sermon and Video for 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
2024 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
Hebrews 4:1-16
Mark 10:23-31
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
The Bible describes God’s Word in a number of ways. For example, the longest Psalm in the Psalter is Psalm 119. Through the course of 176 verses we are led into an extended reflection on God’s Word. One of my favorite verses there is verse 105: “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” God’s Word does illumine our journey through life.
I regularly return to 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” When we read the Scriptures devotionally, the Holy Spirit regularly speaks to us through these ancient words. We are encouraged, taught, and disciplined by God’s Word. But what we heard in the Epistle reading from Hebrews is particular striking. The author says, 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews uses the image of a sword. Not only a sword, but a double edged one that can cut you coming and going. The image of a sword conjures up an awareness of pain. For it is a painful thing to be confronted with our sin and its many manifestations in our priorities, behaviors, thinking, and how it impacts ourselves and others. How many relationships have been marred, perhaps even broken, because of pride or envy or bearing false witness? How many people have lost their livelihood and entered into a perilous state because of someone else’s greed or avarice? How have we affected others when we have been so consumed? We shudder to think of the real-life implications.
The Epistle of Hebrews is a sermon that offers a word of encouragement to Christians who are facing persecution in an around Rome. The Emperor Nero blames Christians for the fire in Rome. Christians are his political scapegoat. He makes them the enemy of the people and the progress of Rome and its empire. Nero and his supporters are lying to the people. As a consequence, those who confess Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior finds themselves in a perilous situation. He exhorts the faithful to remain faithful in these difficult times. Do not lose faith! Do not drift away. Do not run away. For heaven’s sake, do not be like the Israelites, who lost faith as they were about to enter the Promised Land. God’s judgment for their lack of faith was that the people had to stay in the wilderness until that generation passed away. But, there are also incidents that occurred before that momentous decision took place that are also remembered.
The Epistle of Hebrews refers back to other incidents where Israel lost faith. Chapters 3 and 4 of Hebrews draws on Psalm 95. When you use the prayer offices of Matins or Morning Prayer, you sing and pray verses 1-7:
Psalm 95 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
At the end of verse 7, there is a transition. We don’t sing that part in Matins or Morning Prayer. In the transition, the Psalmist moves us from an expression of beautiful praise to a remembrance of a time when Israel lost faith in God. And, it is a particularly offensive experience for God because of its context. The incident that Hebrews is focusing on is found in Exodus 17. Prior to Exodus 17, Israel has not only witnessed the unleashing of ten awful plagues upon Pharoah and Egypt, they have walked through the Red Sea on dry land, watched Pharoah’s army be destroyed as they pursued Israel, and they have just started receiving a daily provision of food through the miraculous appearance of Manna every morning. Now, they are in a place without water. And, they are complaining. They are not praying something like, “Father, thank you for the way you have rescued us from slavery and have saved us from Pharoah’s army and kept us safe as we crossed the Red Sea. Thank you for our daily bread. We are thirsty now, but we trust in your provision.” No, that is not what happened. It was as if all that God had done was immediately forgotten. There is nothing but accusation and statements completely devoid of faith. Their behavior and God’s response and words are memorialized in Psalm 95.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
This is when God’s Word serves as a teaching, a reproof, a correction, and, as Hebrews says, a double-edged sword. If, Hebrews says, you are on the verge of not standing on faith, if you are tempted to not look to the author of your faith, which is Jesus who died on the cross for you, for strength to hold you up and see you and your family through, if you are tempted to “play it safe” in the world’s terms, if you are tempted to harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah and Massah, and place your faith in something other than Jesus’ mercy through the cross and resurrection, then, please understand you are stepping away from God’s promise of eternal rest. If you are tempted to turn away, drift away, or harden your hearts, hear God’s Word for the gift that it is, and repent, and turn again to the Lord Jesus. For He alone is your help, your true strength, and your eternal rest.
God’s Word is not only a sword used as a surgical instrument to reveal sin, it is also healing balm. It covers the wound. It heals because all of Scripture points us to Jesus. Jesus dies on a cross for us so that we may repent, have our prayers of repentance reach the LORD God, and on account of Jesus’ cross, we are forgiven for the sin of placing our trust in something other than the Lord God. Because we live in a sin filled world and the temptation to step away from the true faith is ever before us, the Lord presents us with a picture of the ongoing ministry of the ascended Jesus. His work in our behalf did not end at the cross and resurrection. It continues.
Hebrews says, 14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Jesus entered fully into our humanity. He experienced every temptation that we will ever encounter. He chose to remain faithful to the mission that the Father gave Him. Because of his humanity, I am confident that he drew strength and wisdom regularly from Holy Spirit, and he chose to speak, act, and go forward in complete trust of Father.
We take our worries to the Lord because He knows about worries. We take our temptations to the Lord because He knows about temptations. We take our sorrow and our failures and our sins to the Lord. He died on the cross so that you can have faith. By his death, you have the promise of life, that begins in His forgiveness and ends in His eternal rest. Hold unto the faith the Lord has given you. Keep your faith in Jesus for He is the grace and help you need.
Hebrews 13: 20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in u] that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
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