Sermon -- 16th Sunday after Pentecost (September 8, 2024)

ISAIAH 35:3-7

THE MESSIAH COMES WITH A JOYFUL REWARD.

In the name + of Jesus.

     Unbelievers have always challenged the Bible and the Christian faith.  If you’ve never heard these challenges before, you may become unsettled by them.  Some sound quite compelling, causing even devout Christians to wonder if they have been played for fools who were gullible enough to accept the Bible as truth.  If you ever find yourself questioning the Bible because of these challenges, you need to speak to your pastor.  Just letting these questions linger in your mind will not give you any answers or any peace.  It also allows the devil to stir up more doubt.  You end up listening to the reasoning of unbelievers rather than listening to God and his word.  When you stop listening to God’s word, it is only a matter of time before you reject it.  What’s worse, you will commend yourself for becoming so smart for walking away from the Christian faith, as if you’ve cracked some secret code.  The most outspoken atheists used to be Christians.  It is a very real danger, and you should be on guard against it—especially teens and twenty-somethings.  You are the prime targets.

     The Bible and the Christian faith will always be under attack.  But the Lord himself has given abundant evidence that his word proves to be both true and reliable.  Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord turns the tables and goes on the attack against his enemies.  He challenges every false god: “Set forth your case, says the Lord; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob.  Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen.  Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come.  Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified.  Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you” (Isaiah 41:21-24).  God mocks all false gods: “Do something.  Do anything.  Bring disaster so I have some reason to be afraid of you.  Impress me.”  Of course, false gods can do nothing because they are nothing.

     The Lord does not just lob mockery.  The Lord does what he challenges the false gods to do.  He lays out his plans.  He makes prophecies and issues promises.  If they do not come true, then we can mock God and dismiss him as a fraud.  But since the Lord fulfills his word, we had better pay attention to everything he says.  He proves that he is God.  He proves his word stands.  He proves that he is to be taken seriously.  And he proves himself capable of doing whatever he says he will.

     In our Old Testament lesson, the Lord lays out his plans for the future.  Isaiah proclaims that the Lord himself will come to bring salvation to his people.  The Messiah comes with a joyful reward. 

     As Isaiah speaks of the Lord’s salvation, he is like a man who looks through a telescope at a mountain range.  He sees three peaks in the distance, and they look like they are right next to each other.  So, when Isaiah speaks about the Lord coming to deliver, it seems like the events are simultaneous.  But when you approach the mountain peaks, you realize that they are far apart from each other.  The Lord comes with his joyful reward, but his coming is spread out over three times.

     The first deliverance would follow the Babylonian Captivity.  The Babylonians were still 100 years off, but Isaiah already prophesies Israel’s deliverance to a people who would be crushed in spirit.  The faithful people of God would be few.  They would see their temple burned to the ground, the city of Jerusalem destroyed, and their lives uprooted.  Their hands would be weak.  Their knees would be wobbly.  They would have anxious hearts as they were exiled to a foreign land.  But the Lord would come with his deliverance.  He would bring back a remnant to the Promised Land.  The Lord would restore the temple, rebuild Jerusalem, and reaffirm his promise.  He would come with a joyful reward.  God had foretold it, and God fulfilled it.

     The greater fulfillment of this promise is found in Jesus.  Isaiah gives us a vivid image of how to recognize the Messiah.  “‘Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.  He will come and save you.’”  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy” (Isaiah 35:4-6). 

     The Old Testament records a few miraculous healings.  Naaman, the leper, was cleansed.  Hezekiah was healed and granted 15 extra years of life.  Even the dead sons of widows were raised by Elijah and Elisha.  But there is no record of the blind receiving sight or the lame walking again.  There are no deaf or mute whose hearing or speech was restored.  When Jesus came and performed these healings, it was unprecedented.  It was, however, foretold.  God had said, “If you want to know the Messiah, this is what he will do.”  And Jesus did it.  The Messiah comes with a joyful reward.  The Lord had foretold it, and the Lord fulfilled it.

     When John the Baptist was in prison, he sent his disciples to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another” (Matthew 11:3)?  Jesus told them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see” (Matthew 11:4).  Then Jesus referenced these very words from Isaiah.  God had foretold it, and then God fulfilled it. 

     The Messiah comes with his joyful reward.  Even though Jesus brought healing to many, it was all temporary.  Those who were healed still died.  What keeps people out of the kingdom of heaven is not being blind, deaf, lame, or mute.  These are debilitating, but not damning.  Sin damns.  Sin brings the curse.  Evidence of that curse is experienced in various disabilities and diseases, but the curse is not removed by being cured of those things.  Corrective lenses, hearing aids, and prescription medicine are blessings, and we are grateful that they make life easier, but they do not allow anyone to escape death.  Therefore, the Messiah comes with a reward far greater.  He comes to bring deliverance from death and damnation.

     “Be strong; fear not!  Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.  He will come and save you” (Isaiah 35:4).  Jesus did not come to pour out vengeance upon sinners, but rather he made himself the target of that vengeance.  The Lord cannot overlook sin.  He has declared through St. Paul, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).  And true to his word, all die because all are sinners. 

     But also true to his word, “the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  All our guilt is transferred to Jesus who has intentionally taken it from us.  And since Jesus bears all guilt, he also takes into himself all punishment.  God avenges all sin through his Son who is damned at the cross for us.  Jesus died the death that sinners deserve, and he died it for all sinners.  Jesus suffered the damnation that we had earned, and he was damned on behalf of all.  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).  God had foretold it, and God has fulfilled it, just as Isaiah has said, “Be strong; fear not!  Behold, your God … will come and save you” (Isaiah 35:4).  The Messiah has come with his joyful reward.

     We have come to two of the mountain peaks, but how far off is that third peak?  The Church has been marching toward it for two millennia, and it seems like the Lord’s deliverance is still a long way off.  The trek is hard.  It is disheartening to see the wickedness around us.  If it is not another school shooting, it is the abandonment of morals.  We have gotten to the point where a man who upholds the vocation of wife and stay-at-home mother as honorable is vilified as a horrible human being.  We have come to a place where people who know the difference between boys and girls could lose their jobs.  We are almost to the point where nothing is regarded as perversion anymore.  It gets hard.  Hands grow weak.  Knees wobble.  Hearts turn anxious.  Since God’s word is forever true and never fails, we know that we are standing on solid ground. 

     This is what the Lord says: “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not!  Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.  He will come and save you’” (Isaiah 35:3-4).  Yes, the Messiah will come again.  He will come to judge the living and the dead.  Those who have despised and rejected his word will be cut off from God forever.  It is what they wanted all their lives, and it will be granted to them for eternity.  God will avenge his glory, uphold his word, and execute justice.

     But the Messiah will come with his joyful reward for you.  He will come and save you.  Isaiah’s prophesy might seem a bit obscure.  “Waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes” (Isaiah 35:6-7).  The world is under the curse of sin, and we see that in large tracts of land which are uninhabitable.  No one is building cities in the Saraha Desert.  But we look forward to a new heaven and a new earth.  Eden will be restored, and the barren places will be lush with blessings.  On the Last Day, the Messiah will come with his joyful reward—a perfect Paradise free from sin and sorrow and every evil.

     There will always be people who mock God, challenge the Bible, and try to convince you that you are a fool for believing any of it.  They will boast that they are smart, but they are fools who believe that there are no consequences for their actions or attitudes.  They deny their own consciences which bear witness that they are accountable and that a judgment is coming.  And recognize this: Those who would seduce you away from Jesus have no hope to offer you.  They have nothing to atone for guilt and regret.  They provide no escape from death and the grave.  They have no Savior, so they can never have peace. 

     But the Lord has foretold what he would do for sinful mankind.  He repeated his promises and prophecies throughout the Old Testament.  And whatever the Lord said he would do, he did.  The Messiah came with his joyful reward.  The Lord foretold it, and the Lord fulfilled it.  Be strong; fear not!  Behold, your God has come and saved you.  Behold, your God will come again.  He will come and save you.  The Messiah will come with his joyful reward.  The Lord has foretold it, and the Lord will fulfill it.

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.