We might begin this morning with the words, “Happy New Year.” Today is the first Sunday in our New Church Year. Today is the first Sunday in Advent. Advent is the Latin word for “coming” and it is the time we use to get ready for the coming of our Savior. How fitting that our Church year begins with the birth of Jesus, because our whole church year calendar centers around Jesus; His birth, His life, His suffering, death, resurrection, and His promise to come again to take us to heaven with Himself.
Our text actually begins at the end of the previous chapter with Isaiah’s reminder to God of His promise to send a Redeemer. We read verses sixteen and seventeen (v. 16-17) of chapter sixty-three, “But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel acknowledge us; you, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name. Why, O LORD, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes that are your inheritance.”
God is our Father. In the beginning He created all of humanity. He created each one of us, personally, at our conception. Way back in the Garden of Eden God made His promise to send a Savior, a Redeemer. He made His promise immediately after Adam and Eve sinned. God’s promise was that a woman would have a Son who would crush the head of the Devil with a mortal wound and would Himself, in the process, would also suffer a mortal wound, that is this promised Savior would die, yet this Savior would rise from His wound. Notice also, that this Savior was promised to Adam and Eve, that is to all people. This promise was made before there was a Jew or a Gentile, before there were other nations, ethnicities and cultures. This Savior was promised to all people of all places of all times.
So that the world would not forget the Lord’s promise, He continually reaffirmed His promise with His people. In particular, the Lord reaffirmed His promise and at the same time narrowed the line of fulfillment of His promise with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the children of Israel. Notice that the promise was not changed, nor was a new promise made, simply the line of fulfillment of the original promise was declared. Because of man’s state of sinfulness, because of man’s always being about the things of this world instead of being about God’s work, because humans are forgetful, because of all these reasons and more, God had to continually remind His people of His promise and how He would keep His promises.
We see an example of how all humanity is in the lives of the children of Israel. The children of Israel were continually wandering away from God, from His promises, forgetting them, ignoring them, or outright refusing them. And then, when things would go wrong they would cry out to the Lord for help. Only after things got too rough for them, only then would they remember Him. We are really no different. When our lives are running rather smoothly, when things in life are going great we tend to forget God. It is not until something “bad” happens that we are snapped back to reality, the reality that God is the one who continually cares for us.
Our text begins with Isaiah’s prayer for the coming of the Lord’s judgement. We pick up at verses one (v. 1-5), “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?”
These verses contain harsh words of Law and judgement. Isaiah’s call for judgement is meant to frighten the nations who hold them captive and at the same time his words were meant to renew the faith of the children of Israel.
Isaiah wants God to show Himself with His mighty deeds in order to frighten the nations who oppress the children of Israel. Here we see the difference between God’s usual way of doing things and God’s unusual way. God’s usual way was a way of not showing Himself physically to people, rather that they saw Him through His mighty acts, and especially His mighty acts of judgement. Isaiah wants God to show these heathen nations that He alone is God by bringing down on them His worst. Isaiah also believes that if the children of Israel see the Lord’s judgement they will be snapped back to their senses and what little faith they might have will be strengthened.
God’s usual way of dealing with the children of Israel when they wandered from the faith was that He would confront them with there sin. They would deny their sin. He would then allowed for them to suffer the consequences for their actions, and when they returned, He was always gracious and forgiving.
What Isaiah wants in these verses is what we might call vindictive salvation, or salvation that kills. It is very much like what we see in the treatment of cancer patients. Radiation is used to kill the disease, but it also kills the person. It kills to bring life. Isaiah wants God to kill to bring life. He wants God’s harsh judgement on the heathen to bring life to the children of Israel.
Picking up at verse six (v. 6-9) Isaiah helps us better understand how God works. We read, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins. Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all your people.”
God is perfection. He is holy, blameless, without sin. Because we are imperfect and because God is perfection, anything on our part that strives for being good, or close to perfection, only looks bad, unclean, and as a filthy rag, in God’s eyes. That is why we do not strive to get to heaven by perfection. Our original sin puts a soiled mark on any of our attempts at perfection. Thus, we look forward to heaven, not because of anything within us, but rather, we look forward to heaven because Jesus has been perfect for us and because He has clothed us with His prefect righteousness. By faith in Jesus, His robes of righteousness become ours.
Isaiah also reminds us that we do not go looking for the Lord. We are not seekers, at least not in the sense that many suggest in our world today. We do the exact opposite. We sin and then we run away from our sin, or try thinking that it will go away. We sin and we try to hide. Why do you think most robbers do their work at night, so they will not been seen. We close the door when we sin so we will not be seen. We forget the God sees us always, even when we are in the midst of our sinning.
Lastly, Isaiah remembers that the Lord is God. As God, Isaiah reminds Him that He can do whatever He wants. He created us, He can recreate us. He is the potter, we are the clay, we are the work of His hands. And He does recreate us. He makes us new by the faith He puts in our hearts, faith in His Son who He sent to die on the cross for us.
Today is the first Sunday in Advent. How is this text an Advent text you might ask? Advent is the time we get ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth. We look forward to Jesus’ birth because without His birth our lives would only lead to physical death and eternal spiritual death. During Advent we are reminded that God created the world in the first place. We are reminded that He created us at our conception. And He recreated us spiritually through His Word and the waters of Holy Baptism. We are reminded that He gives us forgiveness through confession and absolution as well as forgiveness and strengthening of faith through His Holy Supper.
Jesus’ birth, life, suffering, death and resurrection is what God used to recreate the world. Jesus’ atoning death on the cross made us whole again. His death became ours when He recreated us at our baptism.
Advent reminds us that the Old Testament people were looking forward to the birth of the Savior. As New Testament people, we know what happened as we can look back with twenty-twenty vision and at the same time, we are looking forward to celebrating Jesus’ birth on Christmas morning.
At the end of the church year our eyes were focused on Jesus’ second coming. At the beginning of the church year we look forward to celebrating Christ first coming, His birth in Bethlehem, as we look forward to celebrating His first coming, we cannot help but also look forward to Christ’s second coming, when He will take us to be with Himself in heaven for eternity.
Isaiah does a wonderful job of reminding us that we have all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. The first sin happened in the Garden of Eden immediately following creation and that sin still infects our world today as sin still happens today. And yet, just as immediately as God promised to send a Savior, His one and only Son, to redeem us, to buy us back from our sin and to mold us into His divine image so God’s promise is just as immediate today, that is that even before we sin our sins have been forgiven. By grace through faith in Jesus we are recreated as children of God. And to that we respond, to God be the glory. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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