This is why we sing and what we sing

Sermon for Midweek of Cantate – Easter 4

Isaiah 12:1-6  +  2 Corinthians 5:14-21

You know the sad story of what happened to the people of Israel in the Old Testament. The Lord chose them to be His own special people of all the peoples on earth. He redeemed them from slavery in Egypt and made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai. He tended to them as a gardener tends to a garden or as a shepherd tends to a flock. But they were unfaithful. Over the course of the centuries, they turned away from the Lord’s covenant and from the Lord’s Word over and over again and to worshiping idols instead and making up their own right and wrong. And so a scathing punishment was pronounced by the prophet Isaiah—announced ahead of time, over a hundred years before it happened. They would go into exile in Babylon. Their country and their capital city and their temple would be destroyed and abandoned, and it would all be their own fault for rejecting the Lord and for refusing time and time again to repent.

But deliverance was also pronounced ahead of time, a return from captivity, and, more importantly, reconciliation with the Lord God. Isaiah predicts both things, the coming of the Christ, the Son of the virgin, to bear their iniquities, to suffer and die for their sins, and the going out of the Gospel promise that whoever believes in the Suffering Servant would have His sacrifice applied to them for the forgiveness of sins.

What Isaiah foretold, the Apostle Paul recounted in the Second Lesson this evening from 2 Corinthians 5. “One died for all.” The price of our redemption was paid by the Lord Himself. And then He sent out the word of reconciliation, which we might summarize like this: “You have offended me. You deserve to die. But I yearn to be reconciled with you. Meet Me, God says, Meet Me at this place! Meet Me here, at the cross of My Son, that is, where Christ crucified is preached to you in the ministry of reconciliation. This is where I will be merciful to you. This is where I will accept you. This is where I will forgive you all your sins. This is where you and I will have peace. Don’t try to approach Me anywhere else or in any other way, or your condemnation will remain. But approach Me here, through My beloved Son, and all will be well!”

That’s the word of reconciliation that Isaiah preached, and that Christ preached, and that Paul preached, and that Christian ministers still preach.

And it moved Isaiah to sing, to sing for joy those inspired words of chapter 12 that you heard this evening. It’s referred to as the first song of Isaiah, although it obviously isn’t set to music.

O LORD, I will praise You; Though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; ‘For YAH, the LORD, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’ ” Therefore with joy you will draw water From the wells of salvation.

The Lord’s deliverance hadn’t even happened yet in Isaiah’s time—at least, not the deliverance from the coming captivity and destruction or the deliverance of the coming Christ. But just seeing it by faith, he was moved to sing for joy.

We have seen it! Or at least, we’ve learned of it from Holy Scripture and from the events of history. God did deliver Israel from captivity, and He did send His Son into the world, and He has sent out the word of reconciliation across the ages and across the world, so that sinners like you and like me can hear His call, “Be reconciled to God!”, and believe, and rejoice. Because death and condemnation and destruction were coming for us, too. But now we’ve been delivered from it and reconciled to God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Not only did Isaiah sing for joy, but he called on Israel and he calls on us, telling us what to sing and to whom we should sing. In that day you will say: “Praise the LORD, call upon His name; Declare His deeds among the peoples, Make mention that His name is exalted. Sing to the LORD, For He has done excellent things; This is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion, For great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst!”

What do we sing? What message do Christians proclaim? “His deeds.” God’s deeds. And not just His great deeds of creation or of earthly help and protection, but above all, His deeds of salvation from sin, death, and the devil. Christ’s deeds of suffering and dying for us, and His deeds of judgment against His enemies and the enemies of His blood-bought people.

And where do we proclaim them? “Among the peoples.” Among the nations. Wherever you live. Declare the excellent things that God has done, and declare it, not as a chore, not as a heartless lesson for the lecture halls, but with joy. The joy of the Gospel must accompany our song, and if we stop and think about the destruction toward which we were headed, and the lengths to which our God has gone to make sure we avoided it, we won’t be able to help but sing for joy the deeds of the Lord. Amen.