Where is the Savior of Israel

Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 23

Isaiah 63:11-19

Isaiah Chapter 63 began with the picture of the Lord as a Warrior, a Warrior who fought for His people against their enemies, but ended up fighting against His people Israel when they made themselves His enemies, when they turned against their Savior. In the rest of the chapter, His people look back at how good they had it, at how good the Lord had been to them in the beginning, prompting them to ask the desperate questions, Where is He now, that Savior of old? Where is the Savior of Israel? And why does He cause us to go astray? As we’ll see in these last three chapters of the book of Isaiah, the answers to those questions differ, depending on the heart of the one asking them.

Then His people remembered the days of old, of His servant Moses, saying: Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in their midst, who led them with His glorious arm by the right hand of Moses, dividing the water before them, to make Himself an everlasting name, who led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble? As the cattle which go down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused them to rest, so You led Your people, to make Yourself a glorious name.

Accused, condemned, rejected by God, made desolate, captive in an enemy land, the people of Israel had learned what it was like to have the Lord God as their enemy. Because of their sins, because of their impenitence, because each one had turned to his own way and stopped caring about what God said or what God commanded, the people who bore the name of God were abandoned by their God. Where could they turn if God Himself was against them?

Some, most of Israel, turned back to God’s saving history, but in confusion. They turned back to recall that decisive moment in their history when they were without hope, enslaved by the powerful Egyptians. But God stepped in. God stepped in through His servant Moses. God stepped in through Moses and accomplished the impossible. With ten plagues against the Egyptians, with parted waters of the Red Sea, with divine intervention so that the Egyptians armies perished in those very same waters, God had come to Israel’s rescue. But Israel as it faced captivity in Babylon, Israel as it suffered in captivity in Babylon, and also Israel as it rejected the Christ when He came, could only look back in confusion and ask, “Where is God’s salvation now? We need His salvation again!” But those very same people who claimed to be searching for God’s salvation rejected His salvation when He sent the Christ to them. They didn’t want Him for a Savior. So all they can do is look back at His past salvation with confusion.

Some, a handful in Israel, turned back to God’s saving history in repentance and hope. They remembered the mercy, and the love, and the power of the God who had brought them out of Egypt and made a covenant with them in the desert. They repented of their sins and turned back to that Redeemer God and asked, “Where is He now?”, not in despair, not in confusion, but in hope, because the LORD, Yahweh, is a God of forgiveness and undeserved salvation. Where was He then? He was about to send His Christ to suffer and die for their sins. Where is He now? Still here in Word and Sacrament to forgive sins to all who believe in Him, still forming a new Israel out of all believers, and about to return to take His new Israel to our eternal Promised Land.

Look down from heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and Your strength? The stirrings of Your heart and Your mercies toward me are restrained. For You are our Father, though Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel does not recognize us. You, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer; Your name is from everlasting.

A cry, a plea: “Where are Your zeal and strength?” Some, most in Israel, asked that question in despair, as Jesus’ disciples asked while He slept and their boat was sinking in the storm, “Lord, don’t You care that we are perishing?” You’re supposed to be our Father! Where is Your fatherly care? Here You are, letting us go into exile, stay in exile for 70 years. Here You are, sending Roman armies against Your people and destroying Jerusalem and removing Your covenant from us, as a nation, just because we didn’t want to be saved by this Jesus. It makes no sense!

Others, a handful in Israel, asked that question in hope. Where are Your zeal and strength? We look to You for salvation, and we gladly expect the Christ whom You will send! You sent Your Son, Jesus Christ, and to all who receive Him, to all who believe in His name, You have given the right to become children of God. So You are our Father. And on that basis, we plead with You to act on our behalf. Show Your zeal and strength in upholding Your children, in saving us from sin, from death, from the devil and all His demons! Show Your zeal and strength in guiding the affairs and governments of this world so that Your Gospel may be preached, and so that Your Church may be built and preserved until You come to rescue us at last from this wicked world.

O LORD, why have You made us to err from Your ways and hardened our heart from fearing You? Return for Your servants’ sake, the tribes of Your inheritance. Your holy people possessed Your sanctuary for a little while; our adversaries have trodden it down. We have become as those over whom You have never ruled, as those who were not called by Your name.

Not only “where?” but “why?” Why have You made us to err and hardened our heart? Most in Israel asked that question in accusation and arrogance. “You made us err, O Lord! You hardened our heart from fearing You! Why would You do that? If you had just left us alone, we would have gladly followed Your ways and feared You as we ought. But no. It’s Your fault that we turned away from You. How could You make us sin like that? Why would You deprive us of the land and of the temple we were promised?” Oh, the pride of man is great. Even when we’re forced to acknowledge our sins, we want to blame God for them, as Adam once blamed God in the Garden of Eden. This woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me some of the fruit, and I ate. Those who would blame God for their sins, and for the consequences of their sins, are delusional.

But some in Israel, and some still today, ask that question differently. We know that, if God does make us to err, it’s only in response to the erring we have already chosen. If He hardens our hearts from fearing Him, it’s only the righteous punishment we deserve for hardening our own hearts from fearing Him, as He did with Pharoah at the time of Moses, about whom it says that he first hardened his own heart toward the Word of God that Moses spoke. Only then did the Lord further harden it.

And so the penitent one answers his own question: Why have You made us to err and hardened our heart? Because we first chose to go astray. We first chose to be stubborn and hard-headed and stiff-necked, to follow our own dreams, our own path, our own desires. And so we deserve all the punishment we have received.

But our case is not hopeless. Not at all! Because the Gospel is still going out, calling out to all those who mourn over their sins, Take heart! Don’t be afraid! The Lord Jesus came to seek and to save the erring and wandering sheep. He came to soften the hearts that are hard, and, by His Spirit, to replace them with hearts that believe, as He promised through the prophet Ezekiel: Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

Where is the Savior of Israel? It’s a question that can be asked in unbelief. But it’s also a question that can be asked in faith, and in eager expectation that the Savior of Israel—the Savior of the Holy Christian Church—will soon come to rescue His penitent people from all their troubles. So look back at all the saving acts God has already accomplished for His Church. Look at His present acts of salvation, including His providence of the holy ministry of His Word in our midst, including His guidance of the governments of the world that we’re witnessing even now, giving His children a little reprieve from the madness that we have been surrounded by. Where is the Savior of Israel? He is here with us even now. Trust in Him and hope in Him, and you will not be disappointed. Amen.