiven and free from sin. Though you die, yet shall you live.
Having made these promises and sealing them with his own precious blood, Jesus calls people who are in bondage to sin to come to him. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) He will leave no prisoner behind in the waterless pit; no one who calls upon him will be left in the grasp of sin and death.
When we started the year 2020, we were clueless about the magnitude of the burdens awaiting us and the weariness resulting from them. In addition to our “usual” problems we have also been confronted with a pandemic (which is beginning to feel like a waterless pit) and a variety of protests. Current events have inspired increased introspection and personal evaluation. I have sensed magnified emotions presumably owing to the stress everyone is under. Personal filters are weakening and fuses are shortening. In this environment the generous invitation of Jesus goes forth, “Come to me, I will give you rest.” And so, we come.
We come with our confession and we come with our praise. We come with hearts wide open to receive the grace of the Prince of Peace. We come to be forgiven and to be empowered to forgive. We come to be lifted up from our weakness and to become a sign of strength. We come to have and to share hope. We come to be loved and to love.
Psalm 145:10-12 calls upon the faithful ones to “tell of the glory of [the Lord’s] kingdom and speak of [his] power, that all people may know of [his] power and the glorious splendor of [his] kingdom.” We are to tell the story of Jesus and his love. We are to live the story and perpetuate the story in order that all people may know that God loves them; that the freedom lost to sin and death will be restored double; and that there is rest and hope in the welcoming arms of Jesus.
On this 4th of July weekend, we are celebrating freedom. Even as we rejoice in our independence, we are suffering under the bondage imposed upon us by sin. The wretched man who saw Jesus as his only hope once wrote: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; … in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:18-21) True and eternal freedom for humankind and the whole of creation rests in the reality of belonging to Jesus and through him, to the Father. Let that understanding of freedom ring in your hearts and throughout the land. Amen.
I Love to Tell the Story (Katherine Hankey)
- I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love;
I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true,
It satisfies my longings as nothing else would do.- Refrain:
I love to tell the story,
’Twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story
Of Jesus and His love.
- Refrain:
- I love to tell the story, more wonderful it seems
Than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams;
I love to tell the story, it did so much for me,
And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee. - I love to tell the story, ’tis pleasant to repeat,
What seems each time I tell it more wonderfully sweet;
I love to tell the story, for some have never heard
The message of salvation from God’s own holy Word. - I love to tell the story, for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest;
And when in scenes of glory I sing the new, new song,
’Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.
Peace and blessings,
Pastor Bill