Crossway Bibles<\/a><\/p>\nYou will say in that day:<\/p>\n
\u201cI will give thanks to you, O LORD,<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for though you were angry with me,<\/p>\n
your anger turned away,<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that you might comfort me.<\/p>\n
2 \u201cBehold, God is my salvation;<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will trust, and will not be afraid;<\/p>\n
for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song,<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and he has become my salvation.\u201d<\/p>\n
3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.<\/p>\n
4 And you will say in that day:<\/p>\n
\u201cGive thanks to the LORD,<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 call upon his name,<\/p>\n
make known his deeds among the peoples,<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 proclaim that his name is exalted.<\/p>\n
5 \u201cSing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously;<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 let this be made known in all the earth.<\/p>\n
6 Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
HOLY KEYS: SHOUT AND SING FOR JOY!<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nGrace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.<\/p>\n
You Are Here\u2026Rejoice?<\/strong><\/p>\nForty-two years ago, I served with four others an advanced clinical chaplain residency at a major trauma center, Parkland Memorial Hospital, in Dallas TX. Every terrible news story ended up at the Parkland Emergency Room made world famous at President John F. Kennedy\u2019s assassination. Our Clinical Pastoral Education supervisor, Bob Davis, taught us how to be present to provide care in the midst of unimaginable, unfathomable tragedies that ripped apart for many the fa\u00e7ade of security that our death-denying, narcissistic American culture had offered them. I think of that grandfather who kept repeating, \u201cThis doesn\u2019t happen in our family.\u201d But it did!<\/p>\n
On-duty for weekend evenings and nights when the volume of terrible events swelled, we chaplains went repeatedly between the surgical or medical trauma teams and the families. In almost rabbinic manner, we would in essence say, \u201cYour loved one is here<\/em>, but we hope he or she will recover.\u201d Yet, sometimes, our role was to prepare families for imminent bad news, often delivered by the most socially-awkward, first-year resident physician: \u201cWe did all we could. Sorry.\u201d<\/p>\nI was simultaneously working part-time as a pastoral assistant in a suburban parish. In the days before Christmas, the congregation was preparing for a joyful celebration. At Parkland, we were firsthand observers as lives were being shattered daily and nightly. I remember having to postpone Christmas shopping, because the \u201cyou are here\u201d of Parkland didn\u2019t fit that cheery scene. Perhaps you will remember that first Christmas or Easter after your world suddenly fell apart.<\/p>\n
Ahaz became king of the southern kingdom of Judah in 735 BC at age 20 and ruled twenty years until his death. To make the connection with last weekend\u2019s reading from Ezekiel 34, Ahaz was a bad shepherd. He did not fear, love, and trust God above all else. With the coalition of the northern kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Syria threatening Jerusalem and his people, Ahaz would not heed the wise counsel of the prophet Isaiah: \u201cYes, you are here<\/em>, Ahaz, but God will deliver you. Shout and sing for joy! Do you not remember how Moses sang a victory song when Pharaoh\u2019s army was drowned in the Red Sea? He sang, \u2018The LORD is my strength and song!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\nAs with cultural Christians today, Ahaz knew the major stories of God\u2019s mighty acts, but the stories had no real impact on his daily life. When push came to shove, Ahaz turned to Assyria for deliverance and worshiped Assyria\u2019s gods. He watched Assyria utterly destroy the northern kingdom. He did not heed God\u2019s promises, and Ahaz is forever remembered as a bad shepherd even unworthy to be buried with the descendants of King David. So, what will be said about you when you are gone? Will you be remembered as a joyful person of hope or<\/em><\/strong> one who did not trust God?<\/p>\nChrist Is<\/em> Here\u2026Rejoice!<\/strong><\/p>\nIn another congregation, our part-time conductor of a forty-five-member wind ensemble and his wife called me early one morning. Their oldest adult son had been stricken in the night with bacterial meningitis. By midday, he was dead. The father planned his son\u2019s funeral and chose as the sermon hymn, \u201cMy Life Flows On in Endless Song\u201d (With One Voice<\/em>#781). We hurled its refrain into that dark, incomprehensible moment: \u201cNo storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I\u2019m clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?\u201d<\/p>\nChrist Jesus was there in their midst through His Word of Promise. But He was most intimately there in the Holy Eucharist. As they received His crucified and resurrected Body and Blood, the Lord Jesus entered into the son\u2019s terribly fragile wife and his deeply grieving parents to be with them as the Lord of Life. Those who have practiced the faith through all the seasons of life are no less heartbroken than those without faith. Those who have prayed, worshiped, studied, served, befriended, and given are no less subject to the brutal assaults of sin, death, and the devil. But having developed a kind of spiritual muscle memory through the keeping of their baptismal covenants, they can shout and sing for joy in worse, in poorer, in sickness, and indeed when all hell is breaking loose around them. They can see<\/em> the marks of the nails in His hands and feet, in His spear-torn side. Jesus is here<\/em> in their midst. For Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!<\/p>\n\u00a0Each Sunday is a little Easter. But in these seven Sundays of Easter, we rejoice that by the death on the cross of God\u2019s Incarnate Son Jesus Christ we who are baptized into His saving death and glorious resurrection have His promise that His victory is ours. Because He lives, we shall live. The strife is over. The battle is won. It is finished! Death has no more dominion over us! On the other side of our Baptism, we sing His victory song just as Moses sang on the sea\u2019s other shore.<\/p>\n
At whatever hour worship may be scheduled, once worship begins we are in God\u2019s time, united with the whole Church across space and time. The Christian faith cannot be practiced alone apart from the Body of Christ. We are \u201cekklesia<\/em>,\u201d called out of our homes to be with our Lord Jesus. From the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, we learn that the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ called many sinners to repentance. Then, Baptism created Christ\u2019s Church (2:38). Then, they continued in the apostles\u2019 teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers (2:42). Christ is here<\/em> by His Word of Promise: Here<\/em> in His Word and most intimately in His Supper. Because the Lord is risen indeed, we rejoice that we have salvation in Him alone.<\/p>\nAll Will<\/em> Be Well\u2026Rejoice!<\/strong><\/p>\nEach Sunday Eucharist begins with the confession of sins. When we practice the faith and daily read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest God\u2019s Word, we come to the services of God\u2019s house knowing that we have not loved God with our whole heart and have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. I think often of the confession of sins I knew by heart from the age of seven years old: \u201cO Almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto Thee all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended Thee and justly deserved Thy temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them, and I pray Thee of Thy boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being\u201d (The Lutheran Hymnal<\/em>, 16).<\/p>\nThe joy of Easter is inextricably tied to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, who took His Father\u2019s anger upon Himself and became the blood sacrifice for all my sins and yours. In short, my repentance is my response to what He has already done for me, for us, and for our salvation. Marked with His cross, I am His and no longer my own. Sealed with the Holy Spirit, I am being changed day by day through God\u2019s Word and Sacraments. When we receive Jesus in Host and Cup, it is not a metaphor, not a symbol, and not a brief encounter. He takes my sins and yours to His cross. He gives us Himself and thereby gives us the eternal life and love of the Triune God.<\/p>\n
This world is passing away. Each painful death reminds us. Each new wrinkle, new ache, and new limitation reminds us. Each terrible disappointment in others and in ourselves reminds us. Here we have no continuing city. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are most to be pitied. The wise one built his house upon the Rock. Do not neglect to meet together as is the habit of some. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Abide in me, and I in you\u2026 apart from me you can do nothing<\/p>\n
Today, we shout and sing for joy, because all will<\/em> be well. Our Lord Jesus promises: \u201cHe will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.\u201d Yes, we shout and sing for joy. Oh yes, the people of God rejoice in the very face of every manifestation and intimation of sin, death, and the devil. Why? For Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!<\/p>\nIn the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
\u00a9Samuel David Zumwalt, STS<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 szumwalt@bellsouth.net<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0 St. Matthew\u2019s Ev. Lutheran Church<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 Wilmington, North Carolina USA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Fifth Sunday of Easter | 28 April 24 | A Sermon on Isaiah 12:1-6 | Samuel D. Zumwalt | Isaiah 12:1-6 \u00a0English Standard Version Copyright \u00a9\u00a02001 by Crossway Bibles You will say in that day: \u201cI will give thanks to you, O LORD, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for though you were angry with me, your anger turned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2,157,853,108,110,986,109,160],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-19808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jesaja","category-at","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-12-chapter-12-jesaja","category-predigten","category-samuel-david-zumwalt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19809,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19808\/revisions\/19809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19808"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=19808"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=19808"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=19808"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=19808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}