Sermon for Easter 5 & Confirmation, May 15,
2022
Dear recipients of
God’s grace in Christ Jesus, and especially you confirmands, Anah and Gideon,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord. Amen.
Isaiah 12:1-6 In that day you will say: I will give
thanks to you, Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger has turned
away, and you comfort me. 2 Surely God is my salvation. I will trust him and will not be afraid,
because Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song, and he has become my
salvation. 3 Therefore
with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. 4 In that day you will
say: Give thanks to the Lord! Proclaim
his name. Declare among the peoples what
he has done. Proclaim that his name is
exalted! 5 Sing
to the Lord, for he has done amazing things!
Let this be known in all the earth!
6 Shout aloud and sing for joy, daughter of Zion,
for the Holy One of Israel is great among you! (EHV)
After the Lord led the Children of Israel out
of Egypt, using miracle after miracle to gain their release from slavery and to
give them a dry path through the Red Sea that allowed the people to escape from
Pharoah’s threatening soldiers and charioteers, after God’s people were safely
across the sea, and Pharoah’s army had drowned in the crashing waters, Moses
and the people sang a song of praise to God for His mighty deliverance. Here, the Lord, through the prophet, Isaiah,
promises God’s chosen people another day of deliverance and another song of
praise. That day has come, and we can
sing this song eternally, for Surely God is your salvation.
Now, the sceptic might claim that this prophecy
was intended to give the exiles hope when God allowed them to be carted off to
wherever the conquering nation decided to send them, and I have no doubt that Isaiah’s
message did give the faithful among Israel that sure hope and confidence. However, both the rescue from Egypt, and Israel’s
return from exile in Babylon nearly a thousand years later were primarily
pointing the world to a rescue far more important.
These words come to Isaiah soon after God
promised a Deliverer, a Root of Jesse, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord would
rest, a Man who would win peace between God and the rebellious hoards that
afflicted us all, a Man who would make this peace known to the world. None other than Jesus could be meant. Seven hundred years before Jesus would enter
the world as a Child born of the Virgin Mary, the Lord brought this message of
hope for all people, for you and me.
Isaiah wrote, “In that day you will say: I
will give thanks to you, Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger has turned away, and you comfort me.” What day was that day? It started at the cross that held God’s Son
in a fight to the finish against the devil and all the sin of the world.
Since the first sin troubled mankind, all
people were held in terror of God. Oh,
maybe some didn’t realize they were afraid of their Creator. Maybe we don’t always fear Him either. Many people grow complacent in their
guilt. It feels normal to those who
don’t know Jesus. Yet, every society in
the history of the world has tried to do something to appease God’s anger, or
the anger of whatever god they imagined controls the world. Even today when so many people imagine there
is no God, they still live as though afraid.
Certainly, you have heard the dire warnings of what will happen if we do
not do this or that to save the world. People
are terrified of words like cancer, pandemics, and war. They are afraid that some criminal or
accident might snuff out their life.
Some take chances trying to push the limit to see how close to death
they can go and yet get safely home; the adrenaline rush of teasing death gives
them a high.
That fear of God, and the fear of death, is a
recognition that we are all sinners. We
don’t just do things wrong, or fail to do what is good and right, we are
corrupted sinners to our core, and on our own we don’t know how to deal with
it. In fact, we can’t change it. Adam and Eve tried to hide. Many still do. Yet, the prophet says God’s “anger has
turned away, and you comfort me.”
Finally, this is the message of the cross. On that cross outside Jerusalem, God took the
sins of the world and piled them on Jesus.
God charged all of our guilt, all of our corruption, all of our foolish
rebellion, all of our filthy deeds were charged to God’s Son, so that Jesus
could bear the punishment we all deserved for the corruption that kept us separated
from God. The just wrath of God, that we
deserved for our sins and sinful nature, has been turned away. Because God sacrificed His beloved Son,
Jesus, for us, we have peace with God, and He comforts us with the Good News.
But, how can we know about that marvelous day in
which God won peace? Because that day is
the day Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus’
resurrection from the tomb is the eternal proclamation and clear evidence of God’s
victory over sin, death, the devil, and in reality, you and me. Yes, Jesus won the victory over our
rebellions, our disobedience, our mockery, and our every failure to be or to do
good.
My young friends, like for all of us, your sins
were paid for on that cross. Your guilt
was given to Jesus to bear all the wrath you deserved, so that the Father in
heaven could declare you innocent of anything and everything—the guilt you
know, and the inherited corruption that feels normal—all of it is paid for by
Jesus.
Furthermore, your song of praise began the day
God came to you in handfuls of water as He baptized you through the pastoral
servant assigned to preach Good News to the poor in your midst. There in the water and Word of Baptism, God made
you His own dear children. It is a
rebirth from the Spirit in heaven above.
Just as you received a sinful nature from your physical parents at
birth, so also in the rebirth of Baptism, God has covered you with the holy,
spiritual nature of Christ Jesus. His
perfect love and obedience to His Father’s will is now counted as yours. Thus, so that there can be no doubt of your
place in the universe, Surely God is
your salvation.
The soul who doesn’t
know Jesus has no inclination to sing praise to God, for in that case, there
can be only fear and loathing. Yet, through
faith in Christ, the reason people are afraid is removed. Through the rebirth of Baptism, God gives
faith in Jesus, who promises, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.”
(Mark 16:16) Through faith in Christ, all
guilt is taken away, and even the fear of death is changed, because we now know
that life everlasting is ours. That
doesn’t mean we can do foolish things to test the certainty of death. It means, rather, that we can go about this life
knowing that in spite of the trials, hardships, risks, temptations, and dangers
of life in a sin-broken world, we have a sure and certain future in heaven
where there is no death, sorrow, sin, or pain.
Today, Gideon and
Anah are affirming the faith God gave them in their baptisms. Today, their confession speaks with
confidence and joy, “Surely God is my
salvation. I will trust him and will not
be afraid, because Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song, and he has become my
salvation.” Faith that trusts in Christ isn’t a momentary
thing. It is a continual assurance that
you have peace with God through Jesus.
The prophet wrote, “Therefore with joy you will draw water from the
wells of salvation.” What great joy
is ours to know that the devil has been crushed, our guilt has been wiped away,
and even the jaws of death have no hold over us, because Jesus rose from the
grave victorious over everything that would have kept us separated from our
God.
Dear friends, baptism is the well of salvation
that connected you with all God offers.
Return to it with joy for the forgiveness Christ’s death has brought
you. Return to your baptism daily in
repentant living, remembering that connected with Christ in Baptism, you were
both put to death according to your sinful nature and raised to eternal life
according to your new connection with Jesus.
Isaiah wrote, “In that day you will say:
Give thanks to the Lord! Proclaim his
name. Declare among the peoples what he
has done. Proclaim that his name is
exalted! Sing to the Lord, for he has
done amazing things! Let this be known
in all the earth! Shout aloud and sing
for joy, daughter of Zion, for the Holy One of Israel is great among you!” In reality, this is the song of praise that
the Christian Church has lived since Jesus rose from the dead that first Easter
morning. Through the evangelists and
missionaries, pastors and teachers, fathers and mothers, grandparents and
friends, the Spirit of our Risen Savior has shared the salvation our God has
won for all with more and more repentant sinners leading them into the kingdom
of our Savior and Lord.
Now, I know that sometimes when we are young,
and sometimes not so young, we might think that church is boring. Yet, how can we ever be bored with hearing
that Jesus had taken away every sin, every stain, every stench our guilt would
have put in His Father’s nostrils?
Hearing again and again how precious we are to our Creator, so precious
that He would sacrifice His beloved Son so that we could live with Him forever,
how can we not rejoice with all our hearts and eagerly look forward to hearing
it again at the next opportunity? How
can we not look forward eagerly to partaking of the Supper Jesus prepared for
us with His sacrifice on the cross—a Supper of His true body and blood given
and shed to purify us in the presence of God forever?
Though we will always struggle with the
rebellious old sinful nature, our new man of faith is excited to sing God’s
praise, excited to hear His Word, shouting for joy the Good News to everyone we
meet, and finally, excited to enter His presence with thanksgiving to dwell in
His mansions forever in heaven.
Isaiah foresaw it. Jesus accomplished it. The Holy Spirit shared it and enabled you to
believe it. God Himself came to earth to
reconcile sinners with Him. God Himself
bore the punishment we all deserved, so that we may stand cleansed and perfectly
holy in the presence of God, rejoicing for all He has done for us. The day of our salvation is now and
forever. Rejoice in it. Give thanks to the Savior who made you
His. Connected already with the saints
and angels in heaven in our worship, we sing with joy, Surely God is our salvation. Amen.
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