Exodus 20,1-17. 18. Trinity

Exodus 20,1-17  4823

18. Trinitatis 65 

Pelagia, penitent of Antioch, Turkey, 5^th c. 

Norman E. Nagel † 2019

8. Oktober 2023 

1. ℣ Reward them that wait for Thee, O Yahweh: 

℟ And let Thy prophets be found faithful (Ecclesiasticus 36,21). 

O Yahweh, whose house is holy; make us glad when we enter Your church to worship, so that in that gladness we rejoice in the peace and security You give us.  Amen. (Psalm 122,1.7 Gradual). 

2. »Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.« 

3. The 10 Commandments, the law of God, sets before our eyes, our hearts and our minds His holy will. These commandments curb, crass wickedness, show us our sin, and guide us in the path of righteous living. Israel understood that this law separated them, and made them distinct, from all the other nations. Not that the Gentiles didn’t have laws about worship, stealing and murder, but that God gave Israel two stone tablets on Sinai and His covenant with them: I am your God, and you are My people. I am holy, and you shall be holy. 

4. These commandments are good and holy, but ultimately they always condemn every man, woman and child, Jew, and Gentile alike, as sinners who have merited condemnation and death. The soul that sins shall die (Ezekiel 18,20). The 10 Commandments cannot save us or justify us, but they do teach us, and prepare us for the Christ who would redeem us lost and condemned people by purchasing us from sin and death with His suffering and death. 

5. As we ponder the 10 Commandments, we recall that Yahweh delivers to Moses and Israel the commandment to rest. This weekly Sabbath has a spiritual truth in addition to the physical. The body needs rest and refreshing. Likewise, our spirit needs the rest that only God can give. The German Reformers called worship Gottesdienst, that is, God’s Service to us; Lutherans normally translate this as the Divine Service. The Sabbath is about receiving from God rest and renewed strength: therefore, the Small Catechism exhorts us to hold preaching and God’s Word sacred and gladly hear and learn it. And through hymns, prayers and Scripture we receive from God spiritual nourishment each Sunday for these focus us on Christ.

6. The Sabbath prepared Israel for Jesus for for the Sabbath signifies nothing else than the rest that awaits us in Christ. For He is our rest and refreshing (Isaiah 28,11-12). [1] This Sabbath signifies our blessedness in Christ. It is a participation in the holy things for the holy people. It is a participation in the Divine nature and a conformity to the image of God of the Son. It is a union with Him who is our Life and Light. It is an inheritance of glory and immortality. It is the sharing in the true Sabbath of God.  

7. God the Father has prepared the Sabbath rest for those who love him. God the Son has kept the law and the Sabbath, finishing the work of His Father gave Him to do on the cross. God the Holy Spirit fills our bodies and souls with the benefits of the Sabbath through the Word and Sacraments. Jesus tells us: »Draw near to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light« (Matthew 11,28-29).  

8. „So you see that those who are in Christ fulfill the law by receiving circumcision in the Spirit, rather than the circumcision of the flesh. Also, when they enter into the rest given by Christ, they are keeping the Sabbath in Christ“ (Cyril of Alexandria Vol. 1,179). [2] „God was, therefore, unapproachable by means of the ministration of the law, but He became approachable only through Christ. For through Him we have obtained access, [3] which came as it were after the seventh day, that is, once the Sabbath day pertaining to the law had passed, it being a complete and utter cessation with regard to the ministration according to the law. For the law made no one perfect, but it is Christ who brings us to this. For those who believe are fit for virtue, possessing a perfection of knowledge through Him, for we have the mind of Christ. Through Him and with Him be glory to God the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever“ (Cyril of Alexandria Vol. 2,49). 

9. The Father desires mercy and compassion on the Sabbath (Cyril Commentary 254; Hosea 6,6; Matthew 12,7), and His merciful steadfast love is revealed, seen and given in Christ, the Son of God. So then, let us remain in the Sabbath rest of Christ (Hebrews 4,9-11). Our sin is forgiven; death will yield to resurrection; justification and sanctification are given Christ’s Word and Sacraments. Let us rest in Christ who is our Sabbath. 

10. I begin in the Name of God,

What I ought to do;

All things are well done with God

And happily have done. 

What one does in God’s Name

Is right everywhere the same

And may good also prosper us 

(In Gottes Namen fang ich an elkg 769,1 2021 Salomo Liskow 1674). 

This is most certainly true. 

11. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4,7).  Amen. 

12. Let us pray. We beseech Thee, most tender Father, that Thy most living fire may purify us, that Thy most clear light may illumine us, and that Thy most pure love may so avail us that without let or hindrance of mortal things we may return to Thee in happiness and security. Amen.  (18. Trinitatis, 2. Vespers Collect. The Daily Office.)

To God alone be the Glory 

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

✠

 

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, Septuaginta, Vol. I and II 2. Revised Edition © 2006 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart. 

Evangelisch-Lutherisches Kirchengesangbuch. Copyright © 2021 Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche, Hannover. 

The Daily Office. Copyright © 1965 Concordia Publishing House. 

Boyle, Geoffrey. The Real Presence of Christ in Scripture: A Sacramental Approach to the Old Testament. Copyright © 2019 Geoffrey Boyle. 

Cyril of Alexandria. Commentary on the Gospel according to S. John. Copyright © 1874 Oxford : J. Parker. 

Cyril of Alexandria. Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Volume 1 & 2. Copyright © 2018-2019 The Catholic University of America Press. 

1  »For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue Yahweh will speak to this people, to whom He has said: „This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose“; yet they would not hear.«

 2 The spiritual sense for Cyril—theoria—always revealed as its object the Christ mystery. … In a fragment from Cyril’s commentary on 2 Corinthians 3:13 he says as much, “all spiritual θεωρία beholds the mystery of Christ.” And that “whole mystery,” Cyril adds more specifically, “within the economy of the flesh, is the condescension and humiliation [of Christ]. For Cyril, then, the mystery of the cross is the hidden truth (τό άληθές) revealed in type through the economy of the flesh, but by way of theoria, made known to the mind for salvation (Boyle 128). For Cyril, historia is the literal sense and theoria is the spiritual/Christological sense. 

3  Through Christ we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Romans 5,2).