Isaiah 51:1-6 | Göttinger Predigten im Internet

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost | 27 August 2023 | Isaiah 51:1-6 | Samuel D. Zumwalt |

¹“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,

you who seek the LORD:

look to the rock from which you were hewn,

and to the quarry from which you were dug.

² Look to Abraham your father

and to Sarah who bore you;

for he was but one when I called him,

that I might bless him and multiply him.

³ For the LORD comforts Zion;

he comforts all her waste places

and makes her wilderness like Eden,

her desert like the garden of the LORD;

joy and gladness will be found in her,

thanksgiving and the voice of song.

⁴ “Give attention to me, my people,

and give ear to me, my nation;

for a law will go out from me,

and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples.

⁵ My righteousness draws near,

my salvation has gone out,

and my arms will judge the peoples;

the coastlands hope for me,

and for my arm they wait.

⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens,

and look at the earth beneath;

for the heavens vanish like smoke,

the earth will wear out like a garment,

and they who dwell in it will die in like manner;

but my salvation will be forever,

and my righteousness will never be dismayed.

HOLY COMMUNION: SALVATION FOREVER

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

God has three words for us today: Listen! Listen! Listen!

LISTEN!

Little kids ask where do babies come from? The age-appropriate answer is, “From Mommy’s tummy.” Of course, they can’t fathom a time when they were not. We still laugh about the time little Clare paid attention to our wedding picture for the first time. She asked innocently, “Where was I? In Mommy’s tummy?” We answered quickly: “No!”

Judah during the Babylonian exile in the 6^th century BC needed to remember where they came from. An expatriate community by defeat, they were humbled by the magnificence of Babylon with its hanging gardens and its huge temples known as ziggurats. The second group of exiles who had witnessed the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem itself were overwhelmed by the strength and success of the Babylonian empire. All the king’s sons had been killed, and, then, he had been blinded so that his last sight was the end of his dynasty. They wondered who they were. They wondered if their God were but a weak tribal deity and no match for Babylon’s gods.

The Servant of God says to them: “Listen! Abraham is the rock from which you were hewn. Sarah is the quarry from which you were brought forth. I chose them. I kept my promises and made from that solitary man and woman a great nation. He was 75 and she 65 when I called them. That’s where you come from. That’s who you are. You are my chosen people. You are mine!”

Do you remember when you had a faith crisis? Are you having one now? Perhaps you’re wondering who you are today. A student away from home for the first time suddenly with a ton of choices and no parent keeping track? A new student in a new school suddenly knowing no one or maybe only a couple of people and wondering where you fit in? A new graduate or a newly unemployed person wondering when that new job will open up and if you can make it until then? Empty-nesters, maybe, especially a mom, wondering who you are now that the first child or the last child is away? A newly widowed spouse, newly divorced, or you’ve suffered your first, worst break-up and wondering who you are, how to start over, and if you will ever feel good?

Like Judah during the Babylonian exile, God may seem far off or as if He has forgotten you. Many of the people around you may say they have no God, no religion, but it’s not true. Oh, maybe they don’t call it a god or a religion, but there’s something or someone that is most important to them. Maybe they seem happier. You may wonder if you’re better off being like them.

God’s Word to you today is “Listen! I made you. If you’re baptized, I’ve chosen you. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I’m calling you. I want to be your God. Listen to me. Listen!”

LISTEN!

My old friend Mark got sober in 1981. By 1982, he was now a former pastor and managing a drug store. I was single and the pastor of the mission congregation he had served. We would go out to the local truck stop about 10 p.m. and drink coffee and talk for hours. Neither of us had anyone to go home to. In those days, my brother Norman was dying of alcoholism and didn’t know it. He never got help but kept on breathing until 1992. Mark and I would talk about how Mark got sober. After the immediate craving was gone, Mark described a time of great inner peace. He was going to meetings regularly. He called it living on a pink cloud. He felt physically and spiritually good for the first time in his life. Of course, that didn’t last. Life is difficult.

To Judah’s exiles in Babylon, the Servant of the Lord says, “Listen. I am a God who doesn’t just comfort. I am a God who restores Zion, restores all Jerusalem’s ruins, a God who turns her wilderness into Eden, the garden of the LORD. You will find joy and gladness. You will give thanks and praise. Listen!”

The LORD used Cyrus the Great, ruler of the Persian Empire, to humble and defeat Babylon. Unlike any conqueror before, Cyrus didn’t need those he conquered to worship his gods. He set the exiles free to return to rebuild Jerusalem. He gave them back their sacred vessels and their money from the captured Babylonian treasury and permitted them to go rebuild Jerusalem’s walls and a new, less glorious Temple. Now, they were called Jews as they returned to Judah, that part of the Promised Land adjacent to Jerusalem. Now, they would live as a Persian province without self-rule. It was kind of like living on a pink cloud until they discovered life is difficult. There was no interstate highway through the wilderness. There was no new Eden. Jerusalem was still in ruins, and the people living there could have cared less that the Jews had once ruled there.

When people ask me my favorite Bible verse, I tell them 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are, of all people, most to be pitied.” There is a season for everything: birth and death, joy and mourning, laughter and tears, sickness and health, winning and losing, together and alone, strong and weak. Only false gospels promise something else.

God so loved the world, you, and me that He gave His only begotten Son to be the Servant King, who lived the righteous life you and I cannot, and to die the innocent death you and I cannot. Wherever you have been, whatever you have done and left undone, whatever you have said and left unsaid, however you have hurt or been hurt: Jesus Christ, the Servant King, died for all that. There is no sin too big that He cannot forgive. He has borne the weight of all our sins upon His cross. Far too many people chase after all the wrong gods only to discover these are idols that cannot save or deliver. Money won’t buy everything. Power, glory, beauty, youth, and, yes, success all fade. I remember the multimillionaire who realized there were problems he couldn’t fix.

If you’ve lived on a pink cloud feeling better than you ever have, it will change. Life is difficult. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are most to be pitied. Hope in Christ is eternal.

LISTEN!

Listen! Jesus Christ, Servant of the LORD, God’s Son, is the living Torah (Isaiah does not speak merely of law as in speed limits or law as in doing good works). Jesus Christ is the Light to the nations. He is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and Sarah to be a blessing to all the ethnic groups (the nations, the Gentiles) of the earth. He is righteousness, because He alone is perfectly obedient to His Father’s good and gracious will. He is the mighty arm of God who alone can save. There is salvation in no other name than that of Jesus, whose very name means “God saves.” Sometimes, people have to keep falling and falling until from the bottom they look up.

When you are baptized into the Lord Jesus’ saving death and glorious resurrection, He gives you the free gift of His righteousness. Martin Luther called it “der fröhliche Wechsel” (the happy exchange – the sweet swap) where Jesus takes my sin and my death to His cross and gives me His life and right relationship with His Father. I cannot earn it. I cannot choose it. I can receive it!

To the person full of him- or herself, fully satisfied, which means to have enough, yes, fully satisfied with his- or her idols, we can only pray for such a person. Standing next to Jesus, each of us is revealed exactly as we are in all of our brokenness. Life is difficult, and all those other gods will fail every time. Botox, plastic surgery, liposuction, and all the other seductive gods that promise eternal youth for a price. How many people have you seen on TV especially on the news in our nation’s capital look like the walking dead? No facial expressions. A permanently stunned look in their eyes. The grass withers. The flower fades. The wages of sin is death.

The Servant of the LORD says, “Listen! Your outer nature is wasting away. All creation as you know it will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and all dwellers will die! What are you going do when that happens? Who will be your Helper? In whom do you hope?”

If you are baptized, the Spirit of God is saying, “Listen! Listen to Jesus when He says, ‘This is my Body. This is my Blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” That’s not a parable. That’s not a metaphor. That’s not a representation of some spiritual truth. That’s not just a memorable story that says, “Once upon a time there was Jesus who died on a cross for you.” No. Listen! Listen to Jesus! He promises and He does not lie: “This is my Body. This is my Blood.”

Just as the Word that was in the beginning with God and who was and is God became flesh in the Virgin Mary’s womb, so that same Living Torah, Jesus Christ, is incarnate in the bread and wine. He says it, and He means it. This is my Body. This is my Blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. All of them. If you know you are a sinner. If you know you need Jesus. If you are hungry and thirsty for the Kingdom, where the King is ruling, and for His righteousness that only He can give to sinners. Then come with empty hands. Come weak, weary, sad, poor. Come struggling, doubting but wanting to trust, come. Like Peter, saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And He is and He will be salvation forever. You can trust Him with your living. You can trust Him with your dying. You can trust Him with where you are today!

Listen! Life is difficult, but Jesus Christ is God’s righteousness. If you aren’t yet baptized, then ask. He wants to be your God. If you are baptized, but have been away, chasing after this world’s gods, come home like the exiles who once were captives in Babylon. If you are baptized and know in Whom you hope, then come today and have your joy renewed. The day is coming when death will be no more, neither crying, nor pain, nor mourning. All that’s past will be past, all that’s present will be past, and, then, the Lamb who was slain, who is reigning as King of kings and LORD of lords, will make you and your dearest ones and the whole creation new. For He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God! And He will reign forever and ever!

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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szumwalt@stmatthewsch.org

St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church

Wilmington, North Carolina USA