Isaiah – Salem Lutheran Church: Recent Episodes
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Isaiah 64:1-8
{Prayer}
In 1950, Dave Ellis’ daughter JoAnn fell victim to hepatitis. She was an honor student at Evanston High School, the valedictorian of her graduating class, the ‘baby’ in the Ellis family, and the apple of her parent’s eye.
Things didn’t look to good to Dave one morning as he got ready for work. The family doctor, Dr. Cummings, had advised the Ellises that JoAnn was a pretty sick gal. He told them that he was calling in a specialist, a Dr. Keyser.
That evening, a weary Ellis returned home from work. As he walked in the door, his wife, Helen, rushed to him, threw her arms around her husband and delightfully reported: “Dave, the specialist has examined JoAnn and Dr. Cummings tells me that JoAnn is in good hands with Dr. Keyser.” JoAnn fully recovered from her illness.
This little story was found in some correspondence 12 years later at a retirement party for Davis Ellis. What his wife told him when he came home from work that night when his daughter met with the specialist stuck with him. In a late night meeting on developing a new ad, he proposed a slogan which has been around for the last 70 plus years. The company which Davis Ellis worked for was … Allstate. The slogan … “You’re in good hands with Allstate.”
We confess in the Creeds of the Church that God is the Creator of heaven and earth. In Luther’s explanation of the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed, he shows us how we are all created by God, our Heavenly Father, how all that we have comes from God, how He defends us against all danger, and how He does this out father, divine goodness and mercy. We could summarize all that and say that we are in the good hands of our Heavenly Father.
But is this a good place to be? Initially we say yes and we’d like to think so. After all fathers are to love and care for their children and who would do a better job of that than our Heavenly Father. Isaiah in our text describes God as “Father,” but Isaiah also calls him the potter. If God is the potter, then we are clay. What does it mean for us to be clay in the hands of our heavenly Potter?
Isaiah is thought to have written these words of our Old Testament reading around 700 BC. By this time the Assyrians had overrun most of the land. They had even laid siege to Jerusalem. Isaiah here is lamenting, he is crying out to God. He wants to know why God seems so distant from His chosen people. Isaiah says, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before You! As when a fire sets twigs ablaze and causes the water to boil, come down to make Your name known to Your enemies and cause the nations to quake before You” (64:1-3).
Isaiah knows that God is not a wimp. He knows that the Heavenly Potter, that God has the power to squash anyone or anything as easily as we can smash a clay jar. Isaiah knew this because God had demonstrated this power in the past. Remember the story of Jericho or the song about the walls of Jericho? After the Israelites had marched around the city for seven days, God literally cause Jericho’s walls to tremble before Him and come crumbling down, allowing the Israelites to take the city. God had that kind of power, and since He used it in the past, why not now? Why not cause the Assyrians to shake in their boots? Why did God feel so distant from His people?
We can relate. In the midst of some things happening in our lives, it can feel like God is distant. When we look at the things we have to put up within our life, things like the loss of a job, like sickness, like the death of a loved one, we often assume that God is distant, that God just doesn’t really care about what we’re going through. Or when we see the violence in our world, whether it is here at home or halfway around the world, we wonder why God doesn’t just come down and squash these people?
The thing is, Isaiah barely gets his prayer out of his mouth and he realized that he had just asked for something absolutely awful. In begging God to come down and deal with all that was wrong with the world … Isaiah realized that he had just asked God to come down and deal with him.
Isaiah confessed, “You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, You were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on Your name or strives to lay hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins” (64:5-7).
Like the drug dealer who calls the cops to report a break-in at his house forgetting that when the cops show up, they’ll find the marijuana growing operation he has in his basement and arrest him for it … when we call on God to come down deal with the ungodly, we forget that we’re inviting God to come and scrutinize our lives. And you know what He finds? He finds that we are what’s wrong with this world.
Isaiah said, “all our”, not those over there, but our … “all our righteous acts”, so not the bad moments that we have but the righteous things, the good things we do, they “are like filthy rags.” And not like rags that you use to dust the house with, but rags which are severely stained in which nothing can get the stain out. That’s us! That’s you and me!
The best things that we do, like give money to missions or charities, spend time on church committees, send encouragement or sympathy cards individuals, cook meals for others, give hugs to those hurting, whatever we do … Isaiah says that they are filthy rages, worthless, not able to be used again. That’s the way God sees it. He sees it this way because everything we do … it is soaked with the sin of pride and self-righteousness. It’s all about me. We do so call “good” things so that we, not others, but so that we feel better.
To which we ask the age old Lutheran question, what does this mean? Isaiah says our sins shrivel up like a leaf. Dead leaves either end up on a compost pile or in a burn pit. You can take your pick as to where you want to go because the Bible talks about how we deserve both for our sins. It’s not good to be clay in the heavenly Potter’s hands for He not only has the power to squash us, He has the right to squish us.
Thankfully though, Isaiah remembered something else about the heavenly Potter. Isaiah says, “Yet, O LORD, You are our Father. We are the clay, You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD; do not remember out sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all Your people” (64:8-9). Although God is the heavenly Potter who has every right to squish us, He still remains our heavenly Father who cherishes us.
God demonstrated that love for us when He squelched the punishment we deserve for our sin. God squelched it through His only Son, Jesus. When Jesus came into this world, He did not do so to bear God’s arm to squash and to squish the sinner. He came to bear His back to those who whipped and crucified Him. He came to squelch the punishment that you and I deserve for our sins.
Make no mistake, we are still clay in the heavenly Potter’s hands. But now we can see this as a good thing.
Because of our sinfulness, because of the fact that we are born sinful, the clump of clay of ourselves is dry. There is not a whole lot you can do with dry clay. If you try to shape it, it just crumbles and falls apart. The thing that makes clay workable is water. And so through the water of Baptism, God makes you pliable. God breathed new life into you so that He could mold and fashion you into His likeness. In the transformation process, there are times where the Potter will have to trim off bits and pieces of clay. This allows Him to make us into something useful. Then He puts us through fiery trials so that as happens with dull clay baked in a kiln, we come out as something beautiful.
Notice who is doing the work. You and I are not the one who is trying to impress the Potter with how good of clay we are. We are not trying to please Him and make Him want us to be His clay. God, by His grace alone saves us. By God’s grace alone, He doesn’t squash us, squish us, or squelch us. This is the message of the Reformation.
It’s actually a great thing to be in the hands of the heavenly Potter. Our heavenly Potter is our heavenly Father who loves us. Through Christ alone, God has squelched the punishment we deserve for our sin. And in time, our heavenly Potter will squash all who try to pull us from His love. With God as the heavenly Potter, He is making you into something useful and beautiful for all eternity. You are in good hands with God. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
Isaiah 25:6-9
{Prayer}
The age old question that comes from the mouth of pretty much every hungry kid … what’s for dinner? {Beef commercial} Did you happen to notice all the different ways in which that simple ingredient of beef was used?
My family likes to watch a cooking competition show called MasterChef. The competition starts off with twenty home cooks who are competing to be America’s next MasterChef. But they aren’t just cooking for any ole judges. One of the main judges over the seasons has been none other than Gordon Ramsay. The meals these home cooks have to make aren’t as simple as beef stroganoff or simple beef kabobs or grilled steak and tomatoes or a minute steak sandwich. They have to take common, everyday ingredients and elevate them.
For example, this past season, the home cooks had to elevate food you would find at a stadium, at a state fair, in a MRE or military meals ready to eat, and even on one episode the home cooks had to take gas station snack food and drinks and turn them into some sort of a meal. But, like I said, not just any ordinary kind of meal but an elevated, gourmet, Michelin Star worthy kind of meal.
Isaiah says at the beginning of our Old Testament reading, “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast” (25:6a). With the Lord being the host, you know that this isn’t going to be like a Big Mac meal from McDonalds or a Beefy 5-Layer Burrito from Taco Bell. This meal will be so good that it would even put Gordon Ramsay to shame. This meal prepared by the Lord is going to be a good quality meal. And in the Lord’s standards, good is when something is completed. Seven times during the six days of creation, God saw what He had made and it was good, it was done. So what is the Lord making? “a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine” (25:6b).
But even though this meal is good and the people probably think there is no way it could get any better … Isaiah tells how the Lord elevates the food. It’s not just a feast of rich food and of well-aged wine. Oh no! It’s now a feast of “rich food full of marrow” and of“aged wine well refined” (25:6c). The depth and the magnitude of the flavor of this food just went up. Now this mountaintop feast is very good. This mountaintop feast is a heavenly feast, both literally and figuratively.
So, God is serving up this beyond awesome meal for the people. And just like feasts that you and I would participate in, there is an atmosphere of rejoicing, of excitement. The room is bustling with people talking and laughing. People are about to start their meal, but you notice that there is something different about this feast. Isaiah says that there is a covering. “And {the LORD} will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations” (25:7).
And not only is there something different about this feast, there is something different about God’s plate. There’s a cover over it. Not a fancy silver dome which covers meals at most fancy banquets. No, this cover looks more like a dark veil, like a funeral pall which would be used to cover a casket at a funeral. So what’s under that veil? What is under the pall? What is it that is on God’s plate? … Death. Death is on God’s plate. And God is going to eat it. “And He will swallow up death” (25:8a), Isaiah says.
The peoples on the mountain are eating a feast, an elevated, an exceptional feast. God is eating up death … what is on your plate? What is it that has been eating at you recently? … Think about that for a moment. … Has it been guilt? Has it been cancer? Or age? Or mental health? Or financial hardship? Or the deterioration of our society? Or the death of a loved one? What is it has been making your stomach churn? What is that gnawing pain which just won’t seem to go away?
In his book Open and Unafraid, author W. David O. Taylor talks about something that was “eating away” at his family:
“On April 17, 2010, my wife and I lost our first baby to a miscarriage. This took place on my thirty-eighth birthday. For months afterwards we carried around a gnawing pain – a pain that slowly ate us up from the inside, leaving us profoundly disoriented. On September 11, 2011, our daughter came into the world. Hope again surged in our hearts. Other children would now come easily, we thought. Our dream of a big family of five children could still be achieved, our advancing years notwithstanding.
Two days shy of Christmas 2014, after months of fertility treatments, we lost our second child to a miscarriage. After this, our marriage suffered considerably. Our communication repeatedly broke down, and our capacity to meet each other’s needs dissipated. Small hurts flared up into angry conflict, and each of us resorted to surrogates we hoped might dull the pain, but that only made things worse.
There are still days when the pain feels almost unbearable. Neither of us is getting younger, our parents are growing older, our friends’ children are reaching their college years, and the train, so it feels, is passing us by. What we needed then was language to say out loud what our hearts can only grasp at with inarticulate groans. What we needed, quite desperately, was a community to bear witness to our sadness. Above all, what we needed was to know God can handle our broken hearts and our raging words of protest.**”
The heartache, the gnawing pain, the things which are eating at us … we would love for them to all to just go away, to just disappear. I wish there was something like Tums or Maalox we could take which would calm down our stomach. The problem with that though is that the relief may only be temporary. Things like Tums or Maalox, or more harmful things like drugs, alcohol, pornography, or other destructive escapes don’t actually get rid of the problem, they just prolong it, they just mask the pain.
Notice in our reading that God doesn’t simply dismiss death. He doesn’t simply dismiss the things which are gnawing away at us. He actually takes them and death upon Himself and into Himself. God ingests, digests, and passes death so that you and I might be spared from the cold, horrible, and disgusting taste of it. God though does more than just taste it … He actually takes it all for us. He swallows it. God takes the plate of hardship and death from you and gives it to His Suffering Servant of Isaiah 52-53. He takes the plate of death from you and gives it our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
This Jesus is the One who would come as a child, who would grow, and who would bear all your pain and sadness through the consumption of a gruesome beating, a drink of sour wine, and a death on the cross. Through the eating of this cold meal of death and by the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus has made our way by grace through faith to the feast that will have no end. This is exactly what Paul promises in the great resurrection chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 15, “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (15:54). Paul also says in 2 Corinthians 5, “For while we are still in this tent, in this body, we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (5:4).
Jesus finished that plate of death from Isaiah’s vision while on the cross. The empty tomb is the guarantee that there were no left overs of death for the grave was empty. Jesus’ resurrection life proves the deed was done. Now, every time we gather here at this altar, you and I get to enjoy the mountain top feast, receiving the bread and the wine, the very body and blood of our Savior for the forgiveness of our sins. We receive this meal, knowing that it is a foretaste, a sample of what the elevated feast will be that we will enjoy, as Isaiah says, in Heaven forever with the angels, arch angels, and all the company of heaven. Amen.
The peace of God, that surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
Isaiah 5:1-7
{Prayer}
There are times that I really appreciate a good wine. My wife prefers the sweeter variety but for me, a good Cab with a steak or a soft Merlot with some pasta is the way to go.
Great wines are the product of great care. A great winemaker is always concerned about his vineyard. Throughout the year, he provides the greatest care possible. It is a yearlong process to produce the perfect grapes which then can be made into that perfect wine. He takes care of his vines with the proper pruning, proper fertilizer and water. As harvest draws closer, he checks the sugar content so he can harvest at just the right time. A great winemaker is in love with his vineyard. He takes care of his vineyard with the finest detail in order to have the best possible wine.
The heading of our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 5 in most Bibles calls our text “The Song of the Vineyard.” As the song goes on, it is clear that the farmer loves his vineyard. “I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard” (5:1).In this song, God is the vineyard owner and the children of Israel and the men of Judah are the garden of His delight. God has cared for them throughout the centuries. Everything God does concerning them is done with great care and love. Isaiah says the vineyard is on a fertile hillside, which is Jerusalem.
Notice the attention to detail Isaiah says the caretaker has for the vineyard. Nothing was spared to make it fruitful. As is in that area of the world, many vineyards were planted in rocky and hilly soil. The exertion to dig it up, to gather up all the stones and to terrace the vineyard with them easily demonstrates how hard God has worked. This is like the Napa Valley of vineyards. God devoted Himself in taking care of the Israelites, His chosen people.
Isaiah tells us that after God had done the hard work of establishing the vineyard, He hired laborers to care for it. These laborers are the teachers of the faith, the caretakers of this vineyard. But despite planting the choicest vines, the best of best kind of vines, despite careful attention from the vinedresser … the labors, the teachers of the faith fail to do what they need to do in order to keep the vineyard operating and peak capacity. And because of this, instead of the finest grapes, the vineyard only produces “wild grapes.” The vineyard’s failure to produce good fruit, better fruit has forced the owner to remove His care. The result of this is that the Israelite people are exiled to Babylon. If the land was unable to produce with proper care, what would it do without any care?
Jesus in the gospel reading for today uses the same imagery of a vineyard. Jesus tells how a man planted it. He put a wall around it, dug the winepress, and built a watchtower to protect it. He then rented it out and went away on a journey. But when harvest time approached, this owner sent out servants to collect the vineyard’s fruit. The tenants who were taking care of the vineyard saw these servants coming and beat one, killed one, and stoned a third. The owner sends more servants the second time and the same thing happens. In a final effort, the owner sends his son, believing they will respect him. Instead of respecting him … they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Jesus asks the religious leaders what will the owner do, what will he do with the tenants? They said, “He will put the wicked men to a horrible death and lease the vineyard to others who will give him his share of the crop after each harvest” (Matt. 21:41 NLT). Looking for grapes … for precious grapes … the owner instead got wild grapes … and they threw out and killed His Son too.
But here’s the thing … as much as it may sound like the texts from Isaiah and Matthew are about a vineyard … they’re not. They are parables. They are earthly stories with a heavenly meaning.
Isaiah in verse 7 says, “The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of His delight. And He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress” (5:7). The Lord very much loved His Israel. He even calls them “the garden of His delight.” The Lord planted the Israelites in the Promised Land to do good works, to specifically bring justice and righteousness to all people, even to those who don’t know who the Lord is. But instead of doing works of justice and living lives of righteousness … their works were evil and brought about bloodshed and cries of distress. Instead of bearing good grapes, they produced “wild grapes.”
Here today … you and I … we are the people of God. By God’s grace, you and I are His “pleasant planting”, His garden of delight. We are made to be this through our baptism, through the hearing of the good news, of the gospel message of God’s love shown to us through Christ, and through the professing of Jesus as our Savior through our lips.
The Church is God’s planting. The Church is God’s vineyard. It’s not “our” church at all. God does the work for His church. He prepares the soil of the vineyard, He plants the seed, the seed of faith. God plants the seed of faith, of His Word in your hearts at baptism. Just like He did last week with Emelia and will this week with little Harvey. God lovingly helps us grow up in faith through His teaching and preaching and through His precious supper. It’s God’s work in us!
And in return, from this outpouring of so much grace and mercy that our cup overflows, God looks for you and me to produce “good grapes”, to produce “good fruit.” He looks for you and me to produce good works for His delight. This pleasant planning of the Church is centered solely in God’s son, Jesus. It is centered solely in the beloved One who lived, died, rose again, and gives to you and me His Holy Spirit. Jesus says in John 15, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. … Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (15:1, 5). Being connected to the vine, being connected to Christ … we are truly blessed. Blessed beyond measure.
But we don’t always bear those “good grapes”, that “good fruit” do we? We don’t always bear good works. Instead of bearing “good grapes”, you and I bear “wild grapes”, “sour grapes.” We give in to doing what I believe is right for me. My truth, my outlook on life … that is what leads and guides me … not God’s Word. I look out for me and don’t worry about what my words or actions may do to someone else. I look at those who don’t agree with me as being below me. Instead of righteousness and justice for all people … it’s all about me, my ideals, my philosophies, my position.
We fall into the same patterns and lifestyles as the Israelites of old, of the religious leaders of Jesus day, and of everyone else who has ever lived since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin. The soil in which we plant ourselves is tainted with sin and it’s overgrown with weeds.
Being choked by the weeds of sin, there is nothing left for us to do but to cry out. Cry out with the words of Psalm 80. “Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root Your right hand has planted, the Son You raised up for Yourself. … Let Your hand rest on the man at Your right hand, the Son of man You have raised up for Yourself. Then we will not turn away from You; revive us, and we will call upon Your name. Restore us, O LORD God Almighty; make Your face shine upon us, that we may be saved” (80:14-15, 17-19).
In the midst of your cry … know, believe that God does hear you. God hears you because He loves His vineyard, He loves you. God has grafted you in, He has connected you to the true vine, to Jesus. He graciously provides you with all you need to bear good fruit, to bear good grapes.
Let God use you. Let Him help you grow, bear good fruit, be a fine wine so that others may share in His goodness and love. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
Isaiah 55:6-9
{Prayer}
Not to put any pressure on you, but if you didn’t already know, there is only three months till Christmas. Sadly, Christmas decorations and what not are already up in most retail stores. Before we know it, we’re going to start seeing those Black Friday ads with their Black Friday deals, their door buster ads and their fancy advertising slogans.
We’ve all heard them. “Free gift with purchase of $100!” “Black Friday Sneak Peak – Get a Jump Start on Big Time Deals – up to 70% off.” “Mix and Match Entire Store – Once a Year – Buy 3 Get 3 Free!” “Don’t wait, time is running out!”
We even hear this kind of talk at the beginning of our Old Testament lesson this morning when Isaiah says, “Seek the Lord while He may be found” (Isaiah 55:6a). Hearing that, especially if you are hearing it for the first time, like the Israelite people were, you may be like, “Wait a minute! What’s going on? Is the Lord going somewhere where I can’t reach Him? How does that work?”
What’s worse yet is the last part of that verse. “call on Him while He is near” (55:6b). Again, where is He going? It sounds like He is going to be going far, far away. How long is He going to be gone? Is He ever coming back? If not, I better get my requests in, I better straighten up. Maybe I can convince the Lord not to leave!”
Can you see where these words from Isaiah could cause one to be confused, to be scratching their head and not sure about this whole following the Lord thing?
To get a better understanding of what this passage is saying, we need to stop, calm down, take a deep breath, and relax. We need to take a step back and look at the larger context. We need to look at the location of these verses within the greater context of the whole book of Isaiah.
Chapter 55 follows the section in Isaiah that is known and cherished by many as the “Suffering Servant Section.” Chapters 52 to 53 are the fourth Servant Song of Isaiah and then chapter 54 focuses on the “Eternal Covenant of Peace.” In these three chapters, the amazing, gracious work of Jesus is foretold. It’s in these chapters where we hear the familiar words like, “Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows … He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities … The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all … He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth … He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors … with everlasting love I will have compassion on you.”
For the Israelites, these words are all looking ahead to what the Savior would do. From our perspective, we hear these words and look back at what it was that Jesus did. And with all this that Christ went through, all the pain, the suffering, the ridicule and mocking, the torture and then to top it all off, He was forsaken by His own heavenly Father … with all that Jesus voluntarily did and went through … you think He is going to just take off and leave? Looking at our world and how we all live our lives, I wouldn’t blame Him for wanting to leave. The thing is though, it would be extremely wrong and inappropriate for us to look at our reading from Isaiah 55 as a mandate, as an order, a command to get your life in order and find the LORD, to walk in His ways … or else! Or, do good stuff and get right with Jesus … time is running out! That’s not what Isaiah wants you to go home with. God isn’t going anywhere. He’s not a Black Friday or an Amazon Prime sale which is here today and gone tomorrow.
Isaiah 55 begins with an invitation. The LORD says “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (55:1). Okay, hold on a second. God says to come and buy and eat and drink, but there’s no money to do that. The invite to buy is for the one who has no money? How does that even work? Well … it doesn’t … and that is exactly the point. We who have nothing are given absolutely everything.
The last three weeks in our Time to Profess we have been going through each of the three articles or sections of the Apostles’ Creed and the meaning that is found in Luther’s Small Catechism. We didn’t do that just to do something different. In going through them like we have, we focus in on what it is that God has done and continues to do for us. He gives you and me our body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them. He gives us everything we need to support this body and life in which we have. God protects us. Jesus redeems us from all our sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. The Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, makes us holy and keeps us in the true faith. We are given the promise that we will be raised from the dead and those who believe in Jesus as their Savior will be granted eternal life.
God is doing all this. He does it out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. There’s nothing I can add to this. There is nothing we can contribute to our salvation. God is God and we are not. We live under Him. We are blessed with and by His grace! And so it is our duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.
You and I have nothing … and yet … we are given absolutely everything. We who are lost and who are unable to navigate our way out of a paper bag are told to, “Seek the LORD while He may be found” (55:6a). But you may be thinking, I’m lost in the chaos and darkness of sin. I’m being bombarded by sale fliers enticing me to go here for this devilish deal or to go there to get that enticing product. I’m lost, I’m unable to find my way. How in the world can I find Jesus?
Here’s the thing … you don’t. Jesus instead finds you! Jesus finds you and He places Himself in a place or in a position so that you will see Him! Psalm 34 says that “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all” (34:18-19).
Jesus, the Suffering Servant, the one who wants you and all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4), comes to you. We just confessed, “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.”He reveals Himself to you through His Holy Spirit, through His holy Word. He reveals Himself in the selfless acts of mercy that are shown to you and to those around us. Jesus reveals Himself to you and others through tears shed and words of support spoken to those who are hurting. Jesus wants you and me to be near to Him.
“Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6). God seeks us so that we might find Him, but you know, He does this in ways that do not always make sense to us. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways are not our ways (55:8) and so we are called to trust. To fear, love, and trust in God above all things, with all that we are made up of. And I get it, this isn’t always easy.
God has placed all kinds of different people in your lives. Some of them you love and adore and cherish, others, you don’t get along with all, you don’t see eye to eye on anything, or it is hard for you to even be in their presence.
Jesus said that night is coming when no man can work. The day is coming when Christ will come again. And when He comes, those who don’t believe will have run out of time. Living in the end times, living in the eleventh hour, you and I have been called to share the message of God’s love and grace to those around us, even if it to those who we would rather not talk to or associate ourselves with. We have been called to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The clock is ticking; time is running out. Brought near to God by His grace, may we share that grace with those around us in all that we say and do and while giving God all the honor, glory, and praise. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
Isaiah 51:1-6
{Prayer}
Throughout the service so far, we have had a lot of mentions about rocks. We had verses about rocks in our opening Time to Praise. We had a mention of rocks in our prayer and even in our Time to Confess. You could say that our worship service so far this morning has been off to a rocky start.
One thing you may not know about rocks is that rocks have a pretty sedimentary lifestyle. Okay, I know, bad dad joke, but it’s true! Rocks don’t move or eat or reproduce. Rocks don’t even breathe, evolve, or need energy. They don’t produce waste. Rocks can grow and be made smaller and move, but not under their own power. Even though rocks can’t technically be considered dead because they were never living, they sure do act like their dead. Rocks are pretty sedentary.
Isaiah in our Old Testament reading, he is talking to the Israelites who are living in exile, who are living in Babylonian captivity, who have hit rock bottom and believe that they have been forgotten about by God and that may never get to go back home again. In the very beginning of our section of Scripture that I read earlier, the Israelites are told to look back to their past and remember what it was that had happened.
And what is it in their past they are supposed to look back to? Isaiah says a rock. “Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn” (51:1b). Now this isn’t like, oh, look back to the land from which you came from, kind of looking back. To us, and especially to those of us who don’t really know anything about our family lineage, looking back from where our families came from isn’t going to provide any sort of comfort or peace.
This would be like telling someone who has a life sentence in prison to remember where he came from. Looking back, remembering how good things were before he was found guilty of a serious crime that he had committed isn’t going to provide him any comfort or peace while sitting in his cell.
So what’s the point of Isaiah telling the Israelites to look back? He says, “Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah who gave you birth” (51:2a). The Israelites, who are suffering, being abused, tormented, and thinking they are going to die in a foreign land, are told to look to their ancestors. What good is that? What kind of comfort does this bring?
Well, you may remember that there is something special about these two people, about Abraham and Sarah. If you don’t remember, let me tell you a little about them.
Abraham and Sarah, they are both like a rock. Actually, when Isaiah says to look to the rock from which you were cut … Isaiah is talking about Abraham. When Isaiah says to look to the quarry from which you were hewn, he is referring to Sarah. In their own way, Abraham and Sarah are a rock.
The beginning of Hebrews 11:12 says, “Therefore from one man {Abraham}, and him as good as dead”. Abraham is considered as good as dead because he’s old! At the age of 99, Abraham is well past the age of having children.
Sarah, she’s not much better. Not only is she way past child bearing age, but she is barren, she’s not able to have kids, period. In Old Testament times, because she couldn’t have children, Sarah would be considered as good as dead as well.
But like I said, there was something special about these two, about Abraham and Sarah. Despite laughing, despite looking at their physical age, despite trying to take matters into their own hands at times … Abraham and Sarah, are like a rock in their faith. They believed God. They had faith. Hebrews 11 says that “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man {Abraham}, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore” (11:11-12).
So what good does it do for the Israelites in exile to look back to Abraham and Sarah? Looking back to their roots, looking back to the man who believed the promises of God through faith alone will help them recall their past and return to the roots of their faith, to the “rock” and the “quarry” from which their nation came. God’s promises of grace to Abraham formed the bedrock upon which Israel was first built, and Sarah was the cavity from which Israel was born.
God is having the exiles look back to the miracle of Abraham’s offspring being multiplied beyond imagination to give them hope. Looking into the past will empower the exiles to face their future with resilient hope. So when Isaiah is saying “Look to the rock”, “Look to Abraham”, “Look to Sarah”, he wants the people to “Look confidently and remember what it is God has done.”
Once their done looking back and remembering, Isaiah points them to look forward. “The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing” (51:3). The LORD chose the offspring of Abraham to be His people, He’s not going to turn His back on them. God is working in the background to bring His people up out of the land of exile and back to the land that He promised them. In other words, they will not stay in their uncomfortable and rocky condition forever.
And this is where you and I come in. Right now, you and I are living in a time of exile. We are living in a time when individuals hit rock bottom, a time when some question and even believe that because of their suffering, because of their condition, because of their place in life that God has abandoned them. But not only are you and I subject to the present sufferings of our individual lives, the creation, the world around us is also subjected to frustration.
Paul says in Romans 8, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (8:22-23).
Isaiah told the Israelites to look back, to look back and remember the rock from which they came … you and I are called to do the same. However, we aren’t looking back to the dead rock of Abraham, but instead to the Living Rock of Jesus Christ. We are called to confidently look back and remember what it is that Jesus has done for us through His perfect life, His miserable suffering and death, and through His victorious resurrection from the dead. Christ is our cornerstone. Christ is the Rock on whom we build our lives. As the one hymn says, “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; No merit of my own I claim But wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand” (LW 368 vs 1).
As the Israelites were waiting for the day they would be set free from captivity, we do the same. Like Israel, we live in this tension, in this time of anticipation of what is yet to come. The rocky situations and conditions in which we live is not how it is always going to be. As we groan inwardly, we wait for the day when Christ comes again. On the Last Day, Christ will “transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). Then at last, God will fully make the wilderness of our lives like the garden of Eden in the new heavens and earth to come.
As living stones, hewn from the Rock of our salvation, we are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5). Being built together on the cornerstone of Christ, may we remember confidently what Christ has and is doing for us as we offer our prayers, our praise, and our thanksgiving to God. May all we say and do, be done to bring God the glory and honor, forever and ever. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
Isaiah 44:6-8
{Prayer}
In “The Wounded Healer”, Henri Nouwen, a Dutch Catholic priest, retells a tale from ancient India: Four royal brothers decided each to master a special ability. Time went by, and the brothers met to reveal what they had learned.
“I have mastered a science,” said the first, “by which I can take but a bone of some creature and create the flesh that goes with it.”
“I,” said the second, “know how to grow that creature’s skin and hair if there is flesh on its bones.”
The third said, “I am able to create its limbs if I have flesh, the skin, and the hair.”
“And I,” concluded the fourth, “know how to give life to that creature if its form is complete.”
Thereupon the brothers went into the jungle to find a bone so they could demonstrate their specialties. As fate would have it, the bone they found was a lion’s. One added flesh to the bone, the second grew hide and hair, the third completed it with matching limbs, and the fourth gave the lion life. Shaking its mane, the ferocious beast arose and jumped on his creators. He killed them all and vanished contentedly into the jungle.
You and I, we too have the capacity to create what can devour us. Goals and dreams can consume us. Possessions and property can turn and destroy us. So unless we first seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness, we too will be consumed and destroyed by idolatry.
Listen again to what Isaiah says right at the beginning of our Old Testament lesson, “This is what the LORD says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God” (44:6).You see, at this point in Isaiah’s book, at this time in history, the Israelite people have been taken over by the Babylonians. The Israelite people have been forcefully taken away from their homes, had everything they possessed taken away from them, had their temple laid to ruins, and they are now living in exile.
I would like to say that they were taken away into exile because they were a smaller nation compared to that of the Babylonians, because they had a much smaller army than the Babylonians, because they were totally unaware that they were coming and that they were caught off guard, caught by surprise … but that’s just not the case. The Babylonians were able to march right in and take over the Israelites because the Israelites welcomed them in. They welcomed them in as they showed them all the gold and precious items in the temple. They welcomed them in as they turned from the LORD Almighty and began to worship their possessions, themselves, and the false gods they created.
And you would like to think they would have learned their lesson, but in this foreign, Babylonian land, the Israelite people continued to give into idol worship. They continued to create things, items, images, these idols out of wood, gold, silver or anything they can get their hands on and they were bowing down and worshipping them. They were being consumed by them. Thus why this bold statement straight out of the mouth of the LORD. “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God” (44:6).
It’s interesting when you start digging into the Scriptures to see exactly what an idol is. Isaiah uses a handful of different words which get translated as idol. In Isaiah 46:1, he uses the Hebrew word at-sa-bim. While translated as idol, it also can mean “pain.” A slightly different form of the word is used in Genesis 3 when referring to the pain Eve will experience in childbirth as well as the pain Adam will experience in his working of the ground. A variant of this word in found in Genesis 6:6 when God is looking upon the earth at the time of Noah. Looking at the sinfulness of man, “The LORD was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain.” Idols and the worshipping of them causes us nothing but misery, heartache, and pain.
In Isaiah 41:29, he says that idols are ephes, they are nothing, they are worthless, they have no value in them. When it comes to seeking comfort, idols provide you with nothing. When it comes to asking for wisdom, idols provide you with nothing. When it comes down to it, idols provide you with nothing which is beneficial.
Interestingly, in that same verse, he says they are tohu. Here and in Isaiah 44:9 where he is describing those who make idols, Isaiah uses that word which can translated as empty. However, that word, tohu, is first used in Genesis 1:2. “The earth was without form {tohu} and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep**.” In the beginning, the earth was a formless, empty, it was a chaotic space. Idols and those who make them bring about chaos. Those who follow idols become lost in the sea of chaos where God is not seen or heard.
So if idols cause pain, heartache and grief, if they are nothing and are absolutely worthless, and they only bring about emptiness and chaos … why on earth do people follow them? Why did the Israelites follow them, why do we follow them? Why do we put our earthly possessions, our social status, our hobbies, our sports, our desire for sex, money and power, amongst a long list of other things ahead of God in our lives?
The easy answer is to say that sin makes me do it. And while that’s true, I think that answer is nothing more than a cop-out, it’s a way to not really answer the question. I think if we really examine ourselves, really look within the darkness of our hearts and souls, we will find that we search for and we want idols because we believe they will provide us with peace, with power, with a way out of a situation, and because we have redefined who God is. Many cultures have taken the God of the Scriptures and have recast Him to comply with their own inclinations and desires. We want a god who is infinitely more tolerant than the One revealed in Scripture. One who is less demanding and less judgmental and who will tolerate many lifestyles without placing guilt on anyone’s shoulders.
Friends, the things of this world will never fully satisfy our hungry hearts. They were never meant to. The sinful things, creating and worship idols, they deceive us and ultimately, as Paul says in Romans 6, lead only to death. The good things of this world are not the things we make, but the good things are the gifts that we receive from God. The gifts of God are meant to be enjoyed with a thankful heart. They are meant to be enjoyed in submission to God and for His glory.
But when the gift replaces the Giver or the created replaces the Creator, then we have fallen into idolatry. And no idol can infuse our lives with meaning or worth or give us eternal hope. Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes says that apart from a right relationship with God, life is futile, it’s empty.
To make life full, Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty, who is the first and the last, placed “eternity in man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) through the precious gift of Jesus Christ. It is only through Him in which we you and I are blessed.
Jesus bled and died in our place. Through His rising up from the grave, Jesus shows us that He is the only One who can heal our pain, forgive our filth and worthlessness, and defeat our death. It’s no wonder that the Bible says that idols are nothing, are empty, are chaotic, and only compound our pain. A lifeless god is not god at all. A god who does not suffer, a god who doesn’t know agony and pain, a god who can’t relate to what you and I go through, a god who doesn’t die … this is a god who is without grace, who cannot deliver his people from their sins, and who does not offer any sort of hope or peace for the future.
Thanks be to God that Jesus is not that kind of God. Yes, He died, but He has risen and lives and reigns to all eternity. It’s time to stop searching for idols, it’s time to focus on the True God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Psalm 86:15). Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
Isaiah 49:1-7
{Prayer}
Eating breakfast around our table one day this week, my family and I got on the topic somehow of why is it that babies cry when they are born. Maybe we got on the topic because it was cold in our house, which is what Jessica and Faith think all the time. Maybe it was because we’re talking about Heath’s birthday coming up. Either way, we got talking about how babies cry when they are born. The conclusion which the kids and Jessica came up with was this: … babies cry when they are born because all of a sudden they find themselves in a different place and it’s cold! They think the proper translation of the cry is “Put me back in there, it’s cold out here!!!!”
Whether they are right or not, the birth of a baby is something traumatic for them. Here they go from being nice and cozy swimming around in this warm, dark little bubble of embryonic fluid to being pushed through this tiny little canal to then wha-bam … they get a face full of bright lights and a drastic change in temperature. Honestly, I’d cry too in that case.
This may be an odd way of thinking about it, but have you ever considered how our experience of the world is much like that of a baby in the womb? Think about it for just a moment. A baby in the womb knows nothing but what is around them. Their entire world is there in that womb. The baby doesn’t even comprehend, nor could it ever fathom what the outside world is. You could even tell the baby while he or she is in the womb about everything that is out in the world, but it would only sound like the noise the parents or the teachers make on the old Charlie Brown Christmas Special. “‘Mwa-Mwa-Maw’”
But have you also ever considered this: A baby in the womb has not yet begun to live and move in the way in which God designed them to be? The baby’s eyes are not yet seeing in a manner in which they were designed. Their lungs are not yet breathing the air they were created to breathe. They have not yet begun to move in the way which they were made to. For that baby though … there will be a day, a difficult day, a dark day, a scary day, when doctors and nurses are all gathered around. On that day, the baby moves from the womb to the world. It’s then when they really get to live as God intended.
Our spiritual experience … it is much like that of a baby in the womb. Before Christ is in our life, we live in the world, and we think this is all there is. But when we get into God’s Word, it tells us that there is this whole other place called Heaven. Just like a baby in the womb, we cannot understand what that means and we can’t even begin to fathom what it will look like or be like. Before Christ, God’s Word sounds as confused and as garbled as the “‘Mwa-Mwa-Mwa’” of Charlie Brown. It’s just noise and not very clear.
Before Christ, life in the womb of the world was pretty comfortable. Life there would have been enough for us. But then the time comes, and we hear about that day, the difficult day, a dark day, a scary day when soldiers and mockers all gathered around Jesus. On that day, they gather around to punish, beat, whip, and crucify Him. That difficult day, that dark day, scary day was the day in which Jesus would die on the cross.
The Holy Spirit works to create faith in the hearts of people, in the hearts of you and me. As the Holy Spirit creates faith in us, we begin to move from this world of darkness, death, and sin that we are comfortable with to the new life of being a Christian. In this new life, when you and I hear that Jesus’ crucified body rises three days after he died and is delivered from the tomb, we move out of the darkness and into the light of the world of faith, and we believe. All that used to sound like garbled confusion from God’s Word is now by faith alone and by Christ alone made clear. As we move from the world of death and sin to a new Christian life, our eyes by faith now see the world as God made it. Our lips can now sing the praises they were designed to sing. We begin to move in acts of service toward each other, toward our neighbor as God intended us to do. As wonderful as welcoming a baby into the world is, it’s also a glorious thing to be born of God by faith on account of Christ.
The birth isn’t it though is it? There’s a lot more which comes after the birth, after the becoming a new Christian. There’s this life live. In this new life we still continue to live in the darkness of this world of sin and death. As we live as a child of God in this world, it is still very much like being in the womb. This world is like a womb because there is something else waiting for us. There’s heaven and the new creation. In our being born-again in Christ by faith experience, we will also experience another birth by being born into Heaven forever with God and the whole family of God we long to see. Because, you see, we will pass from this dark world into the bright world of eternity.
On that day, that day in which we physically die … we don’t need to be afraid of anything. We don’t need to be afraid of death because Christ will safely deliver us from this world into Heaven Himself. On that day, we will with our eyes truly see the creation as it was made to be, restored and perfected in every way. On that day we will run and not grow weary, we will walk and not be faint. On that day we will meet our family of faith and we will see Christ face to face and He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. On that day, we will truly live as God intended us too.
And we can be confident of this delivery into eternal life because Jesus has already gone the way we have to go. He has already gone from death to life. Jesus has already gone from the womb, to the grave, and is now alive again in Heaven forever. He is the good deliver because He knows the way. In fact, Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Light (John 14:6). There is no other deliverer out there who can safely bring you into Heaven.
Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 49 is known as the second servant song. This text is all about the Servant of the Lord. Isaiah uses this experience of being in the womb to talk about Israel’s life with God. But in verse five, there is this twist and added dimension where everything changes. The One who is called Israel in verse three is now to bring Israel back to the Lord, which means that the servant Isaiah is talking about is not the nation of Israel. Instead Isaiah is talking about the One who is representing the nation. Just like how Adam in Genesis 1 is one man, in other parts of Scripture like Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, Adam represents all of mankind. So when Isaiah is talking about Israel, he is reducing Israel, reducing mankind down to one man, Jesus. In Baptism, we are all born again into Christ through his death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus has made the way for us. Isaiah says about Jesus, “Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name” (Isaiah 49:1). The angel who appeared to Joseph and Mary revealed this to them before Jesus was conceived and born.
If we try to deliver ourselves, we would agree with Isaiah that we would “have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing” (49:4). So God in His mercy and in the fullness of time “sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out ‘Abba, Father’” (Galatians 4:4-6). With this, we can say with Isaiah, “yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand, and my reward is with my God” (49:4b). It was not “too small a thing” (49:6) for Jesus to bring forth this great salvation, this great deliverance for us. In fact, Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world” (John 8:12). He says this because His whole mission was to bring this new life to light by His birth, His ministry, His death, and His resurrection. He is the only qualified deliverer who has promised, sent, delivered, and stands with you forever. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
Isaiah 49:1-7
{Prayer}
Eating breakfast around our table one day this week, my family and I got on the topic somehow of why is it that babies cry when they are born. Maybe we got on the topic because it was cold in our house, which is what Jessica and Faith think all the time. Maybe it was because we’re talking about Heath’s birthday coming up. Either way, we got talking about how babies cry when they are born. The conclusion which the kids and Jessica came up with was this: … babies cry when they are born because all of a sudden they find themselves in a different place and it’s cold! They think the proper translation of the cry is “Put me back in there, it’s cold out here!!!!”
Whether they are right or not, the birth of a baby is something traumatic for them. Here they go from being nice and cozy swimming around in this warm, dark little bubble of embryonic fluid to being pushed through this tiny little canal to then wha-bam … they get a face full of bright lights and a drastic change in temperature. Honestly, I’d cry too in that case.
This may be an odd way of thinking about it, but have you ever considered how our experience of the world is much like that of a baby in the womb? Think about it for just a moment. A baby in the womb knows nothing but what is around them. Their entire world is there in that womb. The baby doesn’t even comprehend, nor could it ever fathom what the outside world is. You could even tell the baby while he or she is in the womb about everything that is out in the world, but it would only sound like the noise the parents or the teachers make on the old Charlie Brown Christmas Special. “‘Mwa-Mwa-Maw’”
But have you also ever considered this: A baby in the womb has not yet begun to live and move in the way in which God designed them to be? The baby’s eyes are not yet seeing in a manner in which they were designed. Their lungs are not yet breathing the air they were created to breathe. They have not yet begun to move in the way which they were made to. For that baby though … there will be a day, a difficult day, a dark day, a scary day, when doctors and nurses are all gathered around. On that day, the baby moves from the womb to the world. It’s then when they really get to live as God intended.
Our spiritual experience … it is much like that of a baby in the womb. Before Christ is in our life, we live in the world, and we think this is all there is. But when we get into God’s Word, it tells us that there is this whole other place called Heaven. Just like a baby in the womb, we cannot understand what that means and we can’t even begin to fathom what it will look like or be like. Before Christ, God’s Word sounds as confused and as garbled as the “‘Mwa-Mwa-Mwa’” of Charlie Brown. It’s just noise and not very clear.
Before Christ, life in the womb of the world was pretty comfortable. Life there would have been enough for us. But then the time comes, and we hear about that day, the difficult day, a dark day, a scary day when soldiers and mockers all gathered around Jesus. On that day, they gather around to punish, beat, whip, and crucify Him. That difficult day, that dark day, scary day was the day in which Jesus would die on the cross.
The Holy Spirit works to create faith in the hearts of people, in the hearts of you and me. As the Holy Spirit creates faith in us, we begin to move from this world of darkness, death, and sin that we are comfortable with to the new life of being a Christian. In this new life, when you and I hear that Jesus’ crucified body rises three days after he died and is delivered from the tomb, we move out of the darkness and into the light of the world of faith, and we believe. All that used to sound like garbled confusion from God’s Word is now by faith alone and by Christ alone made clear. As we move from the world of death and sin to a new Christian life, our eyes by faith now see the world as God made it. Our lips can now sing the praises they were designed to sing. We begin to move in acts of service toward each other, toward our neighbor as God intended us to do. As wonderful as welcoming a baby into the world is, it’s also a glorious thing to be born of God by faith on account of Christ.
The birth isn’t it though is it? There’s a lot more which comes after the birth, after the becoming a new Christian. There’s this life live. In this new life we still continue to live in the darkness of this world of sin and death. As we live as a child of God in this world, it is still very much like being in the womb. This world is like a womb because there is something else waiting for us. There’s heaven and the new creation. In our being born-again in Christ by faith experience, we will also experience another birth by being born into Heaven forever with God and the whole family of God we long to see. Because, you see, we will pass from this dark world into the bright world of eternity.
On that day, that day in which we physically die … we don’t need to be afraid of anything. We don’t need to be afraid of death because Christ will safely deliver us from this world into Heaven Himself. On that day, we will with our eyes truly see the creation as it was made to be, restored and perfected in every way. On that day we will run and not grow weary, we will walk and not be faint. On that day we will meet our family of faith and we will see Christ face to face and He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. On that day, we will truly live as God intended us too.
And we can be confident of this delivery into eternal life because Jesus has already gone the way we have to go. He has already gone from death to life. Jesus has already gone from the womb, to the grave, and is now alive again in Heaven forever. He is the good deliver because He knows the way. In fact, Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Light (John 14:6). There is no other deliverer out there who can safely bring you into Heaven.
Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 49 is known as the second servant song. This text is all about the Servant of the Lord. Isaiah uses this experience of being in the womb to talk about Israel’s life with God. But in verse five, there is this twist and added dimension where everything changes. The One who is called Israel in verse three is now to bring Israel back to the Lord, which means that the servant Isaiah is talking about is not the nation of Israel. Instead Isaiah is talking about the One who is representing the nation. Just like how Adam in Genesis 1 is one man, in other parts of Scripture like Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, Adam represents all of mankind. So when Isaiah is talking about Israel, he is reducing Israel, reducing mankind down to one man, Jesus. In Baptism, we are all born again into Christ through his death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus has made the way for us. Isaiah says about Jesus, “Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name” (Isaiah 49:1). The angel who appeared to Joseph and Mary revealed this to them before Jesus was conceived and born.
If we try to deliver ourselves, we would agree with Isaiah that we would “have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing” (49:4). So God in His mercy and in the fullness of time “sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out ‘Abba, Father’” (Galatians 4:4-6). With this, we can say with Isaiah, “yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand, and my reward is with my God” (49:4b). It was not “too small a thing” (49:6) for Jesus to bring forth this great salvation, this great deliverance for us. In fact, Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world” (John 8:12). He says this because His whole mission was to bring this new life to light by His birth, His ministry, His death, and His resurrection. He is the only qualified deliverer who has promised, sent, delivered, and stands with you forever. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
Isaiah 40:28-31
{Prayer}
Many of us have come to love the Christmas carol “O Holy Night.” First written in 1843 by a French poet, the lyrics were translated into English only a few years later by an American pastor. The carol’s initial popularity is often traced to its third stanza which is cherished by abolitionists in the United States fighting for the freedom of African-American slaves. Lines from that stanza read like this:
Truly he taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace;
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease …
These days, the carol may be apprecitated still for another reason … its recognition of a very weary world. One sings in stanza one:
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
’Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope for the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn …
The carol sees a weary world thrilled by the hope of an end to a long and tiring life of unabated, of persisting “sin and error.”
“O Holy Night” isn’t alone in its recognition of a weary world. The Christmas hymn, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” written in 1849, describes the song of the Christmas angels floating over a “weary world” in stanza two:
Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heav’nly music floats
O’er all the weary world …
So … with a cue from our carols, let me ask you … are you weary? Are you exhausted? Are you fatigued? Will the song of the angels this Christmas float across a weary you? Do you maybe find yourself “in the middle of in-between,” waiting for resolution or reconciliation or vindication or at least a change – but with none of it in sight? What has you weary? Are you weary of circumstances, your age, your illness, our relationship, your job? In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins says to Gandalf: “I am old, Gandalf. I don’t look it, but I’m beginning to feel it in my heart of hearts. Well-preserved indeed! Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.”
Do you feel stretched thin? Are you winded or exhausted from a pace that has you spent physically and emotionally? Have you just about given up hope that we can solve any of our big problems: the economy, war, sickness, tribalism, racism, immigration? Is it all too much, this marathon our life has become?
There are many ways to go when we are wearied by life. Isaiah counsels that with the Lord’s strength, we can soar like eagles. Yet weary people are often difficult people. We can live with despair. We can complain and we can blame. There’s an old proverb that says something like, “It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys.” When we get weary, we may not see the needs of those around us or the opportunities which are right before our eyes.
In each of us, there is this struggle. A struggle between weariness and being strong in the Lord. It’s one aspect of being a saint and a sinner at the same time which is found in every Christian. American poet Carl Sandburg is credited with this introspective thought … “There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.”
The text from Isaiah is for the wallowing hippo inside each of us. “Weary”, that word is all over our reading from Isaiah. Isaiah first uses the word to say that God does not grow tired or weary. Now that’s good news! It’s good to know that the One who is running the universe does not wear out. You would if you were God. I would if I were God. Thank God that we’re not God! With all which God has to do and to be, you’d expect God would get weary at some point in time. I mean really, God has always been and will always be God. That’s a long marathon of divine responsibility with some very high expectations.
Isaiah reminds us that God never feels, how did Bilbo say it?, “all thin, sort of stretched like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.” In fact, God, Isaiah says, gives “strength to the weary” and “increases the power of the weak” (40:29). In the long history of God and humanity, God has always been strength for the weary, He has always been a second or third wind for those who are ready to fall.
Do you see what is happening here in this reading? Isaiah is speaking words of comfort to a people who are weary of the long wait for a Messiah. He spoke to a chosen people who were losing their sense of being chosen. Isaiah’s comfort speech was for those who forgot the chapter in their history entitled “The Exodus.” They forgot about those who would spend decades as exiles in a strange land. Today, today Isaiah’s comfort reaches any of us who want to follow Jesus but find ourselves weak and weary. He doesn’t yell at you and tell you to “Suck it up buttercup!” Isaiah doesn’t even say, “Be strong!” or “Be courageous!”
Instead, what Isaiah does do is bring to remembrance the God who has always been there for the weary. “Do you not know? Have you not heard?” (Isaiah 40:28). Or to put it a different way, “Don’t you remember? Have you forgotten?” Isaiah is a remembrancer. He remembers things to tell others so that they don’t forget.
So in our reading this morning, we have a remembrance speech, a comfort speech. A speech turning us from our weariness to remember a tireless, an all-wise and all-powerful God. Isaiah has us remember who God is and what God is like. “The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increase the power of the weak” (40:28-29).
On top of that, Isaiah turns us to God. He turns us to the One who offers divine strength to replace our weariness. There is a wonderful exchange here which some of you have experienced personally. The exchange is your weakness for the Lord’s strength. Or as Isaiah says, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (40:29-31).
Who doesn’t want to soar like an eagle? The images of eagles ascending into the sky and soaring at heights which only planes can fly is breath taking.
But this isn’t a new image. When God brought Israel out of slavery in Egypt, God said, “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Exodus 19:4). Isaiah no doubt is doing some remembrancing here. Our God has a history of taking the weary and putting us into eagle-like flight.
For us, for you and me on this side of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus, God has exchanged our long weariness of “sin and error” for a thrilling hope that rejoices in the strength of Christ to overcome sin, death, and this very weary world. This is the God we know, the God we trust.
At the front of some churches is a replica of a sculpture titled “Christ the Consoler.” The extended hands of the often life-sized Christ figure are scarred by crucifixion nails. Standing before this image of Christ, one can hear the echo of his invitation in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Rest for the weary. Strength for the weary. “A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn …”
And so we pray, “Jesus, be born in us today.” Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.
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