Grace Lutheran Church

Sunday, October 16, 2022 is the celebration of the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, and the Gospel Reading for this celebration is from St. Matthew, the Twenty-second chapter, verses 34-46:

The Great Commandment
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Whose Son Is the Christ?
41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,

44 “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet” ’?

45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:34-46, ESV).

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

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord and Savior sanctify you in the truth, for His word is truth. Amen

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity (2022)

Who Is God’s Son? Rev. Toby Byrd

“Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”” (Matthew 22:41–42, ESV)

Shakespeare once said, “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” This was the case with the Sadducees and the Pharisees, two groups of Israelites with differing theologies who were constantly at odds with one another and yet joined in their opposition to Jesus. There were also other groups who differed in theological opinions during the time of Christ, such as the Essenes of the second temple period and the Zealots during the life of Jesus. So the church of that time, filled with the opinions of men, was fractured and in disarray, headed in a direction that led souls away from salvation and heaven. This was the reason God sent our Lord Jesus to earth, to lead the church back onto the true path of salvation which came only by believing in His true an inerrant Word, that Word which promised the church a Savior. But as we see in today’s Gospel Reading, the powers to be, weren’t interested in the truth, instead they were interested in proving themselves right.

The Sadducees were the elite, liberals of Jesus’ day. They rejected much of the supernatural truths of faith. They believed that the soul ceased to exist at death, therefore, no bodily resurrection. Their theology rejected angels and spirits, and unlike the Pharisees who relied on the observance of oral tradition, the Sadducees rejected them, esteeming only those obligatory traditions according to the Word of God. For by doing so, the Sadducees thought they could preserve their status as aristocratic priests. But this is strange because the Sadducees didn’t come from the priestly tribe, the tribe of Levi. Instead they were priests according to the status of men. Church history tells us the Sadducees had very little support from among the common people, primarily their support came from the wealthy, upper class of Jerusalem.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, acknowledged the resurrection, angels, and spirits. Scripture tells us the Pharisee’s sat on the seat of Moses, they fasted, they observed all the traditions of the elders (Mark 7:3), including the ritual of cleanliness, washing their hands prior to eating while simultaneously breaking the commandment of God regarding honoring father and mother (Matt. 15:3). But they thought that through such observances, they were righteous. The Pharisees on the outside looked very holy, but on the inside Christ called them “whitewashed tombs” (Matt. 23:27). For the most part they were hypocrites and legalists.

In today’s Gospel Reading, St. Matthew tells us that Jesus had just silenced the Sadducees. This was when they had asked their silly question regarding the resurrection. But Jesus silences them with his answer, saying, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God . . . And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”” (Matthew 22:29, 31–32, ESV) This was good news for the Pharisees, because their rivals had been shamed by Jesus and now, they would have the opportunity to show the people how much smarter they were by outsmarting this upstart, Jesus of Nazareth. So they come to Jesus with the purpose of trapping Him by testing Him. Hoping to lead Him into a blasphemous error. Challenging His theology, they ask, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36, ESV) Now, in asking this question they really didn’t want a theological answer, no, they wanted Him to take one side or the other with one of their many religious quarrels with the Sadducees. Truth is, within Judaism there were hundreds of commandments, so they wanted to know which one Jesus thought was the most important. These Pharisees, these legalists, believed that God’s Law could be reduced to rules and regulations, and of course they had created more than enough of them, 613 to be exact. So out of these 613 rules they wanted Jesus to pick the one that was most important.

Not much has changed in these past two-thousand years. In today’s church we still have Pharisee’s and Sadducees, and we see threats against the revealed truth of God’s Word and our Christian faith from both sides, the left and the right. On the left we have the deniers of the holy mysteries of faith. In their obstinance, they challenge the inerrancy and inspiration of Holy Scripture, saying the Bible contains errors, denying the biblical account of Creation, the deity of Christ, and the exclusive claims of Jesus, saying they are bigoted and narrow-minded.

On the right we see the imposition of legal rules. If you claim to be a follower of Christ then you cannot smoke, you cannot drink, you cannot disobey any of a very long list of rules, which they claim to be drawn from the Scriptures but in reality they are only the traditions of men. One such area is in opposition to ecclesiastical art, which they call craven images. However, when we read God’s Word, we see that He demanded such objects be constructed as reminders of faith. When instructing the Hebrews regarding furnishing the Tabernacle, God commanded the construction of The Ark of the Covenant with its two Cherubs on the Mercy Seat. Even in His instructions concerning the building of the Tabernacle, God’s instructions included that artistic imagery (Ex. 35:32) be woven into the tapestry, the placement of the Golden Lampstand, the priestly garments, and so much more. God literally called men into the office of Tabernacle as designers (Ex. 31:4; 35:32), so it is clear that God did not consider these things craven images. While in the wilderness, when the people were dying from snake bite, God instructed Moses to create a “fiery serpent and set it on a pole” (Num. 21:8) so that anyone who was bitten could look on it and live. However, as men do, they profaned this object by worshipping it. So in the days of Hezekiah he had it torn down and broken into pieces. It took a thousand years, but man in his corruption, eventually corrupted what God had made for men prophesying the death of His holy Son on the Altar of the Cross. Jesus Himself affirmed this when He said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (John 3:14–15, ESV) No, no craven image here.

But today, the legalists would say that such objects violate God’s commandment against craven or “carved images” (Ex. 20:4). But God’s command in His explanation of the First Commandment was that His people were to make no images, of any kind, that they would bow down to and worship in His place. He says, “You shall not bow down to them or serve them,” (Exodus 20:5, ESV) So pretty much like the 613 commands of Judaism in the days of Jesus. The legalists turn the Gospel into Law, binding the consciences of men to their man-made rules. These so-called conservatives add their own traditions to the clear teaching of God’s Word, while the so-called liberals subtract from the clear teaching of God’s Word. Sadly, we still have the Sadducees and Pharisees among us today.

In responding to the question from the Pharisees, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”” (Matthew 22:37–40, ESV) Our Lord’s answer is both simple and radical. He ignores the 613 rules of Judaism and reduces them to just two. Jesus goes back to Scripture, specifically the law of Moses, and recites for them what every student of the catechism class knows by heart.

Our Lord’s answer shows that we cannot reduce God’s Law to rules. The love that God requires of us is far greater than the boundaries and rules of men. God’s Law is not just a matter of doing and not doing, instead, it is a matter of loving with our whole heart, our whole life, and our whole mind. But if you are focused on what you desire most, what matters to you the most in your daily living, what occupies your thoughts, then these things become your god. But the God who created us, who redeemed us, and who sanctifies us, demands from us all that we are and all that we have, for all we are and all we have is already His. Giving it back to Him is not an option, it is an obligation.

However, because of our sinful flesh we are unable to do as God desires, so in our failure we devise dishonest ways of pretending that we have done what He desires. This is why man creates religious rules that ignore the demand to love God above all things and to love our neighbor our ourselves. Such rules are designed to be a façade of obedience when underneath the religious covering is nothing but deceit and hypocrisy.

This radical nature of God’s Law makes sinners of us all. You can obey all the rules ever created by man, but in doing so you have not yet begun to obey God or fulfill His Law of loving Him above all things and loving your neighbor as yourself. Love is the requirement of God’s Law, and no number of rules can turn a stone-cold heart into a heart of love, a heart that loves God and neighbor.

Only our Lord Jesus could fulfill these two great commandments. But when Jesus asked the Pharisees who the Christ was, it became immediately clear that they had no idea. Oh, sure, they knew that He was David’s son. But there was much more to know than that the Christ would be a descendant of David. David’s son was also David’s Lord, and Jesus asked, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord.” (Matthew 22:43, ESV) Can you explain that? No, they couldn’t. However, much worse, they didn’t care. They didn’t want to know how David’s son could be David’s Lord. Isn’t it curious, that these religious leaders of Israel, didn’t want to know? The answer is easy, their religion was a religion of do’s and don’ts. Their religion had nothing to do with Christ and the promises of the Gospel.

What an important question, “Who is the Christ?” When Jesus asked His apostles this question, St. Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16, ESV) But today, when you ask those who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ the question, “Who is God’s Son?” you get a plethora of answers. Most of which are wrong. All too often the answer is, he was a good man. Sad.

So today it is no longer a question of who a Sadducee or Pharisee is, but who is orthodox. Sadducees and Pharisees today are those who are either heterodox or heretical. As I said earlier, Jesus came to earth to save man from himself, from his false worship, his failure to rightly understand the Word of God. Throughout His ministry, Jesus taught truth through the pure teaching of Law and Gospel, this the Sadducee’s and Pharisee’s disagreed with, therefore, they disagreed with Jesus and sought His death. Thank God, the Sadducee’s, and Pharisee’s failed in their desire to lead the Church astray by killing Christ.

Yes, it’s true, they put Jesus on the cross and killed Him, but their perceived victory led to their defeat. For by crucifying God’s only begotten Son, they fulfilled the desire of God to offer His Son as a ransom for our sin.

No matter how hard they tried, no matter how many laws they created, man could not fulfill the Law of God, only the Son of God, the Second Person of the Godhead, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ could, and did. How easily we forget that before He took on our flesh He was already exalted, divine, filled with a glory and majesty unknown on earth. He was God before time was created. But to fulfill the desire of the Father, He gave up His exalted glory and humbled Himself to come to us on earth, humbly taking upon Himself our flesh. Not our sinful, corrupted flesh as some foolishly believe, but sinless flesh, the flesh of the newly created Adam. God and man united in the one Person, Jesus Christ. He humbled Himself becoming one of us, a man, so that He could live vicariously for us, fulfilling the Law in our place, and then, in the depth of humiliation, offering Himself as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, appeasing the wrath of God so we could be forgiven of all our sins. Those sins which we brought upon ourselves by creating laws we thought we could obey, by loving ourselves more than we loved God and neighbor, thereby failing to fulfill God’s Law of loving Him above all things or loving our neighbor as ourselves. Only the God/man, our beloved Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, loved God with His whole heart, soul, and mind. It was only He who fulfilled the Law, undistracted by the rules of men, while loving us more than He loved Himself. And because we are unable to love as God has commanded, He sent His beloved Son to receive the agonizing pain we so richly deserve for our unloving attitude and our sinfulness.

The religion of the Sadducee was a religion of mockers, men who were too smart in their own estimation, unwilling to submit in humble faith to mysteries beyond their understanding. This is the religion of the elite, the intelligentsia, the politically powerful but spiritually empty leaders of the church and the world. Professing to be wise, they make themselves fools. Such as these today represent a true threat to the truth of Christianity.

But it is the religion of the legalistic Pharisee’s that is an even greater threat. Bible-believing Christians are rightly concerned with the moral decay that is rampant in our culture; man trying to play God through an alternate reality of Creation. Therefore, many calling themselves Christian say, we need more rules! We need more legalism to counteract the liberalism that surrounds us on every side. But this is a wrong-headed idea.

Instead of legalism the antidote for such spiritual poison in not an additional dose of spiritual poison. Let us not forget, legalism is poison for the soul. Christians have no right to replace God’s radical requirements of love with the doable rules that religious people have invented and substituted for God’s Word. Rather, we must continue to seek instruction from God on how we are to love. God instructs us to turn to His Word, to the Ten Commandments which require perfect love, love of God, love of neighbor. But we know that we’re incapable of living up to God’s command of loving Him with our whole heart, soul, and mind and our neighbor as ourselves. For only Jesus could fulfill this command. But out of His abounding grace and mercy, God does not first and foremost condemn us but rather He calls us by the Gospel to repentance, He calls us to confess our sin and to rely on His Son’s victory over sin, death, and the devil by His excruciating death on the Altar of the Cross for the forgiveness of our sin. For it was there that He not only defeated Satan, but He defeated all those who would add rules and regulations to God’s holy Word as additional requirements for salvation.

So rather than look to ourselves, to our intelligence, our elitism or our law-making, the Holy Spirit calls us and leads us to look to the One who fulfilled all things for us, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, He Who Is God’s Son, purchased our salvation and won us from all sin, from death, and the power of the devil, not by ingenious laws and regulations, but solely by His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. Given the gift of faith to believe in the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Altar of the Cross for the forgiveness of our sin, how could we not at least make every effort to do what Christ said we should do: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind . . . and love your neighbor as yourself.” As we have been loved and forgiven, let us also love and forgive? In the name of Jesus. Amen.

And now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

Blessings,
Pastor Byrd

Sunday, October 9, 2022 is the celebration of the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, and the Gospel Reading for this celebration is from St. Luke's Gospel the Fourteenth Chapter, verses 1-11:

14 One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2 And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4 But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” 6 And they could not reply to these things.

The Parable of the Wedding Feast
7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:1-11, ESV)

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

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord and Savior sanctify you in the truth, for His word is truth. Amen

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (2022)

Keeping the Sabbath Holy Rev. Toby Byrd

“One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away.” (Luke 14:1–4, ESV)

In the Gospel Reading for today, St. Luke places our Lord Jesus in the home of a Pharisee, on the Sabbath. The Sabbath, that most holy day, that one day of the week on which the Jews were to set aside as a day of rest, a day on which the Jews were to worship God in assembly, either in the synagogue or in the temple, a day on which they were forbidden to do work of any kind. But lo and behold, in the presence of the Pharisee and his friends, Jesus heals a man with dropsy. This was a work according to the Jews. Now in witnessing this, this Pharisee, and his Jewish guests, could have cried out, blasphemy. But they didn’t. They didn’t cry out condemning our Lord’s action. But in their hearts, they had condemned Jesus for His act of mercy on the Sabbath. In their hearts our Lord had violated the prohibition against working on the Sabbath, and as we heard, our Lord Jesus corrected their error; doing works of mercy on the Sabbath was not a violation of God’s Law.

In their condemnation of Jesus, the Jews had misused God’s purpose for the Sabbath, turning the Sabbath into a work of Law rather than an opportunity to hear and receive the blessings of the Gospel. God had declared the seventh day, the day He rested from His work of Creation to be a solemn day for His people, a day in which He invited them to rest, to hear and reflect on His Word, a day on which He chose to fulfill His desire to come into their presence, to serve them sacramentally, pouring out His forgiveness upon them, while receiving from them their sacrifices.

Today, Christians no longer observe the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, but instead, on the first day of the week. Christians chose this day of the week because it was the day of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Now some would have you believe that in worshiping on the first day of the week, Christians are disobeying God’s Third Commandment to “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8, ESV) and thereby defiling the Sabbath. But in saying this, it simply shows that they do not understanding that Christians chose the first day of the week because this is the day of our Lord’s resurrection, that day which brought to completion the OT laws while also bringing in a new creation.

St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians, wrote, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” (Colossians 2:16–17, ESV) Furthermore, St. Luke records the new worship practice of the early, first-century Christians in his book of Acts, writing, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.” (Acts 20:7, ESV) So, Christians set aside the first day of the week to observe the Sabbath, thereby following God’s Third Commandment to “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” On that day we reverently acknowledge our Creator in fear, and love, gladly hearing preaching and His Word, not despising it but holding it sacred and gladly and learning it. (LSC, Third Commandment) On that day, we come before God to receive His sacramental gifts, especially the forgiveness of our sins. But sadly, too many who call themselves Christian don’t understand this meaning or honor it.

God set aside the Sabbath day not so that we could serve Him, but so that He could serve us. Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27, ESV) All too often people believe that by coming to church on the Sabbath, on Sunday, they are rendering service to God rather than being served by Him. They come to Church with the attitude of fulfilling an obligation, that obligation of bringing their offerings and their praise before God that they may appease Him. However, such an attitude fails to understand the true meaning of the Third Commandment: God wants men to observe the Sabbath so He can serve them. This is the focus of Jesus’ invitation, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28, ESV) Come to Me you who are troubled and persecuted by your sins. Come to Me you who seek righteousness and the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:10), I will pardon you, I will pour out My forgiveness upon you, I will give you peace, and I will call you blessed. This is the purpose of worshipping on the Sabbath, for on the Sabbath we gather where God can be found, where the presence of Christ comes to us that He may serve us by His Means of Grace: Word, and Sacrament ministry.

Therefore, we Christians gladly gather to hear God’s Word, setting aside time for worship on Sunday morning, the day our Lord Jesus rose from the dead. Sitting in His presence we hear His Word and receive His Sacraments, worshipping sacramentally and sacrificially, recalling the wonders of our Triune God, observing the seasons and holy days of the Church Year, but most importantly, receiving what God so desires to give us: His forgiveness.

Thus, at the beginning of our observance of the Sabbath in Divine Service, at the Invocation, we pronounce in whose presence we are, we are in the presence of the Triune God: Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. Moreover, in this blessed invocation we also confess who we are, children of the Triune God, having been adopted through the blessed waters of Baptism.

Laying our sins before God, we kneel and confess our sins to God our Father, pouring out our grievous and mortal sins before Him, seeking His favor, His forgiveness, then hearing, through the voice of the pastor, our Lord’s blessed words of forgiveness: “I therefore forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” There is no more blessed moment in life than knowing you have received God’s mercy, that you are a forgiven child of His. With those words of absolution, God has pronounced you righteous in His sight and worthy of the blessings of His Son’s crucifixion: forgiveness and life eternal.

Having received God’s forgiveness, we petition His mercy, not just for us but for the whole world and for the Church, in the words of the Kyrie, “Lord have mercy,” one of the oldest prayers in the Christian Church. Having sought His mercy, we turn to sing His praises, with the words of God’s people, (the angelic hymn in Luke 2:14) who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, “Glory to God in the Highest and peace to His people on earth.” Look at the flow here, we receive from God what we so cherish, His forgiveness and then sing back to Him how wonderful is His mercy and His glory above all things.

Forgiveness granted we are held spellbound as we hear His inspired word of Holy Scripture read in our presence. Reminding us that our roots as Christians are found in God’s OT people, we listen to the Old Testament Reading for the day. That lesson which usually runs parallel to the Gospel Reading connecting the old to the new. We remain focused listening to the letters of St. Paul, St. Peter, and others in the Epistle Reading. Those Epistles, those letters written to the newly founded churches of Jesus Christ in the first century of the Christian Church. Then we stand in reverence and honor of Christ, signing Alleluia’s looking forward to hearing the blessed Gospel Reading. Christ speaking to us through His inspired Word. In each of these readings we are awed as we hear God speak to us through His Word, as He reveals Himself and His Son to us in this age that we may hold fast to the age to come when we will no longer hear Him speak to us through the voice of His servant, the pastor, but we shall hear Him speak to us face-to-face.

After the readings we hear God’s Word spoken to us through the sermon. In the sermon through the proclamation of the Law, the pastor explains God’s wrath against those who would turn a blind eye to God and His Word, warning them of eternal destruction, and he also proclaims God’s mercy and love for all who hear God’s Word of the Gospel, that word which reveals God’s Son Jesus Christ and His meritorious work of redemption for all mankind through His life, death, and resurrection. That word through which men are brought to faith to believe in the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Altar of the Cross, that sacrifice which absorbed the wrath of God that is rightfully ours, that sacrifice which paid the full penalty for our sins, that sacrifice which justified mankind before God and opened His heart to grant His forgiveness. The sermon opens our hearts to rightly reflect on the Word of God which tells us what His Son Jesus has done for us, overcoming the consequence of our sins by His holy death upon the Altar of the Cross. This Good News truly allows us to set our troubles aside and rest on the Sabbath. But we don’t stop there, we don’t stop worshiping and proclaiming God with the end of the sermon. No, now we make a public confession of who we are, children of God, people saved by His grace and mercy through the meritorious death of God’s only begotten Son.

In the Creed, we confess that we believe in God the Father, who is the Creator of all things. We believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, who is true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary, who is our Lord. Who has delivered us from sin, death, and the devil not by gold or silver but by His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. Moreover, we confess that we are unable to come to true faith in Christ Jesus by our own reason or strength, but that the Holy Spirit has called us through the Gospel and enlightened and sanctified us to believe in Christ Jesus and His forgiveness won for us on the cross. Furthermore, we confess as forgiven members of the body of Christ and saints of the holy Christian Church, after our death a day will come when we will be resurrected to live with Jesus for all eternity in heaven. Thus, by the Creed we acknowledge the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as our Lord and our God, thereby fulfilling the First Commandment.

In this Divine Service we see God’s plan for worship, His offering us His sacramental gifts and we giving Him our sacrifices. Up to this point in this holy service we have received God’s sacramental gift of absolution and He has sacramentally spoken to us through His Word. We heard Him speak to us in the Readings and in the sermon. In turn we have offered Him our sacrificial offerings of petition and prayer, hymns and collects, offerings and confession. All this culminates in that part of the Divine Service, which is one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind, His great sacramental gift of His Son’s body and blood in, under, and with the bread and wine of Holy Communion given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins. After extoling the merit and grace of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world in the words of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei, and after having consecrated the elements, we approach the altar rail in lowly reverence, kneeling at the rail, kneeling in the very presence of Christ, to receive from Him, His true body and blood which He gave on the Altar of the Cross for the forgiveness of our sins. Here, at the altar rail we are reminded of His agonizing sacrifice to complete His mission on earth, to give His life for ours, to give His life for the forgiveness of our sins. We kneel in holy reverence, in thanksgiving for this most blessed of gifts for the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith. This is true worship on the Sabbath, receiving from God what He desires to give us, His forgiveness through His blessed and holy Son, Jesus Christ.

Having worshiped with angels, and archangels, and all the company of heaven: the apostles, the prophets, the patriarchs, and all the saints who have gone before us, we complete the service by our sacrificial offerings of continued prayer and hymns, receiving at the end the sacramental blessing of God’s Benediction. Thus, I ask you, could there be a better way to remember the Sabbath Day? I don’t think so.

But sadly, there are so many who do not know this type of worship, this blessed observance of the Sabbath. We pray that God would open their eyes, their ears, and their hearts to see, listen, and rightly understand this ancient form of Christian understanding regarding Keeping the Sabbath Day, of coming together to be in the very presence of Christ, to receive His sacramental blessings, while offering true reverence in sacrificial response. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

May the Peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Blessings,
Pastor Byrd