Sermon for Christmas 1, December 29, 2024
Mercy and peace to you
all, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people.” Amen.
Isaiah 50:4-9 4The Lord God gave me a tongue
like the learned, an instructed tongue, so I know how to sustain the weary with
a word. He wakes me up morning by
morning. He wakes up my ears so that I
listen like the learned. 5The
Lord God opened my ear, and I myself was not rebellious. I did not turn back. 6I
submitted my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out
my beard. I did not hide my face from
disgrace and from spit. 7The
Lord God will help me, so I will not be disgraced. Therefore I have made my face hard like
flint. I know that I will not be put to
shame. 8The one who will
acquit me is near! Who can accuse
me? Let us take our stand. Who can pass judgment on me? Let him approach me. 9Look, the Lord God will help
me. Who then can declare me guilty? Look, all of them will wear out like a
garment. A moth will consume them. (EHV)
From
then to forever, the Lord God gave.
Dear children of the Giver,
In a time
when Israel’s future looked bleak, and trouble was all around, when punishment
for their unfaithfulness to God was soon to come down on the people, The Lord
God gave a word of encouragement through His prophet, Isaiah. The metaphor immediately preceding our text pictures
a divorce occurring because Israel had been acting toward God like an
unfaithful wife to her husband. Though
Israel had prostituted itself with idols, and made alliances with idolatrous
nations, God in His everlasting faithfulness was providing the gift of
intercession. Our text tells us about
what is easily the best Christmas gift ever given; From then to forever, the
Lord God gave—He gave His message of hope.
He gave His Son to be our Redeemer and Savior, and He gives us
forgiveness and peace.
Our text truly speaks about Jesus, who told the
Judeans as they rejected Him: “You search the Scriptures because you think
you have eternal life in them. They testify about me!” (John 5:39) Because we needed a Savior to rescue us from
the damnation we deserved for all the times we were unfaithful and sinned
against God, He gave His own dear Son into human flesh to live and die so that
we might be made righteous. Here, the
Savior speaks as though already born into the world; “The Lord God gave me a
tongue like the learned, an instructed tongue, so I know how to sustain the
weary with a word. He wakes me up
morning by morning. He wakes up my ears
so that I listen like the learned.”
God gave us the Savior and through Him a message of hope.
Because all the world needed a Savior to
restore righteousness to mankind, God made that happen just as Gabriel
explained to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the
Most High will overshadow you. So the
holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35) Our Creator was not willing to leave anything
about our salvation to chance.
Therefore, rather than just instruct sinful people how they might
somehow try to work for peace with God (knowing that no sinner ever could), God
gave His dear Son into obedience even unto death. Because Jesus is God’s Son from all eternity,
His Word is all powerful to save.
Furthermore, throughout His earthly life, Jesus relied on His Father for
everything, just as we should but so often fail.
When God gave His Son as an infant born of a
virgin, that Son came into human form needing to go through all the stages of
human life, including learning everything we need to live. Jesus had to learn how to speak, how to walk,
and how to do all the things we need to do.
The one difference is that He went through all those stages from infancy
to adulthood without ever once sinning, and all the while He lived on earth,
Jesus was looking to His heavenly Father with complete trust in His love and
care. At twelve years old, Jesus was
already at His heavenly Father’s business of saving souls through the hearing
of the Word. His instructed tongue then
taught the people what they needed to hear and believe to receive eternal life.
The prophetic words of God’s Servant Son show
us how Jesus would suffer for our sins. “I
submitted my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out
my beard. I did not hide my face from
disgrace and from spit.” Imagine
receiving a gift at Christmas time that we knew would soon be destroyed because
of our mistreatment. That’s exactly what
Isaiah promises here. God was giving His
Son to save the world, but that salvation would be granted through the
suffering, torture, and death God intended to lay upon Jesus in our place. This morning, we are in the midst of the
Christmas season—just the fourth day of Christmas—and already we are forced to
recognize that the infant in that Bethlehem manger is God’s suffering Servant
sent to bear all the sins of the world, sent into our broken world to die cruel
death so that God could be reconciled with you and me.
As much as that idea might tug at our
heartstrings, even horrify us, Jesus was not without help. Of course, none of that help came from any of
us, nor from the Jews or His disciples.
Certainly not from the elders, scribes, Pharisees of His day, or the
Romans either. No, on earth, Jesus was
all alone to live for us a holy life, then to suffer and die as the ultimate
sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Every undignified treatment and abuse Jesus had to endure was suffered
by Him alone. Yet, He says, and we know
it is true, “The Lord God will help me, so I will not be disgraced. Therefore I have made my face hard like
flint. I know that I will not be put to
shame.”
Because He perfectly and absolutely trusted His
Father in heaven, Jesus was rock-solid set on going through every painful step
on His road to the cross of shame.
Because He trusted His Father in heaven, Jesus readily and willingly
endured the poverty and meekness, the ridicule and abuse of men, the lies we
have told, the sins we committed which were shameful to His holiness but all
piled on Jesus. “God made him, who
did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the
righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) Think of any and every evil thing you have
ever said, thought, or done, and the shame of everything you have ever failed
to do, every time you doubted or lacked confidence in His care, everything you
would be ashamed for God to know, all that guilt was put on Jesus to seal the
warrant for His arrest and death. Jesus
set His face like flint to bear all that guilt so that it would never, indeed could
never, be held against you on Judgment Day.
Because He trusted His Father, Jesus knew He
could face the depths of hell in His separation from His Father while He hung
on that cross for you. Therefore,
already seven hundred years before He entered Mary’s womb, God’s Servant Son
could declare confidently, “The one who will acquit
me is near! Who can accuse me? Let us take our stand. Who can pass judgment on me? Let him approach me. Look, the Lord God will help me. Who then can declare me guilty?” The Man, Christ Jesus, holy in every way,
lived God’s love for us by laying down His life for our sins.
Here is what we know is true—Jesus bore our
guilt alone, even suffering complete separation from God in heaven for our
sins, yet God did not abandon Him to the grave or to Satan’s eternal prison. When Jesus died bearing the guilt of the
world, though without ever once betraying His Father in heaven, the Father was
there to welcome Jesus in His victory.
The Psalmist prophesied Jesus’ confidence in His all-powerful Father’s
love, “You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One
to see corruption.” (Psalm 16:10 NKJ)
By His holy life and innocent death, Jesus
satisfied the law’s demand for righteous punishment for sin. For you and me, God bore the guilt. For you and me, God’s Son suffered the death
that was owed. Here, in Isaiah, the
suffering Servant declares that no one will ever again be able to accuse those
who are in Jesus of any sin. All those
sins put on Jesus have been paid for, so how does it work?
As we read this prophesy, we see a change from
the prophet speaking about the Savior to the Savior speaking what He would do
for us. Then, while the Savior speaks,
He is also saying what is true for all those connected with Him in His future
glory. All those who believe in Jesus
are the elect united with Him by faith.
Therefore, at the time of Judgment, we will be saying along with Jesus, “The
one who will acquit me is near! Who can
accuse me? Let us take our stand. Who can pass judgment on me? Let him approach me. Look, the Lord God will help me. Who then can declare me guilty?”
Who will accuse us when the suffering Son, who
paid the penalty for all our guilt, is standing with us? Who will be able to accuse us of any sin when
the Son, who died on our behalf, is the Judge given authority to determine the
eternal destination of every soul brought before Him? Therefore, anyone who would desire to accuse
Jesus, or us, of any guilt “will wear out like a garment. A moth will consume them.”
Dear friends, we may struggle to speak so
boldly in our present broken world, but Jesus is certain to speak in our place
and on our behalf. St. Paul was moved by
the Holy Spirit to declare,
If God is for us, who
can be against us? Indeed, he who did
not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things along
with him? Who will bring an accusation
against God’s elect? God is the one who
justifies! Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus, who died and, more than that,
was raised to life, is the one who is at God’s right hand and who is also
interceding for us! What will separate
us from the love of Christ? Will trouble
or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … No, in
all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” For I am convinced that neither death nor
life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor
powerful forces, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will
be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)
From then to forever, the Lord God gave. From Isaiah, and
even from the beginning of time, through to the time of St. Paul writing to the
Roman congregation, and on to the very end of days, the same message rings
true. God’s Son, Jesus, came into this
world to save sinners. He came to
cleanse you and me of all guilt by His sacrifice on the cross. Jesus came to give us life that cannot be
taken away. He came to make us righteous
and holy in His Father’s sight. You and
I didn’t, and couldn’t, do anything to save ourselves, but God in His infinite
wisdom, mercy, and power has washed away our guilt in Baptism, and by His
Gospel has given us faith in His Son, Jesus, which connects us to the only
source of life. The Psalmist sang, “Under
his wings you will find refuge. His
truth will be your shield and armor.” (Psalm 91:4) And again, he sings along with us, “Yes,
you Lord are my refuge!” (Psalm 91:9)
Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to
the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
forevermore. Amen.
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