Rejoice! Your Savior is coming!

Sermon for Maundy Thursday

Isaiah 52:1-12

After hearing the whole story of the events of Holy Thursday, what can we say? The Scriptures lay it all out so plainly, all that Christ did and all that He endured, from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane to the court of the high priest. Of course, all that was still leading up to Good Friday, when the Author of our salvation would finish the offering of Himself as the once-for-all sacrifice of atonement. We’ll spend just a few moments yet this evening applying the words of the prophet Isaiah to these events, selected verses from chapter 52, which has chapter 53 directly in view, the chapter for Good Friday. As Maundy Thursday leads into Good Friday, as Isaiah 52 leads into Isaiah 53, the message of Isaiah for Maundy Thursday rings out loud and clear: O Church of God, rejoice! Your Savior is coming!

Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! Isaiah isn’t talking to unbelieving Jerusalem now—the Jerusalem that was about to put Jesus to death, but to believing Jerusalem, the “holy city,” to the believers in God’s Church who were yearning for God’s deliverance from their captivity, not only from Babylon, but from sin, death, and the devil. To the captives longing for their salvation to appear, Isaiah writes, Put on strength and put on your beautiful garments, because, through the suffering of Christ that Isaiah was about to reveal in chapter 53, through the suffering of Christ that would take place between Maundy Thursday evening and Good Friday afternoon, your Savior is coming!

For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you. Never in history has this promise been fulfilled in a literal way for Jerusalem. Clearly it’s a spiritual promise, that, through the work of Christ, the suffering Servant described in chapter 53, God’s people would be protected, would be kept safe from the devil and his allies, even as Jesus protected His fickle disciples in the Garden and promises that He will give His sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.

Shake yourself from the dust, arise and take your seat, O Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion! For thus says the LORD: “You have sold yourselves for nothing…

Sold yourselves for nothing—what did Adam and Eve get from eating from that forbidden tree and selling themselves and their children into the slavery of sin? Nothing. What did Israel get for trying to make alliances with Gentile nations and foreign gods? Nothing. What did Jesus’ disciples get for forsaking Him in the garden? What did Peter get for denying Him three times? What do any of us get for giving in to sin and temptation? Nothing.

But, by God’s grace, we also don’t have to pay anything toward our redemption. and you shall be redeemed without money. For thus says the Lord GOD: “What have I here,” says the LORD, “That My people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them make them wail,” says the LORD, “And My name is blasphemed continually every day. Therefore My people shall know My name; Therefore they shall know in that day that I am He who speaks: ‘Behold, it is I.’ ”

Redeemed without money, but not for free. Redeemed with the humble service of Christ Jesus, with His child-like obedience to His heavenly Father. Redeemed with the bloody sweat of the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Redeemed with the betrayal, abandonment, and denials He willingly suffered, with the blows He received in the high priest’s presence, with the condemnation that was pronounced upon Him by the traitorous leaders of the Church, along with the blood He shed on Good Friday. My people shall know My name, God says. And many in Israel did come to know it as they saw what the Lord Jesus willingly endured for them. We have come to know it, too, by watching (through the preaching of it) what Jesus did, said, and suffered on the night of Maundy Thursday, pointing ahead to the culmination of it all on Good Friday.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” … Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem! For the LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Isaiah is looking ahead to Maundy Thursday, and to Good Friday. And beyond! He foresees the Gospel going out, proclaiming the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and, of course, also Easter Sunday. The going out of the good news is essential. Because Jesus didn’t actually save you when He suffered and when He died on the cross. That was the cause of your salvation, but not the timing of it. The timing of it is tied to the bringing of the good news to your ears, the good news of God’s promise to deliver you, through faith, from sin, death, and the devil, on account of the suffering and death of His Servant, the Christ. Your salvation is tied, not only to Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection, but also to hearing the good news, and to having water poured on you in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to eating and drinking the body and blood that were the price of your salvation in that Sacrament first instituted on Maundy Thursday evening.

Depart! Depart! Go out from there, touch no unclean thing…For you shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight; for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

Depart! A command, a gracious invitation for the Church of God to leave behind its captivity, not only in Babylon, where Jerusalem was held captive for 70 years, but in the devil’s kingdom and in the grasp of sin and death. Because Christ, your Champion, is coming (from Isaiah’s perspective)! Has come, from ours. He went out into battle on that Thursday night, leading the way for His Church, defeating our enemies as He went. And then He became our rear guard also, making sure that we are kept safe from sin and from the devil all the way through this life, until, by faith in Him, we reach the heavenly Promised Land. Amen.