Liberated from the burden of sin!

Sermon Proper 9

Third Sunday after Pentecost July 3^rd, 2011

Matthew 11:25-30

Rev. Jeff Springer

Grace and Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Tomorrow our nation will celebrate its Independence from Great Britain. This declaration meant a liberation from the laws and taxes of Great Britain that were creating a burden for the colonists who were not represented in Britain’s legislature.    Two hundred years later, with our own representative government,  we have astronomical budget deficits that many feel will burden us with more taxes and regulations.  Perhaps we are right back where we started. Perhaps we are not as free as we think.

This is true of the wise.  The wise that Jesus speaks of in his prayer are not necessarily the educated but the proud and the arrogant.  The wise when it comes to faith believe they have a better idea.  They are not content with Jesus words.  They are not content with what Jesus institutes. They are not content with how the message is delivered. They have a better way.  They presume to teach God and make Him their pupil.  They are what Dr. Luther calls wiseacres and many can be found both in leadership positions and even the pews of the church.

Wiseacres are busy bodies working to improve on God’s established church. They wring their hands as the concern themselves with the growth or lack of growth in the church.  They render baptism, confession and absolution, and the Lord’s Supper, real preaching, all things Christ instituted, and the liturgy as obsolete and ineffective. We need to get with the times. We need to jazz up the worship otherwise no one will listen, no one will come. 

These wiseacres therefore create for themselves a heavy yoke a heavy burden as they take on the responsibilities of the church.  Perhaps this stems from the false belief that ever since Jesus rose and ascended into Heaven that He deserted His church or He really doesn’t have time head His church because He is stuck at the right hand of God or perhaps He is too busy building mansions or the worst one, He did His part now it’s time that you do yours.

The Devil is the first and ultimate wiseacre for he proposed an alternative to God’s Word to Adam and Eve. They were tempted with knowledge apart from God’s Word were they not?  Luther preached in his last sermon before he died.

“For our wisdom and understanding in divine things is the eye which the devil opened for us in paradise, when Adam and Eve, too, wanted to be wise in the devil’s name. God himself taught them and gave them his Word, which they were to adhere to, if they wanted to be really wise. Then came the devil and made improvements; he closed the eyes with which they had previously seen God and not seen the devil. This is the plague which still continues to cling to us—that we want to be wise and understanding in the devil’s name.” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 51)

From this perspective we are all born wiseacres and the plague that continues to adhere to us is our sin that looks for wisdom and understanding apart from God’s Word and in the Devil’s name.  This puts us in shackles.  It steals away our liberty.  We are fooled into thinking we are free but we are not. It’s kind of like the Matrix movies where the human race thinks they are living out their lives but in reality they are entombed in watery coffins.

To illustrate this point further, I had another Pastor tell me of an instance where a member said he was exercising his Christian freedom by taking His son to his baseball league game instead of coming to church on Sundays. The Pastor said, “If you are truly free then you would be just as willing to miss a baseball game for the church service.”  

This is truly a heavy burden, for the devil’s religion is one of setting up an idol or false God that demands our works, our worship. The Devil said to Jesus in the wilderness fall down and worship and I will give this World back that you created. But Jesus refused and instead went the way of His Father’s will to the cross. Jesus did what Adam did not do. He abided in the Word of the Father.  He was the Son or the Man that God wanted and intended from the beginning. A relationship of love and trust between God and Man. This is found in Jesus. 

Jesus gives thanks to the Father that these things are hidden from the wise and understanding or the proud and arrogant, not because He is vindictive or mean but because he wants to show that faith is not something we work for but it is something we are given. That He gives to you.

Luther wrote in his explanation of the third article of the creed.  “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to Him. But it is the Holy Spirit who calls me by the Gospel and enlightens me with His gifts.” These are the very gifts of forgiveness that He instituted in baptism, confession and absolution and the Lord’s Supper.

Since they are gifts anyone can receive them, everyone from smallest infant to the oldest adult. All the gifts convey forgiveness of sins but each sacrament has its particular purpose and application.  Baptism is the gift that brings one into the Kingdom and gives the Holy Spirit to the baptized that they may believe what they are taught in the faith.  Absolution whether corporate or private announces God’s grace and conveys Christ’s forgiveness to penitent sinners so they may hear it.  The Lord’s Supper requires faith in the words “given and shed for you” and unbelief results in judgment so the teaching of the faith precedes the reception.   This is a glorious gift and assurance that Jesus comes down from heaven to give Himself to His bride the church.

This is the mystery revealed, revelation of the Father by the Son of the Father and Son’s work to save and redeem that which they created.  Our Lord has graciously revealed this to you in this place. He has chosen you to hear it and to receive it.  You who have a better idea who resist His word and are therefore burdened He gives this ridiculously free gift to you!

You are then ready to hear His words when He says, “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.”

Is Jesus giving you a yoke?  Yes he is, but it is not a burden.  He is exchanging your yoke of burdensome sin for His yoke of good news and righteousness. With the receiving of the good news we find peace and rest. 

Instead of the demand for works and sacrifices in worship that require our effort, Jesus says learn from me, and you find that I am gentle and lowly in heart, just as He is revealed by the prophet Zechariah.  God does not come on a warhorse but on the foal of a donkey. For the truly burdened and broken he comes to them with gentleness to the wise and the proud He sternly warns that they are still in their sins.

The yoke of good news that Jesus gives to us enables us to face persecution.  It enables us to weather the assaults of those from within the church and without.  Luther preached,  “’Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden’  [Matt. 11:28], and it is as though he were saying: Just stick to me, hold on to my Word and let everything else go. If you are burned and beheaded for it, then have patience, I will make it so sweet for you that you easily would be able to bear it. It has also been written of St. Agnes  that when she was led to prison to be killed, it was to her as if she were going to a dance. Where did she get this? Ah, only from this Christ, from believing this saying, ‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.’ That is to say: If things go badly, I will give you the courage even to laugh about it; and if even though you walk on fiery coals, the torment shall nevertheless not be so severe and the devil shall nevertheless not be so bad, and you will rather feel that you are walking on roses.”

This is an amazing promise our Lord makes and should give us courage to take up our crosses and to stand for God’s Word.  “Come to me, come to the Altar, all who are burdened and I will exchange your yoke of sin for my light one of forgiveness and righteousness. He can do this for the Father has given Him all authority to do so. Amen.