Remember How He Gives Us Real Rest :: Luke 14:1-11

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And it came to pass, [Jesus] entered into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees during the Sabbath to eat bread, and they were scrutinizing him. And behold, one man with edema was before him. In response to this, Jesus said to the law experts and Pharisees, ‘Is it permissible during the Sabbath to give therapy or not?’ But they were silent. And having received [the man], [Jesus] healed and dismissed him. And to [the Pharisees and law experts he said, ‘Which of you, [when your] son or ox falls into a well, will not immediately pull him up during the Sabbath day?’ And they did not have the strength to answer against these things (vv 1-6).

[Prayer]

We thank you, Heavenly Father, that you have given us time to hear your Holy Word. Grant that in fear and love of you, we may set aside our work to receive your gifts and be refreshed and renewed with your peace and quietness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[Catechism]

The last two weeks we turned our devotional focus toward the first and second commandments: You shall have no other God, and You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God. This week we take up the Third Commandment.

Please turn now to Page 321 in your service book. As the Head of the household should teach them in a simple way to his household: What is the Third Commandment? Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

[Introduction]

Let’s get one thing straight right away: Today is not the Sabbath. In Genesis 2, we hear: God blessed the Seventh Day, and He sanctified it because on it He rested ... (that is, he took a Sabbath) ... from all His work which He created and made (2:3). 

Today is the First Day of the Week. Today is the Day of Resurrection. 

Today is the day we recognize that ... Hallelujah! ... He is Risen! ... 

1. What it must have been like to rest in the finished work of creation on the first Sabbath?

How clean and blue was the water? How rich was the soil? How fresh was the air? How lush was the grass?

Can you imagine how many colors could we see in the night sky that was stretching out before us as we lay on our back in that grass?

Can you imagine how healthy our bodies were? No hunger or thirst. No shivers. No sweat. 

Can you imagine the lion lying with the lamb? No bloodshed. No fear. No lack of peace. No pain. No disagreements. No one holding a grudge. To borrow the word of today’s Psalm: Why would the nations rage, and the people plot in vain? (Ps 2:1)

And so God rested. He stepped back from his work of creation, and declared, It is finished! He took a Sabbath.

And now ... when God’s people rest in observance of the Sabbath ... they confess the same thing. They remember who God really is, how he gives us rest, and they declare it is finished. 

That’s what the word ‘Sabbath’ means. Rest. God’s people confess in faith that they lack nothing ... that they have only one God and we know his name ... that He has chosen us and called us by name (1 Pt 2:9). In fact, we remember that we are enabled to step back and recognize what our Creator has done and continues to do for us ... calling us away from toil and sweat and bondage ... Calling us away from the thorns and thistles and people bristling with contempt ... Calling us out of sin and death and giving us his perfect rest ... the original rest ... the rest he created ... the rest at a feast with no pain or brokenness. 

That is where our Gospel reading is taking us.

2. God’s people need this rest that Jesus gave the man with edema at a Sabbath feast.

Jesus has just entered the house of a prominent Pharisee ... one of their head honchos ... to eat bread on the Sabbath (v 1). He has come in his divine service, because that’s what God does, even to those who oppose him. He has come to rest with them.

I suspect it’s Friday evening. The sun has just set, thus the new day, the Sabbath, has begun. Our day begins at sunrise. For Israel, as Genesis 1 says, it began at sunset (cf 1:5b:ff). All kinds of people ... friends, family, sojourners ... have been invited to this meal of bread and wine that had been prepared before the sun set ... before the Sabbath. Observant Jews did this every week because as the Lord told Moses in Exodus 31:13, Surely, you will keep (or protect or treasure) my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you for your generations, that you may know that I [am] YHWH, the one sanctifying you. God, through his Word, does this so that he can literally refresh you ... break bread with you ... during a feast that you treasure ... every week.

Given that this is the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, it should seem strange that today’s feast includes a man with edema ... you know, dropsy ... that painful swelling of the feet, ankles, and legs caused by the build-up of fluid in the body. The Pharisees taught that dropsy was linked to physical or sensual overindulgence, and they definitely did not like eating with sinners (5:30). 

Though this pericope doesn’t say so, I suspect he was invited as bait, because as verse 1 says, the Pharisees continued to scrutinize every word Jesus spoke and every move Jesus made. They wanted nothing more than to accuse him of sin, to put him down, just like they tried to do in Luke 6[:7], which describes a different Sabbath, a different person suffering, and a different healing. They wanted to exalt themselves and get rid of Jesus.

So in came a man with edema. 

In response to this, Jesus said to the law experts and Pharisees in the room, Is it permissible on the Sabbath to heal or not? But they kept silent (vv 3-4a). They stayed silent because they knew the answer: Not only is it OK to heal on the Sabbath, healing is a natural result of remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy (Ex 20:8). Sabbath rest leads to restoration. 

So that’s what Jesus gave us. 

Luke writes, when he received the man with edema, Jesus healed him, and dismissed him (v 4). That is, Jesus came to him ... paid attention to him ... remembered what the man was going through. Then he took away all of his painful swelling. He made him whole, and he dismissed him ... just like he does at the end of every Divine Service here.

Then Jesus said to the law experts and Pharisees in the room, Which one of you, will have a son or steer fall into a pit and you won’t immediately pull him up on the Sabbath? And they were not strong enough to contradict these things (vv 5-6). They felt humiliated. They had lost their power. Jesus exposed all of their prideful false teaching.

3. Jesus reminds us that God created the Sabbath for our good ... to exalt you. 

There was a time when Sunday was honored as a day of rest for the sake of those who went to church. But sadly, times have changed. Now everything competes with the church. People buy and sell, work, go to youth and pro sporting events, drive to the lake, and sleep in just because. They spiritualize everything they do. They avoid Sabbath rest. More and more people today say they simply want something different. They prefer to bow at their own altars by rejecting and disregarding God’s Word and sacraments. 

But God created the Sabbath to give us rest and restoration ... to be refreshed. God created the Sabbath so that He will dwell with us in righteousness. As Jesus said in Mark 2:27, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 

We keep the Sabbath not out of obligation. We keep the Sabbath because this is the day God sets us free. He has set aside time for us to recognize he comes to us in his Divine Service. He gives us rest. This is the day we get to focus on hearing and using his Word about how it’s all about Jesus ... of how he lived and died for all sin on the cross ... of how he then took a Sabbath rest from the work of redemption ... and then rose from the dead. Hallelujah! He is Risen!

This is time set aside for prayer and praise, for receiving his gifts. Jesus delivers to us the eternal life and salvation that he won for us, as God made us one of his very own. He has refreshed us through Holy Baptism, and invited us to his feast, where he calls us forward to a higher seat (Lk 14:7-11). Now we can recline with the Divine. 

[Conclusion]

Brothers and sisters in Christ, by healing us on the Sabbath ... just like Jesus did with the man with dropsy, the woman with a spirit of weakness in Luke 13[:10-14], the lame man by the pool at Bethsaida in John 5[:8-10], the man born blind in John 9[:7], and the man with the withered hand in Mark 3[:5] ... Jesus demonstrates that his acts of mercy and restoration are in perfect alignment with the true intent of the Sabbath. Real Rest.

Our eyes and ears need to see, hear, and receive his Word because that’s how God gives us rest. That’s how he nourishes us, just like he did with his disciples in Matthew 12[:1]. That’s how he teaches us, just like he did in Mark 6[:2] and Luke 4[:16]. That’s how he gives us fellowship with one another, just like he did with the early church when they met on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). 

So repent and trust the Lord of the Sabbath. Then, as you let the Third Commandment guide you, as God’s dear children, truly holding God’s Word sacred, and gladly hearing and learning it, you will remember how God gives you real rest ... In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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