Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Prophet Isaiah, the 49th chapter:
… And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God.” And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength— he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
In Isaiah’s prophecy to the Israelites about to go into exile, he gives us, not words of anger or wrath, but instead, words of the one in whom we have set our hope: Jesus the Christ. Not only is Isaiah inspired by the very Christ who is coming to him by the Holy Spirit, but this Christ then is prophesying through Isaiah about His own coming, the time when He shall take upon Himself human flesh, to be incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. And this gave these Israelites hope. They were to be taken away into exile and they feared, rightly, for their lives.
Yet God did not abandon them; rather God was using this time of great turmoil and tribulation in order to set in motion the events that would lead to this coming of the Christ. Yet, Christ's main goal, as Isaiah points out, is not to work miraculous wonders in the world, where everyone would be awed by His majesty and glory.
Rather, Isaiah tells us that the Christ would cry out in dereliction to God the Father, why have I toiled in this life? Has everything been for nothing? Or perhaps, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? For Christ, the one who had lived a perfect life, His expectation should certainly have been set on receiving a perfect reward, eternal life, together with His Father. But instead, bearing our sin upon the cross, Christ’s Father turned away from Him, He turned His back on His own Son, He despised what His Son had become, and let Christ die upon that Cross. Jesus the Christ, who knew no sin, became Sin itself for us, and God cannot abide sin in His presence. So He turned away.
And thank God that He did. Thank God that the Father turned His back on His Son. In this moment, He allowed His Son to die. This Son, who Isaiah tells us, would be despised, abhorred by nations, died upon the cross. Isaiah will later go on to tell us that this suffering servant of God would be despised and rejected by men. He would be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. And upon that cross of Calvary, as we would gaze up and look at Him, we would see nothing there to attract us to Him, but instead would hide our faces, for the gristly, beaten, and bloodied man, Jesus the Christ, would be no man that we would wish to see. It would be a step too far. It’s too much to take in.
But in this death, we thank God, because this man would have upon Himself our griefs, our sorrows. He was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and upon Him, was the chastisement, the punishment, the rebuke of God, that would bring us peace. In Jesus’ death, while He received the full wrath of God, while all the judgment of God was poured out upon His Son until He died a heinous and bloody, vicious death, we received peace. We received pardon. We received the benefit of the perfect life that He lived.
This is what Isaiah is telling us, that from the very womb of Mary, that as soon as the Word of the Lord from the angel met her ears and Jesus was conceived inside of her by the Holy Spirit, from this moment, this Jesus would be the one whom God the Father intended to be His servant, and from this one, this one who would stand for all of Israel, this man would live the entire life of Israel in His own short life and He would bear all of its burdens, too. He would be born, created by the Father’s will, as Adam and Eve were. He would enter into Egypt like Jacob and his sons, He would reenter Israel like Moses and Joshua, He would wander in the desert like the sinful Israelites, He would be sent into an exile of death as Israel was under Babylon, away from His Father. And He would return in the love of His Father into life everlasting, for on the third day, He would rise from the dead, never to die again.
But it’s not just about Jesus. It is, but it’s about Jesus for you. For indeed, Jesus could have done all of these things, but if it were not for you, it would mean nothing. If Jesus had just died on the cross, even if He had born our sins there, it would mean absolutely nothing, if there were not a means by which He would deliver that cross to us.
We have already seen one such means today, witnessing the baptism, the rebirth of Levi this morning. In this baptism, just as in your baptism, the Holy Spirit entered into you, washing you clean from all of your sinful flesh, drowning that hard-hearted Adam. Levi died this morning. And Levi, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was raised to life this morning. For if we have been baptized into the death of Christ, then we too shall be raised into the life of Christ. And make no mistake, Christ still lives today and He shall forever.
For He comes to you each and every time I stand in front of you to deliver to you His true and living Word. When we confess our sins, God in Christ Jesus is faithful and just and forgives your sins, cleansing you from all unrighteousness. My word is His Word, and it is His living Word that comes to you, from His mouth, from His living mouth, that says, “I forgive you all your sins.”
But Jesus doesn’t just leave it there, for indeed, Christ’s once-crucified and now resurrected body and blood will come to us today, where we shall eat and drink of His true and real body and blood in, with, and under the bread and the wine. In this meal, we eat the body that hung upon the cross for us. And we eat, because Jesus tells us that His body is true bread, and His blood is true wine, and when we eat we receive eternal life, the forgiveness of sins, and the strengthening of faith. We eat, because Jesus tells us that if we do not, we have no part in Him.
We are washed, we hear His Word, we eat His flesh and blood, and by these means, Jesus comes to us. The one who is abhorred by the nations, the one who is subservient to rulers, the one who is deeply despised by all according to their sinful flesh, comes to us, and delivers by His own hand, His own mouth, Himself. He brings Himself to us so that we would receive that cross. We receive the benefit of His perfected life, because we cannot be perfect ourselves. We receive His obedience, His servanthood to the Father, because we are lousy, ungrateful, disobedient, and hateful servants. We are servants, who, left to our sinful desires, would kill God and steal all He has.
Instead, Christ has made us sons and heirs with Him. We need steal nothing from God for He has given us everything in the world. As the world is Christ’s, for He made it, so also is this creation your inheritance. For you have the mark of Christ on you, upon your forehead, and upon your heart, marking you as one redeemed by Him. But, He has not just stopped with you. In fact, His life is the light of nations. Lifted up upon the cross, He beckons all men, rulers, servants, princes, people, to Himself, for His light is brighter than our sinful darkness.
The kings and princes have come to the Lord and bowed down before Him. So, too, have we. For, we, a people who have dwelled in the darkness, have seen a great light, the light of the world, who is Jesus the Christ. And before this light, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Lord, the servant of the Father, the one the Father sent to save us. Levi confesses this today, we confess this today, and the whole Church on earth, across space and time, confesses this today, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is indeed the Lord, the Holy One of Israel who has come to save sinners, to which group we all belong. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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