God’s
grace, peace and mercy be with you. … My sermon is entitled Biblical Brackets
and Blessed Believers. My focus is Matthew 11. Let us pray. Heavenly Father,
the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the
house of the Lord.’” Now that our feet are within your gates, we
rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds
and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most
Holy Trinity. Amen.
Bracket.
The word bracket is one of the most versatile words in the English language. We
use the word to refer to various supports and name them as corner, countertop,
counterbalance, mending and wall brackets. Brackets are used by architects,
basketball fans, mathematicians, photographers, programmers, scientists,
shipbuilders, writers, gunners and spotters. Based on your income, you are
placed in an economic or tax bracket. The Latin root word for bracket is brachium
meaning the upper segment of the arm extending from the shoulder to the elbow.
Hence, we use brackets to separate and to join.
In
biblical studies, bracketing consists of creating a frame by placing similar
material at the beginning and end of a section. The purpose of a bracket may be
structural – to alert the reader to a particularly important theme – or it may
serve to show how the material within the bracket relates to itself. An
important case of this occurs in Mark’s 11th chapter. There we read of
the “Cursing of the Fig Tree” and the “Cleansing of the Temple.” By giving the
first half of the story before the Cleansing of the Temple, and the conclusion
after, Mark creates a “frame” that effectively highlights that he wants the
Cleansing of the Temple to be seen in light of the Cursing of the Fig Tree. In
other words, Jesus' actions in the Temple are not just a reform measure, but a
judgment against it.
Matthew
bracketed several sections to make theological points. The Infancy Narratives,
the Sermon on the Mount and the Passion Narrative are three brackets. Today’s
passage falls within the bracketed section beginning with verse two of chapter
eleven and ending with verse twenty of chapter sixteen.
Matthew
bracketed this section to ask and answer the question – Who is Jesus? Matthew
introduced this passage with John the Baptist asking the question regarding
Jesus’ identity, “Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the
Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is
to come, or shall we look for another?’” (Mt 11:2-3).
Matthew
ended the section with Jesus asking his disciples, “Who do people say
that the Son of Man is?” and Peter stating, “You are the Christ,
the Son of the living God.” Because he confessed this, Jesus said, “Blessed
are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but
my Father who is in heaven” (16:13-17). Now that we know why Matthew
bracketed this larger passage, let’s examine verses 25-30 more closely.
In
verse 25, Jesus praises the Father because he hides and reveals these things.
“These things” refers to the significance of the ministries of both John and
Jesus – ministries that the wise and understanding in Israel were rejecting and
in which infants were rejoicing through faith.
Recall
that as John’s disciples went away from Jesus, the Lord spoke to the crowd
about John. At one point he said, “John came neither eating nor drinking,
and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and
they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors
and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” (Mt 11:18-19).
Jesus
is responding to a specific situation in history when many Galileans refused to
repent and receive him as Israel’s Messiah. Recall that in chapter 10, Jesus
sent his Twelve Apostles to the lost sheep of Israel living in towns and
villages throughout Galilee. Many people rejected the Apostles’ teaching,
preaching and healing. They refused to repent and receive Him and His message
though His Apostles. They reacted with arrogant self-sufficiency. They were
content with what other teachers, preachers, rabbis and priests were offering
them. In a word, they were self-sufficient.
It
is a deadly thing to think that one is self-sufficient. The self-sufficient are
those Jesus labeled as the wise and the understanding. Jesus encountered many
people like that in Israel who thought they had figured out both Jesus and
John. Yet, neither, and to a greater degree, Jesus, can be contained by
anyone’s preconceived thoughts or theological systems. Jesus is the foundation for
all other things in life and eternity. His words are spoken with divine
authority, and proclaim that even the knowledge of God the Father must come
through Jesus and him alone.
In
an encounter with Jesus, either during his earthly ministry or today through
the preaching of His Word, no one can claim independence or self-sufficiency of
any kind. Since all comes from Jesus, only He is wise and understanding.[1]
When
people react to the good news about Christ with arrogant self-sufficiency, the
Father responds by hiding the message from them. Jesus does not say that this
hiding will remain forever for we cannot rule out that God may yet bring these
people to repent and believe. As the Lord teaches, “Whoever exalts
himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted”
(Mt 23:12).
Those
who have “these things” revealed to them are little children. Other versions of
the Bible translate the term differently, including babes, childlike, infants,
ordinary people and unlearned.
Infants
here are not young children, but people who are unable and insufficient in
themselves to accomplish anything good. They are the poor in spirit. Jesus also
speaks of such people in chapter 18, when asked by disciples about the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven. He placed a little child in the midst of them and
said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:1-4).
Such
people were definitely not arrogantly self-sufficient, but saw Jesus as a
touchstone, a reference point or new wine. They saw Him as God’s Messiah and
followed him as his disciples. They brought nothing but their need for Christ
who offered, and still offers, forgiveness, healing and salvation. To them God
himself reveals their poverty and infancy.
Then
we get to verse 27, which reads, “All things have been handed over to me
by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the
Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
Know
this: In the union of the divine and human natures in the one Person of Christ,
the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, all of the divine attributes of God the
Son are communicated to the human nature of Christ, for all things have been
given to him by the Father.
In
turn, Christ is the only one who reveals to humans the saving ways of God that
are now at work in our world today. God the Father communicates to us through
his Son in Word and Sacrament.
Were
we to read verse 27 in isolation, we might conclude that God may not want to
save everyone. There is nothing further from the truth. God wants to save
everyone. The paradox is that God alone brings some people to faith through the
message but all people are invited. And that brings us to verses 28-30.
Here,
we read the Lord’s words: “Come 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.”
The
burdens experienced by Jewish people during the time of Jesus included an
unbalanced emphasis on the necessity of obedience to all the commands of the
Torah – both written and oral interpretations of it. The heavy emphasis on
obedience to the Law’s commands watered down our utter dependence to God’s free
grace.
And
so, we must yoke ourselves – or allow ourselves to be yoked – to Jesus as his
disciple. To be Jesus’ disciple is to learn from him how to be gentle and
humble in heart. In learning that Jesus gently receives and forgives all who
come to him in need, disciples find rest for their lives. All who come to his
unparalleled authority and power with only their need in their hands find a
Savior. He saves because of his own humility of heart that leads to the cross
and the empty tomb for all. Taking on Christ’s yoke lightens life’s burdens and
those of eternity.[2]
A
personal example. Cindy and I planted a garden earlier this year. As any
gardener knows, weeding is an essential task. Weeding alone is tedious and
tiresome. Weeding with another person makes work easier and the burden lighter.
Jesus’
yoke is called easy. The underlying Greek word means kind. A good yoke is one
that is carefully shaped so that there will be a minimum of chafing. Jesus’
yoke will be kind to our shoulders, enabling us to carry the load more easily.
In this sense alone the Blessed Believer’s burden will be light. Jesus does not
diminish the weight of our accountability to God but helps us to bear this
responsibility.
The
rest that is promised to the weary is not, however, the rest of inactivity.
Jesus did not come to abolish the law of Moses but to fulfill it by providing
its ultimate interpretation. Remember his words on the Sermon on the Mount: “Do
not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come
to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mt 5:17). What he offers is not a
vacation from the law but a less burdensome way of fulfilling it. At certain
points his interpretation will be more lenient (Sabbath observance), at others
more stringent (divorce) than that of the Pharisees, but law observance as a
whole will be simplified by his emphasis on ‘the weightier matters of the law:
justice and mercy and faithfulness’ (23:23) and on the double commandment of
love of God and neighbor, for “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these
two commandments” (22:40). Rest is made possible through the provision
of Jesus’ new yoke.[3]
As
Blessed Believers we will struggle with sin and temptation as did Paul. He
reminds us of that in our epistle today (Rom 7:14-25) when he writes, “Who
will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ
our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my
flesh I serve the law of sin” (Rom 7:24-25).
Yet, there is hope. Turn to Romans 8, and
you read of the hope offered to us. Blessed believers, “if the Spirit of
him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus
from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who
dwells in you” (v 11).
The opportunities to love God and neighbor
are more numerous than the 613 commandments of the Old Testament. How many times
throughout each day can we embody Beatitudes, offer forgiveness to offenders,
love our enemies, friends and family members? How gentler and humble can I be? How
less anxious and angry can I be? What opportunities are there for me to give
alms, pray and fast? Have I lived the Golden Rule today or offered healing to
the hurt?
Friends, our opportunities to love God and
neighbor are countless because God’s love for us and others is innumerable,
boundless, immeasurable. As my friend, Dave Gruseck, once said, opportunities
are like pitches. If you miss one, there’s another on its way.
May we always find ourselves like little
children totally dependent upon our Savior, and may we avail ourselves to His
Presence in Word and Sacrament. Let us ask others to let us pray with them and
ask them to pray with us because we need each other’s prayers and support. Live
your Christian lives as enthusiastically as basketball bracketologists. And as you
live, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts
and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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