Proper 9 (2023)

Last week we began a new series to help us define what it means to be a Christian, and rather than listening to all the ideas out there in the world we're listening to Jesus himself as he talks about aspects of being a Christian and what it means to follow him and be his disciple.

Earlier in Matthew 11 Jesus began to denounce the cities where most of his works has been done, because they did not repent. Jesus delivered a message of “WOE” to them. Jesus had also called — more or less — John the Baptist the Mensch among the people in the Kingdom of God, and that no one greater than John the Baptist. The problem was that John's dynamic ministry didn’t move the needle and didn't move the masses; they neither danced for the flute or mourned for the dirge and so Jesus slapped a lukewarm label on an entire generation and we all know how grim that kind of label is. Jesus ripped Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum with “Woes” because they stubbornly ignored his calls for repentance.

So the gospel for today shifts our focus from what I would call woe to woo. One of the things that comes to mind is Saint Augustine's famous words: "You have made us for yourself Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” And so if you're actually repentant Jesus is the guy in this gospel in an especially sweet and simple way to woo restless souls to Christ.

Everyone has those times when what they’re trying to get out from underneath that things that burdens and wearies them—for some it’s a relationship with another, for others it’s maybe it is their health, like a chronic back problem, for others it is understanding people. You know the feeling. You try to do something, but you just can’t get it. No matter how hard you try, you can’t succeed, there’s no real relief. The more you try, the more frustrated you get. You want to accomplish—all by yourself—what you’re doing, but you find you don’t have what’s necessary to get the job done. Your inability becomes a burden, a huge frustration. Finally, being unable to accomplish your task can wear you down, and you become weary of ever completing it. You despair of your inability.

What Burdens and Weariness

The way many people falsely understand salvation leads to this same despair. Salvation by works of the Law—trying to be saved by what you do is like trying to accomplish something but never attaining it. The Law tells you what you’re to do but doesn’t enable you to comply with its commands; rather, it causes you to become more unwilling to keep the Law, even increasing sin. Trying to live up to the Law only ends in despair. The Law doesn’t save; it brings knowledge of sin. Trying to be accepted by God, trying to attain salvation through the Law or our efforts only makes you weary and heavy laden with guilt.

Paul speaks of this struggle he had in today’s Epistle. He says:

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . . For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. (Rom 7:14–15, 18–19)

Paul finally throws up his hands as if in total frustration: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24). If you look truthfully at yourself, your life—like Paul’s—is a constant struggle with sin. We think, “now that I’m a Christian I shouldn’t be bothered with these things.” Or, perhaps we have expectations of God that do not match His will. You don’t do the good you desire. We are sinners, and a wretched sinner just like Paul, deserving eternal death in hell. This is what you confess when you say, “I have strayed from your ways like lost sheep. I have followed what I have devised and desired in my heart” as we confess in the liturgy.

Most of the time we try to hide this wretchedness from yourself. We try to push it out of our mind, not thinking about it or justifying our actions. The “wise and understanding” (Matt. 11:25) have learned schemes to justify themselves. Psalm 32:3 reminds us, “When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long.” We try to hide or justify our sin, and it just ends up eating us from the inside out. The burden of your guilt remains. For example, Kind David had an affair with Bathsheba, and through a series of unsuccessful attempts to hide the outcome of the affair — a child — he ends up being responsible for her husbands death, so he could marry her. I imagine he worried if anyone would ever find out. Did I do a good enough job of covering my tracks? We are the same. We try to forget it, we try not to think about it, we even try to explain it away with some rationalization, but the heavy burden of guilt remained.

Christ’s Outstretched Arms Invite You to Come

God the Father does not want you to be weary and suffer the burden of your sin. Therefore, he has revealed to you his gracious will through his Son. “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” Jesus prays in our text, “that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Matthew 11:25–27).

The Father’s will is seen only through his Son, Jesus. All things, including your sins, have been handed over to the Son by the Father. He was sent to reveal his Father’s gracious will to you.

Jesus entered Jerusalem the last time humble and riding on a donkey — “a beast of burden” to carry away the burden and weariness of your sin and to give you his rest. He took your sins to the cross. On the cross, he died for your sins, removing them. Believers in Christ, like you, find true rest for their souls in him who has taken the burden of their sin from their shoulders and put it on his own. Instead of acting wise and understanding in an attempt to hid your sin, he calls on you to become little children, admitting your sinfulness like Paul in the Epistle Reading, and to receive his good and gracious gift of forgiveness.

Our Lutheran fathers spoke of this Good News this way: (FC Ep XI 7)

Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions Affirmative Statements

7. Christ calls all sinners to Himself and promises them rest. He is eager ‹seriously wills› that all people should come to Him and allow themselves to be helped. He offers them Himself in His Word and wants them to hear it and not to plug their ears or ‹neglect and› despise the Word. Furthermore, He promises the power and working of the Holy Spirit and divine assistance for perseverance and eternal salvation ‹so that we may remain steadfast in the faith and gain eternal salvation›.

First, as you heard, Christ came to bear the burden of the Law for you. He fulfilled all that the Law requires in your place. And, Christ came to bear the burden of your sin for you.

That’s precisely what he was doing at the end of his life when he entered Jerusalem on that beast of burden, a donkey—taking away your burden of sin. With the crossbeam on his shoulders like a yoke, Christ took your sins on himself on the cross. As Isaiah said,

Isaiah 53:3–4 NKJV

He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.

Today, Jesus calls and promises all you who labor and are heavy laden and weary by sin to come to him for rest:

Matthew 11:28–30 NKJV

Come to Me, all you 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.”

Christ calls you to himself and promises you rest—forgiveness and the comfort it brings.

His Word and call enable you to come. By your own reason and strength you cannot believe in Jesus Christ, your Lord, or come to him. But today the Holy Spirit calls you by the Gospel, enlightens you with his gifts, sanctifies and keeps you in the true faith. The Holy Spirit does for you the same as what he did for Paul and the whole Christian Church on earth: he keeps you with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church, he daily and richly forgives all your sins and the sins of all believers.

Today,

Christ Calls You to Himself and Promises You Rest.

The Psalmist declares “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty” (Ps 91:1). Living in the shadow of Christ’s cross, you have rest. You have the true rest of not having to carry the burden of your guilt or having to fear its condemnation. Therefore, you are bold to pray as you did in today’s Prayer of the Day:

“Gracious God, our heavenly Father, Your mercy attends us all our days. Be our strength and support amid the wearisome changes of this world, and at life’s end grant us Your promised rest and the full joys of Your salvation.”

This rest is yours in Christ, for he calls you to himself and promises you rest. This is so, because The Christian Finds Rest in Jesus.