Psalm 24,3-5; Matthew 5,7. 13. Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever 

se cwide þæs béaggiefan ábireþ ferhþ

Psalm 24,3-5; Matthew 5,7  4617

13. Sonntag nach Trinitatis  058 

Pulcheria, Empress, Virgin, ✠ 453 

10. September 2017 

1. О Lord Jesus Christ, the God who works wonders, make known Your might among Your people and with outstretched arm You redeem us, so that we are free to live as Your children.  Amen. (Gradual) 

2. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 

  3. In His Beatitudes, Jesus taught: »Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.« The Parable of the Good Samaritan shows what mercy looks like: a stranger takes care of another who might very well walk by him had the situation been reversed. Jews and Samaritans had a tumultuous and strained relationship; yet, in His parable a Samaritan cares for a Jew. Even the Jewish lawyer, one well-versed in the intricacies of the Mosaic law, admits the Samaritan showed mercy to the man left for dead. »Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.« 

  4. The Psalmist asks in today’s Introit: »Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord; and who shall stand in His holy place?« The hill of the Lord is Mt. Zion, and the holy place is in the temple. The holy place housed the table with 12 loaves of bread, a golden lampstand (the menorah) and an altar of incense. To the east was a curtain covered the entrance to the holiest place. Only priests had access to the holy place. So the answer to the Psalmist’s question is: only a Jewish priest can stand in the holy place. Such priests had to be holy, and the Mosaic law was very meticulous in what must be done for a priest to be holy, including »having clean hands, a pure heart, a right heart and one who speaks the truth.« Priest were only allowed to be around dead people if they were their close relatives (Leviticus 21,1-4.11-12); touching a dead person made you unclean for a week, and ritual washing was required to be clean again (Numbers 19,11-14). Thus the priest and Levite in Jesus’ parable choose to walk past the beaten man lest they discover he is really dead and now they are unclean for 7 days and forbidden entry into the temple until the 8. day. 

5. So, a ritually clean and righteous priest may enter the holy place. In the temple this priest represented the people of Israel where he would make sacrifices for them in the temple courtyard and ofer prayers for them in the holy place. Once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the high priest was allowed to enter the holiest place where the Glory of the Lord resided upon the ark of the covenant. On this day the chief priest poured the blood of a goat as a sin offering over the ark (Leviticus 16). The Lord declared of this day: »On this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you« (Leviticus 16,30). »Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.« 

6. The priest who enters the holy place »will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.« The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus is our high priest (Hebrews 4,14). Jesus represented us and offered up prayers to His Father and He was heard because of His reverence (Hebrews 5,7). Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old under Moses as the covenant Jesus mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises (Hebrews 8,6). In speaking of a new covenant, Jesus makes the first covenant obsolete (Hebrews 8,13). The first covenant enacted by Moses was built on the promise of forgiveness through animal sacrifices. The Old Testament priest made sacrifices every day and every year the high priest performed the atonement sacrifice. The second covenant enacted by Jesus was also built on the promise of forgiveness through a sacrifice. The New Testament priest made one sacrifice on Good Friday; He offered Himself up as that sacrifice. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us: »For by a single offering Jesus has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified« (Hebrews 10,14). 

7. Jesus’ vicarious sacrifice has made us holy and righteous. Jesus deigned by means of His humanity: to become neighbor to us (Bede 67). He found us spiritually forsaken, destitute and left for dead, and like the Samaritan in His parable, Jesus rescued us, nurtured us back to health and promises to do so all our lives. Jesus showed us mercy. No one is more a neighbor to us than he who shows us mercy (Bede 70). Jesus then exhorts His Christians to holy living: go, and do likewise, as the Samaritan; that is, go, and be merciful; be a neighbor to those in need. Show that you truly love your neighbor as yourself, doing with love whatever you can to help him (Bede 70). »Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.«  Amen. 

8. Let us pray. O Heavenly Father, Your Name is worthy to be praised; bless us this time forth and forevermore, so that we rejoice in Your righteousness and pass on to others Your gracious mercy.  Amen. 

To God alone be the Glory 

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart. 

ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2013 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. 

        The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, Vol. 4. © 1963 Henry Regnery Co. 

VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2013 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands.