Deo Gloria
Sermon for December 15, 2019
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Isaiah 35:1-10
Theme: God is Coming! Don’t be Afraid!
- He’s coming to save us.
- He’s coming to fix us.
“He’s coming!” Do those words strike fear in your heart, or do they bring you comfort? I suppose it depends on the situation. If you’re goofing around in the classroom while your teacher is out of the room, perhaps even drawing a silly picture on the whiteboard, and suddenly one of your classmates calls out, “He’s coming,” those words would set your heart racing as you dash back to your desk before your teacher walks through the door. On the other hand, if you’re standing outside in the wind and the cold after school, waiting for your dad to pick you up, the words “He coming!” would be words of welcome relief.
Today the prophet Isaiah says about God, “He’s coming!” Are those words of fear or words of relief? Primarily, they are words of relief, for Isaiah says that our God is coming to save us, and that he’s coming to fix us.
The prophet Isaiah lived during a time when many of his fellow Israelites worshipped God with empty hearts. Sure, they showed up at the temple from time to time and made their sacrifices and gave their offerings, but God knew they were just going through the motions. Just a few chapters before this he said, “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me”(29:13). Because of their hypocrisy, their worship of idols and their refusal to repent, God was going to allow a foreign nation to invade their land and conquer them and carry them away into captivity. In spite of Isaiah’s cry: “He’s coming!” most just shrugged it off and kept on doing what they were doing.
Does that describe us? When we hear those words, “He coming,” do we just shrug it off and go about life as usual, making fun of our parents or our teachers behind their backs, spreading rumors about one of our classmates at school or one of our coworkers at the office, giving our spouse the silent treatment because they didn’t do what we wanted them to? If so, we have forgotten who God is. God is a holy God, a consuming fire who does not take sin lightly. And as long as we shrug off our sins, we should not think we are on the way to heaven. Isaiah spoke about the way to heaven in our text. He called it “the Way of Holiness” and said: “The unclean will not journey on it” and “wicked fools will not go about on it”(v. 8). Whenever we excuse our sins and shrug them off as no big deal, we show how foolish we really are, and therefore are not on the road to heaven.
So far the words “He’s coming!” haven’t been too comforting. They’ve made us uneasy, perhaps even a little afraid. But that isn’t Isaiah’s primary intent. You see, in these verses he is speaking to the faithful Israelites, those who didn’t simply shrug off their sins but who repented and were sorry for them. So when Isaiah says that God is coming, he isn’t saying that to frighten them but to comfort them. Listen again to what he says in v. 4: “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come,…he will come to save you.” This message that Isaiah shared with the people of his day was echoed in the angel’s words to the shepherds outside of Bethlehem: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord”(Luke 2:10,11). Although you and I should be afraid of God because of our sins, we don’t have to be, for our God comes to save us from those sins. Isaiah wasn’t exaggerating when he prophesied that God himself would come to save his people. That’s who Jesus is. That baby in a manger is none other than the Son of God.
And how did he save us? Look again at Isaiah’s description of that road to heaven: “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness…only the redeemed will walk there”(vv. 8+9). Jesus saved us by redeeming us, by paying the price to set us free from sin and death.
If we were to compare the Way of Holiness on which the redeemed walk to our highways today, we would see some similarities. Most highways today have fences that run along side of them, especially as they make their way through large cities. The only way to get on the highway is to use the on-ramp. The only way to get on God’s highway, the Way of Holiness, is by using God’s on-ramp: our Savior Jesus. Likewise, have you ever noticed what a highway interchange looks like from the sky, that it looks like a cross, perhaps with a flower blooming in the middle? In the same way it is only by Jesus’ cross that you and I have access to the Way of Holiness, because at the cross Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins. He redeemed us with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. So if you feel uneasy about your sins, if the thought of standing before God on Judgment Day makes your heart quake and your knees shake, Isaiah has good news. He says, “…steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come,…he will come to save you’”(vv. 3b+4). In Jesus, God has come and he has saved us from our sins. Look to Jesus as your Savior and you’ll find yourself walking the Way of Holiness to heaven.
Knowing that God came to save us from our sins is reason enough to take away our fear and fill our hearts with comfort and joy. But there’s more, Isaiah says. Not only is he coming to save us, he is also coming to fix us. Notice again what Isaiah says in verses 5+6: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb shout for joy”(vv. 5+6). When Jesus came into this world, those things actually happened, didn’t they? The eyes of the blind were opened. The ears of the deaf were unstopped. The lame did leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb did shout for joy, because Jesus healed them. Here was the answer John was looking for in our Gospel lesson this morning. Jesus really was the Messiah, the Savior who was to come. He was God come to save his people, to set them free from sin and the debilitating effects of sin.
But what Jesus did for God’s people back in his day was not a one-time deal. The day is coming when Jesus will do it again, when he will heal the blind and the deaf and the dumb and the lame. That day, of course, is the last day, the day when our Savior will make all things new. On that day blind believers will have their eyes opened so they can see the new Jerusalem, the city with gates of pearl and streets of gold. On that day deaf believers will have their ears unstopped so they can hear the multitude of angels, singing their glorious songs of praise to God. On that day the mute will have their tongues untied so they can join the singing and never have to worry about being off key. On that day the lame will leap out of their wheelchairs and throw away their walkers and run into the welcoming arms of their Savior. It’s no wonder that Isaiah said at the end of our text: “They [the believers, the ransomed of the LORD]—they will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away”(v. 10).
Of course, you and I don’t have to wait until Judgment Day to start singing God’s praises. We can do so already now. Look at how the lame and the deaf and the blind and the dumb reacted to Jesus’ work back in his day. They couldn’t stop telling others about what Jesus had done for them. This illustrates what a believer’s worship of Jesus should really be like, what our worship should be like. A believer who reminds himself daily of God’s great love for him and all that God has done for him doesn’t ask how much time he has to spend at church to show his gratitude. He doesn’t merely go through the motions of worship because that’s what’s expected of him. Not at all! He feels blessed to be in God’s house. He looks forward to worshipping his Lord and looks for ways to serve and thank him. And he just can’t keep quiet about Jesus either. He talks to his neighbors. He talks to his friends. He talks to people at work or at school. He just can’t help telling other people about Jesus and all that he has done for him. May that describe us too! May our worship of Jesus be anything but mechanical or superficial! May it come from the heart, a heart filled with joy and praise to our gracious God who has come to save us!
“He’s coming!” Such an announcement regarding the holy and just God could easily make our hearts race and our knees shake because of our sinfulness. And yet, the fact that God is coming doesn’t scare us, because we know that the God who is coming is also our Savior who already came to save us from our sins. And when he comes again, he will deliver us from this sin-filled world and he will fix our sin-infected bodies. He will take away our walkers and our canes, our hearing aids and our bifocals. And he will make our bodies whole and perfect and new. So our prayer is the same as John’s prayer in the book of Revelation, “Come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!!” Amen.