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Luke 13:10-17
A Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
In this season of Pentecost, we are talking about how we live the Christian life with our feet on the ground. What are the practical consequences of the Gospel for our daily lives?
Today we look at the whole matter of going to church. Why do that when you can turn on the TV, computer, or iPad, and from the comfort of your own couch, watch a worship service in some grand cathedral?
For many of us going to church has been a life-long habit, like brushing our teeth. We know we should so we do. Young parents don’t say: “I’m not going to teach my children to brush their teeth. I will wait until they are 18 years old, and then they can decide for themselves whether they want to brush their teeth.”
We go to church because we should. Like brushing our teeth, it’s not always exciting. But we do it. The nice thing about habits is that they keep us on the straight and narrow. They don’t depend on feelings. We do them regardless of how we feel.
In our Gospel text Jesus is teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. He sees a woman who is severely hunched over. She has been crippled for 18 years with this debilitating condition.
Jesus calls her to come forward and says: “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” He touches her, and she is healed. She straightened her back and gave thanks to God.
The Jewish leaders pounce, of course. They berate Jesus for healing on the Sabbath.
Jesus says to them: “You hypocrites! You give water to your animals on the Sabbath.”
In other words: What’s the Sabbath for?
On the Sabbath the Lord gives living water to his people. He is the active one and we come to be cared for by him: “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).
Who was the woman healed? We don’t know her name, but she is called “a daughter of Abraham” (Luke 13:16).
In other words: The Lord fulfills his promises. Remember, the Lord said to Abraham: “I am your shield. Your reward will be great. Look at the stars in the heavens. So shall your descendants be” (Genesis 15:1-6). The Lord fulfills his promises.
The Sabbath is the Lord’s Day. He is here to heal and redeem his people.
Why go to church? It’s not just a habit.
We go because we’re bent and he makes us straight (Luke 13:13).
We go because of the promise, as Psalm 130 says: “If thou, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.”
We go to church because, though nicely dressed, we are filthy dirty, and here he washes us, making us “whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7).
We go because though alone in the world, when baptized into him, we are adopted as his sons and daughters, fellow heirs with Christ of his kingdom forever” (Galatians 4:6-7).
We go because we are hungry, and he is “living bread from heaven . . . if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” (John 6:51).
We go because enemies surround us, and yet here “he prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies; he anoints my head with oil, my cup overflows” (Psalm 23:5).
We go because we are weighed down with this world, and he says: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).
We go because death is ahead of each of us, but “if we have died with Christ, we shall also live with him” (Romans 6:8).
Why go to church? There’s really only one reason to go. Because of him. Beautiful Savior, King of creation, Son of God and Son of man.
Why go to church? “To behold the beauty of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4).
The Psalmist says: “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9) Sinners that we are, holiness is beyond us. Yet we have him. Rather, he has us.
“And the word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14).
Holiness and glory.
“And there were shepherds out in the field . . . and an angel of the Lord appeared, and the glory of the Lord shone around them . . . and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest!”
And Jesus answered them:
“The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified . . . Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify thy name.” Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’”
Holiness and glory. Healing and rest. That’s what the Sabbath is all about.
His flesh for our flesh. Healing and redemption for our bodies and our minds.
He spoke to her and he touched her: “Woman, you are free.”
That’s why we go to church. Real presence doesn’t come through a screen.
Real presence is about being really present. Both for him and us. He is not absent or far in some distant galaxy. He is living now. He is the active one in worship. Here in Word and sacrament, prayer and singing. In these ways he touches us. Hear him speaking to you. Feel the water. Taste the bread and wine. It’s for you. Body and mind.
He touches us through these means and says: “You are free. You are forgiven and free.”
If the Son has made you free, you are free indeed.
Amen