Sermon for the Vigil of Easter
Isaiah 54:1-17
We can’t do justice tonight to the 54th chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy, which you heard earlier among the Old Testament readings. You’ve heard so much from the Holy Spirit this evening and this week, so many Scriptures so full of meaning. So I offer you this brief summary and encouragement from the prophet Isaiah for our Vigil of Easter.
The theme of Isaiah 52 was, Rejoice, O Church of God! Your Savior is coming! Isaiah 53: Behold! Here is your Savior, who will bear your sins, suffer and die for them, and rise again in victory. Isaiah 54: Rejoice, O Church of God! You are part of your Savior’s victory!
Now, what is the victory of your Savior? He made it all the way through His life, and especially through His sufferings, sinlessly. He died innocently, providing the atoning sacrifice for all mankind. He rose from the dead victoriously. But His victory goes on! As Isaiah had put it in chapter 53, He lives to justify many. Or as the Lord says at the end of chapter 54, This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me. The Christian’s righteousness before God doesn’t come from ourselves at all. It comes from the Lord Jesus. Christ’s victory over the grave enables Him to apply His perfect righteousness to all who believe, to clothe us with it as a garment, a garment we’ve all put on—or are about to put on!—in Holy Baptism.
And when He justifies people, when He forgives them their sins, the Lord doesn’t leave them out in the cold. He brings them into His Father’s family, into His Holy Christian Church, and cares for them there. I will build My Church, Jesus had told His disciples months before His death and resurrection. I will bring My sheep into this fold.
And so God comforts His Old Testament Church, Sing, O barren woman, you who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, you who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; do not spare; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes. For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations.
You, dear Christians, are those descendants of barren Jerusalem. You are part of the vast expansion of God’s holy Church. The true Church of the Old Testament has given birth to the children of the New Testament. Look! Here you are, the children of desolate Jerusalem, listening patiently, with joy in your hearts, to the story of God’s works for the good of mankind! Look, here you are celebrating your Savior’s victory over sin, death, and the devil. Look! Here they are, two more who will be added to the number of baptized believers tonight. You are Christ’s victory! You are His prize! And you won’t be the last! Amen.
