Holy Holy Holy - Third Wed of Lent

“Holy Holy Holy”

This evening we move to the next part of our covenant with God, name the 2nd and 3rd Commandments. These two commandments are about acoustics, you might say – speaking and hearing. The Second Commandment requires that we speak honestly and respectfully of God so that we can hear what God actually says about God’s decision for us. The Third Commandment reminds us of our need to stop and to listen to what God says to us; to make regular time in our lives to listen, pray, and to gather for worship. Let’s take a look at these two commandments and see how they fit together for the good of God’s people.

First of all let’s look at number 2 that reads: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God.” About the 2nd Command Luther says, “We are to fear and love God, so that we do not curse, swear, practice magic, lie, or deceive using God’s name, but instead use that very name in every time of need to call on, pray to, praise and give thanks to God.”

The heart, by faith, gives God the honor due God. This is what we pick up from the 1st Commandment. Through it, God invites us to respond to God in love. As a result of God’s decision to be God for us, we respond to God by growing in our knowledge of God and God’s ways and to trust in God to care for us and for the world. It means that right where we are, in the middle of the conflict between life and death in which we all find ourselves, we have been given the faith necessary to entrust our self to God for life.

As we entrust ourselves to God we are assured that we can call upon God’s name in every joy and sorrow. All too often, however, we hear others, or even from time to time find ourselves slipping up in the manner in which we call on God’s name. For some, maybe even some of us here tonight, it is easy to use God’s name in less than respectful ways. To misuse God’s name is to call on God’s name to support a falsehood or wrong of any kind. What this commandment forbids is appealing to God’s name falsely or taking his name upon our lips when our heart knows or should know that the facts are otherwise, like when people take oaths in court and one side lies against the other. God’s name cannot be more grievously abused than for purposes of falsehood and deceit.

Just as there are improper ways of using God’s name, so, too, are there proper ways of using God’s name. God’s name has been given to us for our use and benefit. We are to use it in time of need, praise and thanksgiving. Psalm 50:14-23 puts it this way, “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. {15} Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." {16} But to the wicked God says: "What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips? {17} For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. {18} You make friends with a thief when you see one, and you keep company with adulterers. {19} "You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. {20} You sit and speak against your kin; you slander your own mother's child. {21} These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one just like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you. {22} "Mark this, then, you who forget God, or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver. {23} Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God."

God’s name is hallowed where God is praised, where truth and justice are established, where falsehood is refuted, where people are reconciled, where obedience is rendered and quarrels are settled. To keep God’s name holy we need to form the habit of commending ourselves, body, mind and soul to God every day, and not just ourselves, but also our spouse our children, all who work for us and all that we have; commending this all to God for God’s protection.

When we do that, we find ourselves able to speak to God and we discover that God listens to us. To enter into a conversation like this with God is to pray. Such speaking and listening to God can take place silently or aloud, in the car or in the church, in carefully worked out language or in hastily uttered phrases or without conscious words at all. Because the opportunity to listen to God and speak to God in the confidence of being heard is part of the Christian faith, the language of prayer turns in one way or another to praise and thanksgiving.

Number 3 reads: “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.” About this Luther writes, “we are fear and love God, so that we do not despise preaching or God’s word, but instead keep that word holy and gladly hear and learn it.”
Our word “holy day” or “holiday” is so called from the Hebrew word “Sabbath”, which properly means to rest, that is, to cease from labor. The roots of this commandment are all the way back in the first creation rendition, Genesis 2:3. After six days of creation God rested and sanctified, made holy, that day of rest.

For the people of Israel, observance of the 3rd Commandment meant that they were required to set aside the Sabbath day for rest and reflection. They were to abstain from hard work and to rest, so that both human and beast might be refreshed and not be exhausted by constant labor.

Christians do not understand themselves to be under that obligation. We keep the Sabbath for the sake of bodily need. Nature teaches and demands that people who have attended to their work all week long should retire for a day to rest and be refreshed. We also keep holy days so that people may participate in public worship, to assemble in order to hear and discuss God’s Word and then praise God with song and prayer. All our life and work must be guided by God’s Word if they are to be God-pleasing.

We are not restricted, as the Jews were, to worshiping at a particular time, for no one day is better than another. Actually, there should be worship daily. Since this is more that most people can do, at least one day in the week must be set apart for it; Sunday being the most common from ancient of days.

Since we observe holidays anyhow, with Sunday being a weekly holiday, we should devote ourselves to learning God’s Word. Just being a day of rest is not enough; even non-Christians take a day off for rest and idleness. What make this day holy is the hearing and learning of God’s Word. The special office of this day, therefore, should be the ministry of the Word for the sake of all people. The 3rd Commandment reminds us of our need to stop and to listen to what God says to us. It invites us to make regular time in our lives to listen, to pray, and to gather for worship.
With these catechism lessons in mind, then we need to ask ourselves “what does it mean to keep God’s name holy and to keep a Holy Sabbath?” Both God’s name and the Sabbath are holy in and of themselves, but we ask that they may be kept holy in our hearts. These two Commandments along with the 1st, are, as Jesus said to the Pharisees, the greatest commandment. It is from these first Commandments, as they inform our relationship with God, that we receive guidance and strength to honor the rest of the commandments that inform our relationship with each other.
Even though we may think we know the Word of God perfectly and have already mastered everything, still we are daily under the dominion of the devil, who neither day nor night relaxes his effort to steal upon us unawares, to kindle in our hearts unbelief and wicked thoughts against all the commandments.

Therefore we must always have God’s Word in our hearts, upon our lips, and in our ears. But where the heart is idle, and the Word does not sound, he breaks in and has done the damage before we are aware. On the other hand, whenever it is seriously contemplated, heard, and used, it is bound never to be without fruit, but always awakening new understanding, pleasure, and devoutness, and producing a pure heart and pure thoughts. For the Word of God is not idle or dead, but creative, living words.

God desires far more than lip service. He wants a relationship with us that stems from the heart. Jesus tells us, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). In the end, it is not enough just to avoid misusing God's name or in making sure we make it to church every week.

God wants us to love and respect Him every moment of every day. Honoring God begins in our thoughts. We must know who and what God is. We must know what God requires of us and why. We should admire God’s wisdom, love, fairness and justice. We need to stand in awe of God’s power and recognize that our existence depends on God’s goodness.

Then we should talk to God in prayer—every day. We should follow the admonitions in the Psalms to give God thanks and praise God, openly expressing our appreciation for all that God gives us. We should acknowledge God’s greatness. We should ask God to create in us God’s way of thinking and character. We should request the power of God’s Spirit to enable us to wholeheartedly obey and serve God.