Emmanuel Lutheran Church

(sermon only this week)

Sermon for Midweek of Advent 3

Isaiah 66:14-24

We’ve come to the end of our meditation on Isaiah’s prophecy. We’ve spent just over a year on it. I hope you’ve noticed over the past year that certain basic themes keep repeating throughout these 27 chapters, usually in contrasting pairs: Law and Gospel, judgment and salvation, threats and promises, comfort for the distressed, and distress for those who live in godless comfort, restoration and destruction, eternal life and eternal death, the end of Old Testament Israel and the beginning of the New Israel, the first advent of Christ in humility and the second one in glory. Back and forth Isaiah goes to those themes, repeating them over and over. We have them all before us in tonight’s reading as well. We also have a perfect example of the difficulty Old Testament readers must have had in recognizing the two separate advents of Christ, because Isaiah goes back and forth between them, foreseeing them both, as if they were just two sides of the same portrait, telling what he sees on one side, then on the other, back and forth. And just as there are two advents of Christ, so there are two messages and two outcomes for two very different groups of people, one for the faithful, the other for the faithless.

You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bones shall flourish like the grass; and the hand of the LORD shall be known to his servants. Here Isaiah is describing the second Advent of Christ, speaking to believers, about believers. And with Christ’s arrival at the end of the age comes heartfelt joy, and prosperity, and, finally, revelation! Revelation of what God has been doing all along, behind the scenes, how He has been guiding the world and the Church and our own lives to get to that moment of eternal victory. The hand of the LORD shall be known to his servants.

Still viewing Christ’s second Advent, Isaiah then speaks about unbelievers on that day: And the LORD shall show his indignation against his enemies. “For behold, the LORD will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will the LORD enter into judgment, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the LORD shall be many. “Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig’s flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the LORD. “For I know their works and their thoughts. God is speaking here in the language of Old Testament Israel, including among their forms of rebellion how they thumbed their noses at God’s commands in the Law of Moses against eating pig’s flesh or mice or other unclean foods. Part of the idolatrous practices of Israel was intentionally breaking some of those laws, eating things that were forbidden. But since this is talking about the last day, it doesn’t only include Israel’s rebellion. It includes the rebellion of “all flesh,” as all men have thumbed their noses at God’s Word and God’s commandments, often making up their own invented forms of worship and expecting God to accept them. Those whom God finds still living in rebellion against Him on the Last Day will not escape the fire of God’s wrath and the sword of His condemnation. He will “slay” them all, which, as we’ll see shortly, doesn’t mean just putting them to death, but something much, much worse.

Now Isaiah turns his head to gaze at Christ’s first Advent. and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them. There’s a subtle reference here to Jesus’ birth, when God first began to gather the nations to see His glory by bringing the wise men from the East to worship His newborn Son. The star was one of those “signs” that God set among them. But the cross was another one of those signs, as Jesus Himself said about His death on the cross, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will gather all peoples to Myself.”

Still looking at Christ’s first Advent, Isaiah goes on: And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. He’s talking about Jesus’ command to His apostles to Go and make disciples of all nations, to Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation. He’s talking about Pentecost, when the nations first gathered in Jerusalem to hear about the fame and glory of the God who had given His Son into death so that all men might take refuge in Him and be incorporated into God’s holy family.

Now gazing at the time between Christ’s first and second Advent, Isaiah foresees the New Testament era: And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD.

This is the success of the Gospel among the Gentiles, the building of the Christian Church over the centuries. The “holy mountain Jerusalem” is no longer the literal mountain on which the literal city of Jerusalem is built, but the spiritual mountain of the Church throughout the world, the spiritual Jerusalem, in which you and I are also citizens, as St. Paul said to the Ephesians: For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

The Lord even foretells the inclusion of the Gentiles in the New Testament ministry: And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the LORD. Now, you can’t literally make a Levite out of anyone. A Levite is literally a descendant of Jacob’s son Levi. But this is a figurative way of saying that God will take, not all New Testament Christians, but “some” of them to be called and ordained ministers, sent out, just as the original apostles were, to preach the glory of Christ among the nations.

Now Isaiah’s gaze turns one last time to Christ’s second Advent and the eternal glory of the Church after He comes again: “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your offspring and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the LORD. Earlier, Isaiah saw the Lord slaying “all flesh” at Christ’s second Advent. Now, He sees “all flesh” coming to worship before the true God. The “all flesh” that was slain were the unbelievers. The “all flesh” that comes to worship are the believers, the sheep at the King’s right hand, from the parable of the sheep and the goats, the ones who are invited by the King to come and inherit the kingdom prepared for them since the foundation of the world, where we will worship our God forever and ever.

The Lord closes out Isaiah’s book of prophecy with a final word about the eternal destiny of those who are found in unbelief on the Last Day: “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.” Imagine putting these verses on a Christmas card! Does it seem strange that Isaiah would end on such a sour note, describing the eternal suffering of “the dead” in hell? Well, it’s no different from Jesus’ own preaching, who always preached comfort and joy to believers, judgment and anguish to unbelievers. A wide open invitation to the penitent to come into His kingdom, while the doors to the kingdom are closed shut to those who refuse God’s gracious invitation. Forgiveness and joy and the adoption as sons is what God wants for all men. That’s why He was born in Bethlehem. That’s why we’ll celebrate His birth next week. Because God wants all men to find their Savior in that manger. But make no mistake. Mankind has already earned his own condemnation. And for those who won’t seek God’s salvation from that condemnation in the manger, and on the cross, in the Son of God named Jesus, there will be a day of reckoning and an eternity of suffering.

But even this bad news is preached as a gift from God. This age of Christ’s first Advent is the time of grace, the time to repent, the time to enter Christ’s Church before He comes again. This age of Christ’s first Advent, including its warnings about eternal condemnation, is meant to bring all men to repentance, that all may escape the judgment, through faith in Christ Jesus, that all may be prepared to enter with Him, when He comes, into endless, glorious joy. Amen.

Sermon for Midweek of Advent 2

Isaiah 66:1-13

After ascending briefly into heaven in last week’s reading, where we heard the Lord’s promise to create new heavens and a new earth when Christ returns in glory, we come back down to earth for a moment as Isaiah begins the final chapter of his prophecy. Here the Lord makes His case one last time against apostate Israel, and extends yet another comforting promise to His beleaguered Church here on earth, made up of true believers, true worshipers of God. Even as the Lord threatens to reject the false worshipers in Israel, He assures the true worshipers that He accepts them, and also promises to increase their number abundantly, removing the apostates and replacing them with genuine Christians.

Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord.

Here it sounds like God doesn’t care about having an earthly temple in Jerusalem. He doesn’t need a building to dwell in or a place to live. He already inhabits all creation. What need does He have of an earthly building? None.

That doesn’t mean the temple in Old Testament Jerusalem was unimportant. On the contrary! God commanded Israel to build it and told them to use it for His worship. In fact, He forbade them from worshipping Him anywhere else. He chose to bind Himself to that building, to that place, so that Israel would learn to worship Him only in the place and in the way He instructed them. Because, contrary to popular belief, you can’t worship God “anywhere.” You can’t worship Him in any way you want. The only true, acceptable worship of God is the worship that He has established, in the place He has established. The Old Testament temple was actually intended to foreshadow the Person of Jesus Christ, because He is the only “place” where God the Father accepts sinners, where He is willing to listen, and ready to forgive.

But many in Israel missed the point of the temple. They became proud of it, secure in it, as if God couldn’t possibly bring judgment down on them, because, after all, they had the temple of God in the city of God! They ignored God’s commandments, they stopped trusting in Him, but they still were sure that they were going to be fine, because they had the temple.

Here God assures them that He does not need the temple. He does not accept people just because they show up in His temple, or because it sits in their city. He doesn’t actually need a place to rest. No, it wasn’t being near the temple or inside the temple that made Him willing to accept a person. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. That was the worship God was seeking, not maintaining a building—even the building He had commanded them to build and to use—but humility before Him. Contrition in a person’s spirit, that is, sorrow over sin. And trembling at His Word. In other words, when God speaks, a person actually listens, actually cares what He says and is careful to do what God says, instead of making himself the judge over God, instead of hearing God’s word and then saying, “That’s not for me. I’ll do as I please and believe as I want.”

But that’s how most of Israel responded to God’s Word. “I’ll do as I please. I’ll believe as I want. But, I’ll continue to bring sacrifices and offerings to God in His temple, and surely He’ll accept me, even though I’m not humble, or contrite in spirit, nor do I tremble at His word.” The Lord describes and condemns their faith-less acts of worship. “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck; he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig’s blood; he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol. These have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations; I also will choose harsh treatment for them and bring their fears upon them, because when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen; but they did what was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight.”

Right now, as God’s Word goes out into the world, how many are actually listening? There are a few who listen, who take Him seriously, who repent and believe and care about His Word. But most are like Old Testament Israel. When I called, no one answered. When I spoke, they did not listen. Most people hear God’s Word today and laugh. And sit in judgment of it and of any of the “fools” who actually believe it. That’s how they’ve chosen to act, to sin against God’s Holy Spirit who calls out to them in His Word. But God threatens to choose harsh treatment for them, even eternal condemnation.

But God knows that there are some who have listened, and He comforts them with His next words. Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his word: “Your brothers who hate you and cast you out for my name’s sake have said, ‘Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your joy’; but it is they who shall be put to shame. “The sound of an uproar from the city! A sound from the temple! The sound of the Lord, rendering recompense to his enemies!

When you’re hated by people you don’t even know, or who aren’t close to you at all, it can still hurt. But the worst kind of hatred is the hatred that comes from a brother, from someone who claims to be a fellow Christian, but who has actually rejected the Word of Christ and now hates you for still believing it and for living according to it, maybe not with a visceral kind of hatred, but with the hatred of rejection and condescension. Those very haters often prosper in this life. They’re the ones with the big cathedrals and the megachurches and the full parking lots on Sunday, just as they were the church leaders back in Old Testament times. But here God speaks to those who still tremble at His word and comforts them: He’s coming against your enemies.

“Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?” says the Lord; “shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?” says your God.

Who is the woman in labor here? It’s the Church, often pictured as a woman, often referred to in the Old Testament as Zion, which is another name for Jerusalem. In the New Testament, she’s referred to as the Bride of Christ, or “the Jerusalem above.” To whom does she give birth? She gives birth to Christians from every nation, tribe, language, and people. But, as God says here, it’s really God who causes the Church to bring forth children, as His Holy Spirit works through the ministry of the Church, through Word and Sacrament, to bring sinners to faith in Christ and to make them children of God. Here God promises the birth of New Testament Christians from the Old Testament Church, after the Christ Himself is born.

“Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.” For thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

There was good reason to love “Jerusalem,” that is, the Old Testament Church of God, because God created it and nurtured it, just as there was good reason to mourn over her, because she was in shambles and appeared about to die in Isaiah’s time, since there were so few true worshipers of God left in her, and so many false worshipers and non-believers within the Church of Israel. But God called on His true worshipers, on those who tremble at His word, to rejoice with Jerusalem, because He was going to make her the mother of a new Church, of the Holy Christian Church.

So give thanks to God for preserving His Old Testament Church long enough to get His Son born into the world, and long enough to give birth to those who believed in Him and proclaimed His Word in the world, so that you, too, could hear the word about the Child born in Bethlehem, humble yourselves, become contrite in spirit, and tremble at His word. In other words, so that you could be born again as true worshipers of God, whom He will preserve within His New Testament Church, just as He preserved the true worshipers in the Old Testament, until it’s time for the New Jerusalem to come down out of heaven. Amen.

Sermon for Midweek of Advent 1

Isaiah 65:17-25

After writing so much about earthly Jerusalem, and Israel’s captivity in Babylon, and even about the first Advent of the Christ, Isaiah finally moves fully beyond everything earthly to describe heaven for us. But how can God really describe heaven to those who only know earthly realities? It’s like trying to describe colors to a blind person, or music to someone who is deaf. So, how does God describe heaven in this second-to-last chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy? He describes it in terms we can understand, in earthly terms, using earthly imagery and comparisons. That means we shouldn’t get too hung up on those earthly images. Because the main thing we’re to come away with after reading Isaiah 65 was summarized well enough by C.S. Lewis: “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.

When we talk about the next life, we often just use the word, “heaven,” by which we mean, the spirit realm which is invisible to us, but where God dwells visibly with the saints and angels. When a believer in Christ dies, it’s appropriate to talk about their soul going to heaven. But when Christ comes again, it’s a much more physical kind of existence that’s described, which makes sense, because there is going to be a physical resurrection of the bodies of all the dead. So what’s next for believers? The Lord describes it here as “new heavens and a new earth.” Peter describes it the same way in his second Epistle: Let us wait for and hasten the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Think of all the beauty and goodness that still remains in this creation. Think of all the ugliness and suffering and meaninglessness in this world. Lump it all together, and realize that God has determined, none of it is worth preserving. None of it is worth keeping. He has far, far better things in mind for His children. So much so that, as he says here, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. That doesn’t mean literally that we won’t be able to remember anything from our life on this earth. It just means that, once you see the new heavens and the new earth, you won’t, for one second, think back and long for the life you had here. There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people;

It’s worth noting that God makes it clear, twice, that He is the one creating the new heavens and the new earth. We don’t create it. We don’t bring it about. We don’t make it happen, as if the Church were responsible for renewing this sinful world and building a glorious kingdom of God on earth. No, everything here will be destroyed, and God Himself will create the new world. And He calls on His people to rejoice in it! Because it will be a place filled with joy and peace and everything good.

He promises here to create a new Jerusalem. Obviously that can’t be a reference to the current Jerusalem that exists here below, because everything on earth, with the earth itself, will be destroyed. Nor can this be a picture of the Christian Church as it exists here on earth, because here the Church still has its share of false brothers and false teachers who are not a joy, but a scourge on the Church. No, this is the New Jerusalem, the new city of God, the perfected home of God’s children where righteousness dwells, where no unclean thing can enter, where there is nothing to interrupt or detract from the joy that God and His people will share together.

No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.

Remember, the Lord is not giving us a literal description of heaven, as if there will be infants or death in the new creation. He’s using earthly comparisons to show us how much better it will be. First, there’s no more weeping, no more stress or distress, because there’s nothing there to cause weeping or distress. Think of all the things that make you weep for sorrow here: guilt, betrayal, mistreatment, loneliness, emptiness, sickness, pain, and, maybe the biggest culprit of them all, loss. But all of that will be a thing of the past. He gives us the example here of the terrible tragedy of the death of an infant or of a young person, a major cause of suffering here. No such tragedies will occur in the new world that God will create.

More examples follow. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity. These descriptions remind us of the curses that Moses commanded Israel to pronounce on themselves, if they should turn away from the LORD God and His covenant and His promised Messiah. Building houses that others would inhabit. Planting vineyards without being able to eat their fruit, etc. Israel experienced those curses here below, and all people on earth know what it is to labor in vain, because no one is immune to the curse that God placed on this creation in the Garden of Eden. But in the next life, the curse will be lifted, and God’s people will no longer labor in vain.

For they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord, and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The blessings of the new creation are entirely, 100%, the result of God’s goodness toward us, God’s blessing upon us, which He has poured out on us already through the Lord Jesus. He is the One who has set the slaves free and has made us sons of God and coheirs, together with Him, of this blessed eternal inheritance, where God will no longer seem distant, where God will no longer appear not to hear, where faith no longer needs to be tested and children no longer need to be disciplined, but where God will be right there with us, providing for every need before we have to ask.

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox,

There may or may not be animals in the new creation. This verse simply pictures for us the perfect peace and safety that will be there. Things that are dangerous and destructive on this earth will not be dangerous and destructive in heaven. No prowling lion. No wolf stalking its prey. No violence or killing or death. No enemies trying to destroy God’s people. No sinful nature to drag us down.

What about the devil? Will the ancient serpent be able to enter the heavenly garden and ruin it, as he once entered Eden and ruined everything in that first paradise? And dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the Lord. Neither Satan nor his offspring will be able to tempt or harm God’s children anymore. Satan and his offspring will forever remain under the curse, and we, God’s children, will live in security without anyone or anything to ruin it, ever.

It’s hard to imagine an existence like that, isn’t it?, surrounded as we are by the effects of sin and death. Is it any wonder that God tells us over and over again in Scripture to get our focus off of this earth, to be more concerned with heavenly things than earthly things? Is it any wonder that He pleads with us to hold to the teachings of Scripture as if our entire blessed future depended on it? Because it does! Satan even now wants to rip all of this out of our hands, but as St. Paul says, the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. So hold on a little longer. Hold onto Christ Jesus and His Gospel and don’t cling too tightly to this world. Because there are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. Believe that truth. And use it to help you bear up under all the difficult things here. Because the end of those things is in sight! Amen.