First confession, then deliverance

Sermon for the First Day of Lent

Isaiah 59:12-21

As he has done for us already since the beginning of this Church Year, the Lord’s servant, the prophet Isaiah, will guide us through this Lenten season as well. We often hear this reading from Isaiah 59 on the First Day of Lent—either this reading or a reading from Jonah chapter 3, where Jonah preached repentance to the people of Nineveh, and they did repent, and God spared them from the destruction He had threatened.

Isaiah preaches repentance, too. That’s the theme, the focus of the traditional Lenten season, and why we continue to observe the season, as we observe all the traditional seasons of the traditional Church Year. People think Lent is about fasting or giving up something or some other external human practice or invention. But it’s really about repentance—taking our sins seriously, so that we also learn to take our Savior seriously, so that we then learn to take our sanctification seriously, so that we may live each day intentionally, in willing and purposeful service to God and to our neighbor—all of which starts with devotion to God’s Word and to the preaching of it.

And so the prophet Isaiah leads us in making confession of ours sins before God on this First Day of Lent, even as he led the captive Israelites to make confession. That was a necessary step before they would be ready for the deliverance that the Lord had promised from their captivity. Before they could be delivered from captivity, they had to own the sins that had led to their captivity in the first place.

For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us;

This is how you make confession before God. With honesty. With humility. Not offering up any excuses. Not trying to justify yourself before God and explain why you had good reasons to rebel against His commandments. Not holding up all the good things you’ve done, as if they somehow outweighed the sins you’ve committed. Not holding yourself up next to someone else and saying, “I know I’m not perfect, but You know, Lord, I’m better than this guy.” No. Our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us.

For our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them: In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

“Transgressing” means intentionally stepping over the line. God says, “Do this!”, and I say, “No, I don’t think I will.” God says, “Don’t do that!”, and I say, “Yeah, I’m gonna do that, no matter what You say.” “Iniquities” are perversions of God’s commandments, turning away from what God has commanded to what I want to do instead. The Israelites often did this with all Ten Commandments and with the civil and ceremonial laws as well. They often ignored God’s commandments and did what they wanted. Their society was supposed to be governed by God’s laws, but instead they became just as corrupt and godless as any secular society. “Lying against the Lord,” Isaiah says. Claiming to be servants of the true God while living contrary to the word and commandments of that God—and refusing to repent!

Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. So truth fails, And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. (a target)

Justice, righteousness, truth—those were supposed to be the defining characteristics of the nation whose God was the LORD, as a nation and as individuals within the nation. But justice, righteousness, and truth never fully described Israelite society, and even less so by the time of the end, when God’s patience had run out and He sent the Babylonian armies against them.

Now, this condemnation certainly applies to our society as well. Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. So truth fails. It’s true. There is much injustice in our society and our world. Who can really trust the justice system in any country anymore? There is much unrighteousness in our society, where we have even come to disagree with God about what things are righteous and what things are unrighteous, promoting unrighteousness with practically every TV show, every movie, every ad, and most public policies. As for truth? People are perfectly content to pick and choose which parts of the Bible they accept as true and which parts they don’t. Hardly anyone believes anymore that God’s whole Word is truth, even in the most basic things like gender and marriage, or the murder of little children, much less the truth of salvation through faith alone in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God. Even most who claim to be Christians don’t live or believe in line with the Bible anymore. And he who departs from evil, in today’s world, makes himself a target.

But Isaiah isn’t preaching to the society out there. No, the ones being led by the prophet Isaiah to confess are, first, the Israelites as the Church of God on earth at that time. And now, it’s all who claim to be part of the Church of God on earth at this time, that is, you and I and all who would call themselves Christians.

This is where it’s helpful to take out your Small Catechism and read through the Ten Commandments, with their little explanations, slowly, thoughtfully. Instead of a Lenten fast, I’m going to suggest to you that, during this Lenten season, in addition to making every effort to attend all our services together, you actually take out your Catechism, at home, and read through one of the six chief parts at least once, each week, for these six weeks of Lent, starting with the Ten Commandments. If you do that honestly and humbly, then you will surely be able to confess with Isaiah, our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them. Maybe you’re guilty of willful transgressions against God’s Law which separate you from God’s grace and salvation, in which case, Repent! Confess your sins, before it’s too late! Or maybe you’ve been living in humble repentance and your sins are not willful and stubborn, but the every-day sins of weakness and unintentional offenses that all Christians commit. As St. John writes in his first Epistle, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It’s that forgiveness and cleansing that we seek. We don’t confess our sins just to get things off our chest, or to have a little cathartic exercise in feeling bad about ourselves for a while. We confess our sins so that God may forgive them, remove them from our account, and so that we may mend our ways and strive not to offend God and our neighbor.

In the rest of chapter 59, Isaiah holds out a sure hope for all the penitent. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him That there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, And wondered that there was no intercessor; Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.

For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, And was clad with zeal as a cloak.

The Lord’s solution to Israel’s transgressions was to come and save them. There was no one else who could do it. They couldn’t save themselves. They couldn’t atone for their own sins, or make intercession for themselves. Because they were all guilty of sin. How can a guilty person make intercession for other guilty people? How can the unrighteous make intercession for the unrighteous? No, God devised His own solution. He would send His Son into human flesh. He would make atonement for our sins and transgressions and iniquities by suffering and dying on the cross, the Righteous for the unrighteous. He would make intercession for us, on the basis of His sacrifice, a holy Man, pleading for unholy men, “Father, forgive them!” It’s this zeal of the Lord Jesus for our salvation that we focus on during the Lenten season, our Lord and Savior, going into battle to save us from sin, death, and the devil.

According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, Fury to His adversaries, Recompense to His enemies; The coastlands He will fully repay.

Anyone who has opposed or oppressed God’s people—and has refused to repent—will receive from the Lord Jesus, not love, not acceptance, not salvation, but judgment. Fiery judgment. The enemies and adversaries of God who refuse to repent of their sins will be repaid according to their deeds, with eternal condemnation. But God offers His enemies reconciliation through the blood of His Son. Repent and believe in Him, God says, and I will no longer count your sins against you, since I’ve already counted them against My beloved Son.

So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, And His glory from the rising of the sun; When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him.

Why will people fear the name of the Lord? Both because of His just punishment against His enemies and because of His mercy and goodness in providing salvation for all who believe. Now penitent believers have no need to fear any enemy, especially the enemies of sin, death, and the devil, because the Spirit of Lord lifts up a standard against every enemy of God’s people: the preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

“The Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” Says the LORD.

There is God’s promise, to send Christ the Redeemer to Zion, that is, to His Church. But, again, He’s not coming to rescue those who wish to remain in their sins and transgressions, He’s coming to those who turn from them, first in their hearts, through repentance, and then in their lives, by putting to death the deeds of the flesh and by walking according to the new man, in righteousness and holiness.

“As for Me,” says the LORD, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the LORD, “from this time and forevermore.”

God has kept this unlikely promise. He preserved Isaiah’s words of warning and comfort for the Jews held captive in Babylon. And He has preserved them for thousands of years more, so that they might reach even us in these last days. And He’ll continue to preserve His Word all the way up to the end of the world, when He brings about our final deliverance from every enemy and from every evil. God, for His part, will continue to provide His word and everything necessary for your salvation. As for you, continue to use His word and to put it into practice. May this Lenten season provide you with just such an opportunity: to hear and to ponder, to repent of your sins and be comforted by the length to which your God has gone to save you from them, to turn away from transgression, and to live a life devoted to keeping God’s commandments. Amen.