Sermon
for Trinity 20, October 11, 2020
Grace, mercy, and peace
to all of you who are in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Isaiah 65:1-2
I was available to
those who did not ask. I let myself be
found by those who did not seek me. I
said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that did
not call on my name. 2I
reached out my hands all day to a stubborn people, who are walking in a way
that is not good, who follow their own ideas. (EHV)
Take
the hand of the great I AM.
Dearly beloved in the
Lord,
The people of Israel finally understood. They finally believed God’s warnings. After centuries of turning away from God, of
rebelling against His commands, rejecting and even killing His prophets, they
finally realized that the Lord wasn’t joking with His warnings of coming wrath,
but it was too late. Now, they were mired
in captivity, enslaved in exile far from home in a foreign land. Many of their friends and neighbors were lost
forever, so they finally called to God for help, but it was too late.
The Lord had been warning Israel for a long time that
idolatry would lead to judgment. God
sent numerous prophets to tell them exactly how judgment would come and how
long it would last. He had pleaded with
them to return to Him and trust in His mercy, but they continued racing unheedful
on their highway toward destruction.
Now, stuck in exile they pleaded for a reduced sentence
Imagine
for a moment, an interstate highway crossing a thousand feet in the air above a
deep gorge like the Grand Canyon. Picture
multi lanes of travelers racing across that bridge in a heavy fog, and no one
on the road notices that the middle span of the bridge is missing, and car
after car plunges to the doom of those inside.
But consider the difference if one man stood at the side of the road
trying to stop the travelers and divert them to a safer path. If you can imagine all this, then you have a
picture in mind of what God is saying to Israel as Isaiah exhorts the people to
Take the hand of the great I AM.
This text
is the beginning of God’s answer to the nation of Israel’s prayer as they
pleaded for deliverance from their exile. In answer, yes, God would be merciful. The exile would not last forever. Unlike Judgment Day, this exile would become
primarily a warning for generations to come.
Yet, the Lord would not relent from His sentence upon the
Israelites. They would endure the full
imprisonment. Likewise, God will not
relent from His warning about Judgment Day, and all should take heed for that
banishment will be eternal. So, let’s go
back to our text and examine what went wrong for Israel and what the message is
for us today.
In
response to their plea for help, our God replied, “I was available to those
who did not ask. I let myself be found
by those who did not seek me.” This
is Israel’s story and the story of everyone who believes and will be
saved. We didn’t go find God. We didn’t earn His approval. Instead, God came into the world to save us. For Israel, God came first to Abram and
announced that he would make him a great nation, and through Abram’s seed all
nations on earth would be blessed.
Later,
God heard the pleas of Abraham’s descendants for rescue from Egypt, and again,
God rescued a people from slavery who didn’t even always seem to want to be
rescued. He promised them a great
homeland that the Lord would give into their possession forever if only they
would be His people—a people God alone had chosen to help. At times, Israel walked with the Lord, but
most of the time, they were like toddlers whose parents insist they hold the
parent’s hands to cross a busy street, but those children break away to run
free and run right into danger and death.
Here, we
see what happens to rebels who run away from God’s free grace. However, there will be no more second
chances. Whoever does not believe in the
Savior, God’s Son Jesus, will be exiled to the pit of hell with no
return—ever. Therefore, as we journey on
this highway of life, God calls out to each and every person on earth, “Come
to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
(Matthew 11:28) Like He had throughout
the history of Israel, the Lord stands near calling out continually through His
Word and His Church, “Here I am, here I am.”
We have
such an amazing God, but so few people want to listen to His call. The whole human population has been racing on
a highway to destruction, for Jesus told those who would listen, “Broad is
the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through
it. How narrow is the gate, and how
difficult is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew
7:13-14)
That
narrow way often doesn’t look so appealing to the sinful nature. Christianity is too rigid they say. It isn’t as fun as chasing after the desires
of the heart. To which God replies, “The
heart is more deceitful than anything.” (Jeremiah 17:9) King Solomon warned his son, “There is a
way that seems right to a man, but it ends up being the road to death.”
(Proverbs 16:25) Because so few of the
people of Israel remembered Solomon’s advice, they were in exile, and the Lord
reminded them, “I reached out my hands all day to a stubborn people, who are
walking in a way that is not good, who follow their own ideas.”
This is
the story of whole human race. Every one
of us was by nature stubborn, obstinate, foolish, and to be honest, spiritually
dead and blind. We couldn’t find God no
matter how hard we might try, so God came to us.
God came
to Israel with Moses and Aaron as His spokesmen. As He led them from Egypt, the Lord went
ahead of them in a pillar of fire by night and cloud by day. He provided every morsel of food and sip of
water they might need, protected them from enemies great and small, and led
them kicking and screaming to the promised land. To some extent, God did the same for us.
Not one
of us found God on our own, and though we too have often ignored His call, God
came to us through the Gospel in Word and Sacrament and gave us life when were
still immersed in the filth of sin with the stench of death covering our souls,
and God washed all of that away in Baptism.
The Holy Spirit worked in us to believe in Jesus, to repent of our sins,
and finally, to take hold of the loving, saving hand that God extended to us. Like a little child, our hands aren’t always
big enough to hold on against the troubles of the world, so the Lord wraps His
loving embrace around us, pulling us close to His side by the power of His
Word, giving His angels charge over us to keep us safe, and feeding our souls
with His life-giving body and blood.
This
year, many of us have felt tossed about by the challenges of wild weather,
unstable markets, unruly politics, manipulative media, and hosts of other
trials, troubles, and sorrows. Yet, this
truth remains, our God is present through good times and difficult days
extending His arms of grace with the plea, “Here I am, here I am.” In whatever need we might have, the Lord Jesus
implores His people, “Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened for
you. For everyone who asks receives, and
everyone who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.”
(Matthew 7:7-8)
Take
the hand of the great I AM. When God called to
Moses from a burning bush and gave Moses the assignment of leading Israel out
of slavery in Egypt, Moses asked God “Who should I say sent me?” “So God
replied to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’” (Exodus 3:14) This is God who created us and who wants to
save us from the path of destruction. The
world views God as an interloper to its fun, refusing to recognize the
authority God has as the Creator of the world.
We would expect God to be angry and justly desiring our destruction for
sin. Yet, while God is perfectly just
and must punish sin, He is also love.
Therefore, in addition to providing for every living thing on earth,
friend and enemy alike, God provides forgiveness and salvation, to all who will
believe, through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, on a cross.
In our
epistle lesson, Paul reminded us to walk carefully with wisdom. He said, “Understand what the will of the
Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:17) God’s
will is to save sinners. He does so
through the gift of faith in the Son who paid with His life for the sins of the
world. Furthermore, God doesn’t demand
faith as if we could somehow decide to believe.
Rather, the Holy Spirit works faith in us by the life-giving power of
His Gospel in Word and Sacrament.
In our
Gospel lesson, we saw the fate of one who tried to enter the wedding banquet of
heaven dressed in his own common clothes.
Just as the host threw that ungrateful interloper out into darkness, so
God demands that we be dressed for the occasion. Because the wedding feast of God’s Son
demands that we be clothed in absolute perfection, the Holy Spirit dresses us
in the beauty of Jesus’ perfect righteousness.
These
three lessons show us that salvation isn’t something we must or can accomplish,
but it is God’s gift to repentant sinners by grace alone, through faith alone,
in Christ Jesus alone, through the power of the Word alone. It is God reaching out His loving hand to His
children calling us off of the way of destruction to keep us on the narrow path
to salvation and eternal life. Now is
the time to be holding tight to the God of love and mercy. Now is our time to Take the hand of the
great I AM. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment