Sexagesima
Isa
55:10-13
2/4/18
We don’t really think about
water. If you want some, you go to the
faucet and there it is. If you are going
to be outside doing something, you take a bottle of water. It’s there all the time. It’s no big deal.
In our area, the only time we
probably think about water is if we get too
much of it. When we have a period of
very heavy rain, the drainage capacity in the Marion area gets pushed to the
limit. It’s not unusual to see water
covering the intersection of Main and Court streets. The little creek behind
church becomes swollen and fast flowing.
I am told that before major work was done on the drainage just west of
Market street, the water would overflow the creek into the church parking lot
and push up towards the sidewalk. Apparently on occasion it even reached the
church.
Things were very different in
ancient Israel. They thought about water
all the time. Life was based mainly on
agriculture and the herding of animals.
You need water for both of those.
To the east was arid land and then desert. Israel was inside the zone where the climate
made agriculture possible – but not by all that much. The land received sufficient water to
produce, but it was also just enough. An extended dry period could quickly become a
problem.
For this reason, Israelites were
very attuned to the value and importance of water. They paid attention to it. And so it is not surprising that water provides
important imagery and language in the Old Testament. We hear an example of this in our Old
Testament lesson today as Isaiah writes, “For
as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but
water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and
bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall
not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall
succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Isaiah
speaks about food in our text. In doing
so, he is continuing a theme that he began at the start of the chapter. There
he wrote: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no
money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without
price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor
for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.”
Yahweh
calls the people to come to him and be satisfied. He warns them against spending money and
effort on that which can’t do this. Of
course, he is talking about more than just food. He is referring to the orientation of
life. Is life going to be directed
towards God and living according to his word – his Torah? Or is it going to be turned away from God and
towards other things? Is life going to
be lived in pursuit of idols of every size, shape and form?
Martin
Luther reminds us that the thing in which you put your trust is your god. The
thing you value most; the thing towards which you devote the most effort; the
thing that gives you purpose, meaning and security – that is your real god.
The eighth
century B.C. had been a really good century so far – and that was part of the
problem. Things were good - and Judah
and Israel were pursuing everything except God.
If that sounds familiar, it should.
We live at a time of unparalleled wealth and leisure. It defines the way we think about life. And it creates gods – every kind of god
except the true One.
The answer
to this problem was simple. God says, “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear,
that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my
steadfast, sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a
leader and commander for the peoples.”
Yahweh tells the people to listen
to him, for to listen to God - to pay
attention to him – is to come to him.
Isaiah
extends this call by addressing it to the people as one of repentance. Just before our text he writes: “Seek the
LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
let
the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him
return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he
will abundantly pardon.”
God’s word through Isaiah continues
to address us today. He calls us to
identify the false gods in our lives – those things we put before God. He tells us to confess this sin; to turn away
from it; and to turn towards God. The
prophet announces that God will have compassion and that “he will abundantly
pardon.”
Now if we are honest, that seems
surprising. Because pardoning and
forgiving is not what the world does.
It’s not even what we want to do.
Instead our natural inclination is to get pay back; to get revenge. We want to stick it to them, just like they
did to us. We may react verbally and
strike back. Or we may look for the
opportunity when we can really get them.
But that’s
not the way God works. That’s not how he does things. Instead, he wants to pardon. He wants to forgive. In the verse just before our text we hear: “For
my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the
LORD.
For
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
We often quote this verse when we
are talking about how God’s ways are beyond our understanding. He is God and we are not. We can’t grasp what he is doing in the world
and the way he does it. We just have to
admit this when we see things that don’t make sense to us.
Now that is certainly true. But here the text really has a much more specific focus. The manner in which we
see that God’s thoughts and ways are not ours, and are higher than ours, is that he wants to forgive you. He’s not just saying that, like you and I
sometimes do because we know we have to.
He really does think that way. He really
does mean it.
And he has demonstrated
it by doing something. He sent his Son into our world as he was
conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Earlier we heard God speak of “my steadfast,
sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and
commander for the peoples.” God sent the
promised descendant of David - the Messiah - to offer himself on the cross in
our place. Though without sin, Jesus
Christ became sin for us and received the judgment our sin deserved by his
suffering and death. And then God
defeated death as he raised Jesus up on the third day.
This is
what God has done because he wants to
forgive sinners. In our text, God
goes on to say why repentant sinners can be certain about this forgiveness and
salvation. He says, “For as the rain and
the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the
eater,
so
shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing
for which I sent it.”
God declares that he sends forth his
word to deliver forgiveness to repentant sinners and this word never fails. The
word of the Gospel always does what God
wants it to do as it gives forgiveness to those who confess they need
it.
God’s Word does not fail. It creates and strengthens faith in the
crucified and risen Lord. It delivers
the forgiveness he has won. When added to water it turns that water into the
located means by which we die with Christ and receive the guarantee of sharing
in his resurrection on the Last Day.
When added to bread and wine in the consecration of the Sacrament of
Altar it gives us the body and blood of Christ given and shed for you for the
forgiveness of sins.
And the
result is joy – joy in the knowledge that we are the forgiven children of God;
that we are saints. The result is peace – the peace of knowing we are justified
now – the same verdict that will be spoken on the Last Day. We hear at the end
of our text, “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the
mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the
trees of the field shall clap their hands.”
We go forth
from this place; we go forth in life with joy because God’s ways are not our
ways – he wants to forgive. We do so
because he has acted on this by giving his Son, Jesus Christ as the sacrifice
for our sin. We do so because the word
that he sends forth does not fail to give forgiveness to us.
Yet this
joy in forgiveness does not stop with us. It cannot. It surges forth from us in two ways. First,
the forgiveness God has given us in Christ Jesus is the forgiveness we want all
people to receive. This Gospel is something
that we share with others as we tell them what God has done in Jesus Christ to
give us forgiveness and salvation.
And second,
the forgiveness God gives to us is the forgiveness we pass on to others – the
forgiveness we give to others when they wrong us. As he speaks about the forgiveness he wants
to provide, God says in this chapter, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts.”
This is
true. But the Holy Spirit has made us a
new creation in Christ. Through the work
of the Spirit we begin to think in God’s ways because of Christ. God’s word gives us the forgiveness won by
Jesus. God word is also the means by
which the Spirit transforms us so that we can forgive others even as God has
forgiven us. God’s word gives us forgiveness. God’s word enables us to forgive
others. This is God’s will and purpose. And as God says in our text today: “For as
the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water
the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread
to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not
return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall
succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
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