Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

At your big Thanksgiving Dinner do people have assigned seats? At the most fancy dinners, like state dinners with royal officials or even wedding banquets, there often is assigned seating. There might be a chart as you enter the dining hall where you have to find your name and the corresponding table, or there may be name cards at each place setting, or there may be an usher who will seat you in the appropriate place, or mom might just have her ideas about where you should sit and who should sit beside you or who should not sit beside you. There may be a head table for the most honoured guests or there may be a special table just for the children.

 

This is one of the practices that still reminds us that there is an order to society. Whether it is a big banquet with a hundred people or a family Thanksgiving dinner, everyone has their place. Some people would try to break down any such order and insist that they have the right to sit wherever they want. In places where hierarchies are abused there may be some benefit to breaking down the social norms, but in general we are all served by good order and the people who tend to want to break it down are only interested in putting themselves up higher in the hierarchy in an attempt to seize the honours for themselves. Such disruption into anarchy is seldom beneficial for the most vulnerable in society.

 

So, where will you sit at Thanksgiving Dinner? Is the place of honour reserved for you as the head of the family or as a special guest? Do you have the seat closest to the kitchen so that you can be the one to get whatever someone might need? Will you be at the special children’s table where all the fun happens or will you be stuck beside the troublesome guest because you are the only one who can put up with them?

 

One holiday when Jesus went to a dinner at the house of one of the ‘archies’ of the hierarchy (a ruler of the religious leaders), everyone watched Him carefully. Because He was religiously respected for all that He knew about God’s Word, they had to seat Him in a place of honour. But they also knew that Jesus sometimes did things that upset the order just to emphasize God’s will that people love Him with their heart, and not just put on a religious show. He didn’t do any of these things in order to disrupt good order in society. He always did these things to help other people, those who were suffering in some way. But it always made the upper elite look bad because they were supposed to be taking care of the poor and needy in body and spirit.

 

It was expected that Jesus would be seated in a place of honour at the dinner, but the Pharisees really wanted to dishonour Him before the people. How could they do that? If Jesus at the head table were to do something against God’s Word, they would then be able to move Him down a place or two and discredit Him in front of everyone, and perhaps even ask Him to leave altogether.

 

Somehow at this high and fancy feast, while Jesus was seated in a place of honour, suddenly before Him there was someone who shouldn’t have been there. Somehow a sickly, disfigured man got into the dining hall and appeared up front, right before Jesus. This man should have been out in the alleyway waiting for the leftover plates and platters that would be graciously set out for the poor and sick and outcast. But someone had let him in and ushered him up front, not to honour him but to try to dishonour Jesus by tempting the Healer to do some work on the holy day and break God’s Sabbath law.

 

For, of anything, God’s Word must be given the highest place. The great Decalogue, the Ten Commandments given through Moses, must be kept. And primary of the Ten, are the first three comprising the First Table of the Law, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind. Certainly they must come even before the other seven, to love your neighbour as yourself. And of the first three, it is the Third that shows outwardly that the other two are being kept. To reserve the Sabbath Day for rest in what God has given shows that you trust in God above all things to supply your every need; and that you honour His great name in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.

 

That is what the dinner was all about. Rejoicing in the gifts of God on the Sabbath Day is like our Thanksgiving dinners dedicated to thanking God for all that He has provided for us, and finding rest and refreshment, joy and gladness in what He has done for us, being content with what we have and not forcing our hands to grab for more than He has given.

 

But even the honour of God’s holy Law must give place to something else—not to us, not to our desires and wishes, but to another Word of God. Even God’s most holy Law must give way to His holy Gospel of grace and mercy. The Decalogue given through Moses must give way to the Gospel of forgiveness, restoration, and healing that comes in the Person of Jesus Christ, the Word of God in the flesh. And so, the Law of the Sabbath, gives up its seat of honour when Christ enters with His Word of grace.

 

That is the way it is on every holy day when you come to this feast, hosted by Jesus to celebrate the wondrous gifts of God. His holy Ten Commands that condemn you for all manner of sins and the sickness that resides in your very soul: not just your outward acts to seize for yourself what God has not entrusted to you, but also your inward desires that others be kicked out of the places of honour which you desire to have, and your anarchic wishes to disrupt all order so that you might have your way. Even the condemnation of these darkest sins of disgrace, must take a back seat when Jesus comes to declare that your sins are forgiven in His name.

 

And so, Jesus’ healing of the sick and disfigured man displaced the Sabbath Law of God. His Word of grace takes a higher place in the order of God’s justice. For the very reason that the Son of God took the lowest place of humanity, when He took on our nature of flesh and all of the sins that we have ever committed and Himself went to our rightful place upon the cross of God’s wrath. Jesus went willingly to the lowest place, so that we might be exalted to the highest.

 

Even God’s own holy Word of Law must give way at Christ’s bidding as His holy Word of Gospel calls out to us, “Friend, move up higher” (Luke 14:10). And in doing so, Jesus does not disgrace Himself or God’s holy Word, or His heavenly Father. He gives honour to all and establishes the divine order. For He was sent by the Father and willingly took the place appointed for Him as the Saviour of sinners. And because of His humiliation upon the cross for the sins of the world, God has now exalted Him to the highest place far above all power and authority.

 

And Jesus brings you with Him to the place of honour. Because you, sick and disfigured in your sins like the man at the dinner, have been set before Christ the healer and restorer, you have a place in the banquet hall of God. Forgiven and healed of all sin, you also have a seat at His table to recline in rest and to receive all of the good that God has prepared for you in Christ Jesus, crucified and exalted.

 

But first things first. There is an order to be maintained. Jesus spoke to the Pharisees to reveal their hypocrisy to them, hoping that they also would come before Him as the sickly disfigured to be healed. He revealed that they knew it was the greatest priority to save and set free what they held precious (a son or a work animal) even if it meant hard labour on a Sabbath day.

 

They ought not to have used the sick man to try to trap Jesus but should have brought him to Jesus because the sick man is precious. Their labour should have been to put their prideful sins aside and humbly beseech Jesus on behalf of the sick and on behalf of themselves as sinners. In explanation to all, Jesus told a parable about how such repentance would be to humble oneself and recognize that before God they don’t even deserve the lowest place.

 

Then the Gospel would come shining through displacing God’s condemning Law. The great and glad news of forgiveness and restoration would unseat even the truth of God’s holy Law and the healing and cleansing Word of mercy and absolution would take precedence, and along with it the repentant sinner would be swept in to be seated with the righteous before the very face of God, with angels and archangels and all the host of heaven.

 

For even when we presume to invite Jesus to be our guest, He is really the host. The truth is that He has invited us into His presence, made us the honoured guests at His feast, healed and washed and clothed to recline with the just at His thanksgiving dinner, the eucharistic feast. Here we rest and receive, forgiven and sanctified by His grace. And all there is to do is to give thanks to the Father for His mercy in Christ Jesus.

 

He gave His beloved Son a mission to bring us into the festive hall and seat us at His table. And Jesus willingly has done just that, even though it meant His total humiliation unto death upon the cross. For this He is highly exalted and we with Him, barely able to offer our thanksgiving and praise as He fills us to overflowing with His good gifts of love.