The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Isaiah, the 61st chapter:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
For I the Lord love justice; I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their offspring shall be known among the nations, and their descendants in the midst of the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Today is known as Gaudete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday. Our reading in the Epistle reminds us of this. During this Advent season, though we are penitent, though we are looking at our sins and repenting of them, though we are preparing ourselves for the coming of the Lord, it is a confident searching that brings us to the Lord this day. It is a joyful thing that we await His coming; we rejoice when we think of His return.
We who are Baptized in His name have no need of fear over our sins. We lament of them, yes. We repent of them, yes. We strive to leave our sin behind and lives live holy and pleasing to God our Father, yes. Still, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, and if He has died for us then He shall certainly return for us, to bring us to where He is, to give to us the promise of everlasting life.
Our Lord reminds us of this through His prophet, Isaiah. Jesus Himself took the scroll in the synagogue and read this passage to those who heard Him, saying that it was now fulfilled in His coming. And it is true, the Lord Jesus preached to the poor, bound the brokenhearted, proclaimed liberty to those who suffered unjustly in prison. It is even more true that these things will be completed fully when He returns to remake all things, to bring us back to our intended state of perfection, to join with you forever that He might live among you.
You see, the year of the Lord’s favor is now. You have repented of your sins, you have received the absolution, the forgiveness promised to you. More than that, if you ever had doubt that our Lord would show favor to you, He invites you to the foretaste of the feast which is to come and which will never end. He invites you to His table where He is both the gracious Host and the generous meal.
Being washed, being forgiven, being strengthened prepares you for the day of the Lord. This is a day of comfort and pardon, now and still to come. It is a day of beauty, a wedding day, where you, the Church, will be joined with the Lord forever. The headdress you are given is like a Kiton tuxedo, the most expensive tuxedo in the world, somewhere around $50,000. I can’t imagine ever wearing such a thing, but when you are the Church of Christ, there is nothing but the best for you. He prepares you for that day, pouring oil over you, cleansing you and washing you in ways that you would only experience, if ever, once in a lifetime. But, to be in the Lord is to have this all the time.
He is preparing you for His coming, the day when He shall remake all things, rebuilding the cities, preparing places of safety and security. He is ready to bring forth all goodness against all the injustice that has been done. He is ready to give recompense for all the evil in the world.
The Lord loves justice. This is not just because He is just, but because He knows that justice has been promised. When the Lord promises that all will be made well, when He promises to restore all things and all people against the evils of the world, the devastation humanity has wrought upon this land and upon one another, He will do it. Our Lord’s promises are not empty. When He makes a promise, He must fulfill it, for to let it pass would not be justice; it would be against the very character of God.
And this promise, this restoration is forever. We do not know all of what the life to come will look like, but we do see that it is good. We see that it is filled with faithfulness, with being treated as the very children of God. I can tell you that the life to come isn’t just going to be us wandering around the heavens like spirits, singing kumbayah as we caress the clouds. The life to come is physical, you being raised from the dead in the very body you have now, working the land like Adam and Eve did in the beginning, bringing forth its bounty with no effort.
Imagine commanding the ground to grow and it obeys. Imagine a world with no thorns or brambles. Imagine no weeds. Imagine no mosquitos in the summer. Imagine a perfect world, and the life to come in the Lord will be even better than your imagination. It will be perfect. There will be no more sin, there will be no more sorrow, and because of that, we rejoice this day.
This is Gaudete Sunday. We rejoice and give thanks for all the gifts He has given us, and there is no greater gift than the promise of the Lord’s provision. He is taking care of you this day, strengthening you, body and soul, unto life everlasting. Our God is a tangible God. He knows that we, in our sin, are weak. We have trouble thinking and meditating upon the purely spiritual things. He could’ve told us to search our feelings, but He knows that our feelings are hopelessly deceptive. So, just as our Lord Jesus Christ descended form heaven to take upon Himself the flesh of His mother, Mary, just as He came to us that we might behold Him, see Him, hear Him, touch Him, even smell Him, He provides tangible things to seal the deal on His promises.
That’s why we preach the Baptism of Christ. It’s not just because we’re Lutheran, but because it gives us something to hold onto, something where we can look at and say that we felt the forgiveness of sins, we heard it in our ears as it washed over our foreheads. He gives us His Supper, so we can taste His true body and blood with the bread and the wine, so we can taste and see the Lord is good even as we hear that He gave His body and shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. He gives to us pastors to read His holy Word so that we can hear and see that our Lord speaks to us still today, not through our feelings, not through downloads or revelations, but through the eternal Word that He gave through His Son, the same son that the prophets spoke of and longed to see.
Our Lord’s time is at hand, and we rejoice. Our time of mourning is over, and we rejoice. Our time of suffering is at an end, and we rejoice. And we pray, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Come quickly, and we shall proclaim His death for the forgiveness of your sins until He comes. Amen, come Lord Jesus. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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