Mid-Lent 4
Dt
12:1-14
4/3/19
As of Thursday this past week, if
you are a St. Louis Cardinals or Chicago Cubs fan, it is clear where you want
to be. Baseball season has started, and
so a Cardinals’ fan wants to be at Busch Stadium, and a Cubs’ fan wants to be a
Wrigley Field. Admittedly, it is better
to be there on a day when a home game is actually scheduled, but you get my
point.
There is a specific location that is the epicenter for the true baseball
experience for each fan. For the
Cardinals’ fan it is to be in downtown St. Louis on the Mississippi River at
Busch Stadium – a new “old ballpark” festooned with decorations proclaiming
National League pennants and World Championships. For the Cubs fan it is to be
on the north side of Chicago on the “L” line at Wrigley Field – a now updated
classic old ballpark with its ivy covered outfield wall.
In our text from Deuteronomy
tonight, Yahweh tells Israel that when they enter the promised land, he is going
to choose a location to place his name.
It is there that the people are to go in order to offer their
sacrifices. In this reference to the
located means of the temple, we see how God’s dealings with his Old Testament
people pointed to what he has done for us in Jesus Christ, and what he
continues to do now.
As we have see in our mid-week Lent
sermons, in Deuteronomy Yahweh is preparing Israel to enter into the promised
land. He urges them to keep the Torah –
the instructions – that he had given to them when he took them as his covenant
people. The Gospel facts of the exodus and
the covenant always stand a the basis for everything God says. So our texts begins with the words, “These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do
in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess,
all the days that you live on the earth.”
Note that Yahweh is described as “the God of your fathers.” Yahweh was the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. He was the One who had elected
Abraham – who had chosen him as the man through whom he would raise up his own
people and bless all nations. He was the
One who had elected Jacob – who had chosen him when he and his brother Esau
were still in the womb. This election –
this choice was a matter of pure grace.
Israel was about to enter into the
land that Yahweh had given them to possess.
This too was a matter of Gospel – of grace. God had promised the land of Canaan as a
gift. He had rescued them from slavery
in Egypt in order to bring them to this land.
He had provided for them during their time in the wilderness. Now he was
about to give this land to them. It was
not something that they could take on their own. Instead, only Yahweh could give it into their
hands.
In response to this gift and in
order to continue to be blessed with this gift, Israel needed to live in faith
toward Yahweh. They would do this by keeping his Torah. A part of this involved how they were to live
in response to the false gods in the land.
God’s instruction described how they
were to keep the First Commandment. He says in our text, “You shall surely destroy all the
places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the
high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down
their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire.
You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out
of that place. You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way.”
Life in the
ancient world was a clash of gods.
Peoples and nations had the gods they worshipped, and when nations
fought it was viewed as one set of gods versus another. It wasn’t hard to figure out whose gods were
more powerful – whoever won the battles clearly had the stronger gods.
By giving
the promised land to Israel, Yahweh was showing that he was the true God. The Israelites were to destroy all traces of
the pagan gods. This would also remove the temptation to try to “fit in” by
worshipping the false gods of the Canaanites.
This basic
issue of the First Commandment recurs over and over in Deuteronomy. God commanded, “You shall have no other
gods.” Everything God said came back to this one basic point. If they had no other gods, this is what life
would look like. The same thing is true for us. The First Commandment continues
to be foundational for the way we live life.
The rest of the Ten Commandments describe what different areas of life
look like when we keep the First Commandment. They tell us what it means to
fear, love and trust in God above all things in relation to God’s Name and his
Means of Grace. They tell us what it means to
do this in relation to parents and authorities; life and
sexuality; possessions and reputation.
Israel
wouldn’t do this perfectly. That is why
God had given them the sacrifices as part of the covenant. But we learn in our
text that Israel was not to offer these wherever they wanted. They were not to
be like the pagans who offered their worship and sacrifices on
the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.
Instead Yahweh commanded them, “You shall not worship the LORD your
God in that way. But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will
choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there.
There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your
sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow
offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your
flock.”
Israel was
to offer sacrifices and worship at the place Yahweh chose – at the place where
he would put his name and make his dwelling there. Where Yahweh’s name was placed, there his
saving presence was to be found. Our text refers to the location he later chose
on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. There the
temple was built. There the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the Holy of
Holies. There the sacrifices were offered to remove sins and give forgiveness. Israel knew where God was present for them.
They knew that at the located means of the temple on Mt. Zion they
received God’s forgiveness.
The
incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, embodied all that the temple meant for
God’s Old Testament people. He was the
fulfillment of the temple. John begins
his Gospel by saying, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we
have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace
and truth.” He tells us that all that was true of the tabernacle and temple,
was true of Jesus Christ. In the next
chapter Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up.”
We are preparing to remember that on
Good Friday they did destroy the temple which was Jesus’ body. The sacrifices that had been offered at the
temple pointed to the once and for all sacrifice that Jesus offered for our sin
as he was nailed to a cross and died. He
was the lamb of God offered to take away the sins of the world. But as Jesus predicted on multiple occasions,
on the third day he was raised from the dead.
He began the new life of the resurrection that will be ours as well.
The risen Lord has ascended into
heaven. Having fulfilled the meaning of
the temple in his own body, Jesus no longer limits us in the new covenant to
only one place. But the located means seen in the temple and the incarnation
continue to describe how God works. He
uses means and we know where they are located – we know where they are present for us.
At the font – in the water of Holy
Baptism – God placed his Name upon us.
And as Luther reminds us in the Large Catechism: “Where God’s name is, there
must also be life and salvation.” Christ speaks forgiveness in Holy
Absolution. Through the pastor in his
Office of the Ministry, Jesus says, “I forgive you all your sins.” In the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus uses
bread and wine to give us his true body and blood, given and shed for you.
We continue to see our God and his
forgiveness in these located means. They
are not located in only one place, but wherever they take place there we know
that Christ is present giving us forgiveness.
We return to these located means, just as Israel did to the temple. And
as we know the comfort and confidence of forgiveness we respond in the same way
that Moses describes in our text tonight: “And
you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your
daughters.”
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