Sermon and Video for Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
2024 Pentecost 13 - Proverbs 9:1-10 Ephesians 5:6-21 John 6:51-69
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.
This past Wednesday, the combined catechism class for St. Luke and St. John met for the first time in this academic year. Pr. Mueller and I were taking the catechumens through the first two commandments and their explanations found in the Small Catechism. For those of you who enjoyed memory work in the Small Catechism in years past, you recall that Pastor Martin Luther begins nine of the ten commandment explanations in the same way. “We should fear and love God so that…” The explanation for the first commandment is this: “We should fear, love and trust in God above all things.”
What does Pastor Luther mean by the word fear?
We observe that today’s reading from Proverbs ends the way that the Introit begins: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.”
The answer to my question “what Pastor Luther means be the word fear” is that he means the same thing that the Holy Spirit inspired writers of the Psalms and Proverbs mean. Fear, in this context, does notmean being frightened out of one’s wits, scared stiff, or startled in a way to create ongoing and debilitating apprehension. Fear does not mean fall to the ground and try to hide in terror because you know that you are about to suffer the awfulness of LORD’s displeasure and wrath. Fear does not even mean that we avoid the person we are afraid of because of what could happen; or, to avoid a certain location because the memory of what happened there is too terrible to even pass by it.
Rather, the fear of the LORD is a profound respect and awe that engenders a desire for instruction. Our fear, or said another way, our deep reverence for the Lord’s benevolence leads us to love Him because He cares to instruct us on how we shall believe and live. Our fear and love of the LORD is a response to God’s generosity. He communicates to us His expectations of us. He does not leave us in the dark wondering how we can possibly please him. He tells us what His priorities are. He tells us what He would like to see His beloved creation be and do.
At the same time that He tells us what He expects of us, He knows perfectly well that the marred image that Adam’s disobedience brought upon us all wrecked any chance of our keeping God’s commands perfectly. He also provided a means for our sins to be forgiven. An animal is sacrificed on our behalf. The sins we repent of are placed upon the sacrificial animal. The animal’s death brings forgiveness upon the people.
Then, in the mystery and fullness of God’s time, God chose to end the sacrificing of animals for our sins. Instead, God’s own Son, becomes Incarnate and is born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus is the final and complete sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world through his sacrifice on the cross.
As mentioned earlier, Matthew and Luke record many of the parables that Jesus said, while John records some of the more difficult teachings of Jesus. Many of these sayings will not be properly comprehended until after Jesus Institutes the Lord’s Supper, suffers and dies on the cross, and rises on the third day.
In John 6, Jesus explains that he is from heaven. Our heavenly Father sent him. He is the living bread. Jesus evokes the LORD’s name revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. “I AM.” “I am the living bread.” Jesus also evokes Israel’s experience in the wilderness when they were fed six mornings a week with Manna. Manna was the bread that sustained them. In faith, Israel gathered the food that the Lord provided and they ate. They trusted in the Lord for their daily bread.
Jesus explains to us that He is the bread from heaven. Because He is sent by the Father, and He and the Father are one, this bread from heaven extends to us forgiveness and eternal life. In faith, we receive the grace of his Incarnation. In faith, we receive the grace of his death for our sakes. In faith, we receive the grace of His forgiveness for our sins and His promise of eternal life.
As John reports in the Gospel, many who heard Jesus could not accept what He was saying. They turned away. They could not accept on faith Jesus words, “whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”
But we accept these words. Because we fear God, we know that we are not going to understand everything He says. We trust Him. Because we love God, we will accept the words of the Son as true. The Holy Spirit creates faith within us to receive what he says as true. Jesus is the Living Bread from heaven. He has the words of eternal life.
We rejoice this morning that we have the opportunity to receive Jesus, not only through His words, but also as the Living Bread that gives us eternal life. We receive Jesus, his body and blood, in the bread and wine.
God’s love for us, expressed through the Son’s words and his death on the cross for our sakes, moves us to receive his instructions with both fear and love. With both humble reverence and awe that moves us to love God. In love, we receive the additional instructions from the Apostle Paul. As a congregation, and as we are about our business during the week, we desire to walk as children of light, and in all things try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. The ten commandments do not accuse us when we are in this frame of mind, the commandments guide us. They guide us in how to love the Lord and love our neighbor as ourselves. With fear and love of God, we go forth.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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