God’s grace, peace
and mercy be with you. My sermon today is entitled Vision, and my focus
is our readings (Isaiah 49:1–7; 1 Cor. 1:1–9; John 1:29–42a). Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us
go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that we are within your gates, we rejoice to
hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our
hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity.
Amen.
Vision has various
meanings depending upon its context. When I am with my optometrist, vision is
about the health of my eyes. When I am gazing into a clear night sky, vision is
about constellations. When we met with our contractor, vision is about how we saw
the house we wanted him to build. When young people choose a career path,
vision is how they see themselves now and in the future as teachers, engineers,
financial managers, medical professionals or welders.
Vision involves
the eye and the imagination. It involves knowledge and experience. Vision
includes what I see before me now, and how we see ourselves as a congregation
in five years. That said, I want to spend some time today on what Isaiah, John the
Baptist and Paul saw, and then circle back to what we see.
First, Isaiah’s
vision. When we read of what God revealed to Isaiah in a vision, he saw the Lord
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the
temple (6:1). He was so overwhelmed at this sight, and became agonizingly aware
of God’s need for a messenger to the people of Israel, and, despite his own
sense of inadequacy, he offered himself for God’s service. When Isaiah “heard
the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’,
he said, “Here I am! Send me” (6:8).
Commissioned to
give voice to the divine word was no light undertaking. Isaiah was to condemn
his own people and watch the nation crumble and perish. He was aware that,
coming with such a message, he would experience bitter opposition, willful
disbelief, and ridicule. All this came to him in the form of a vision and ended
as a sudden, firm, and lifelong resolve.
In today’s
chapter, Isaiah calls the whole world to listen. “Listen” is a summons commonly
used by the prophets, but “Listen to me” is used only by Isaiah, and only when
he speaks of the Lord (46:3; 48:12; 51:1; 55:2). Isaiah was not a political
figure, but spoke of the release of prisoners (42:7; 49:9) and a journey to a
new land (42:16; 49:9-12). The release of bondage into freedom is not of the
feet, but the mind and heart. Now, we all know people who have been bound to
wheelchairs or beds for years or decades, but the Word of God released them, perhaps
not from a physical bond, but their minds and hearts.
Isaiah realized
that Israel, then exiled to Babylon, was incapable of living up to what it meant
to be Israel. In chapter 48, we see the evidence that Israel
forfeited all rights to that name as God foretold it (48:1-8). Therefore, God
either had to accept the failure of his plans and promises or find a true and
worthy Israel, a new Servant. Isaiah’s vision is that this Servant would be a
wonderful new beginning of God’s plan.
Isaiah saw that
God desired to gather Israel not to be simply a servant, but to be a light for
the nations so that His salvation could reach to the end of the earth (49:6).
And yet, God’s Holy One would be thoroughly despised, rejected, abhorred and
hated by the nation’s rulers. To understand why God’s Holy One would be treated
like this, we can turn to The Three Uses of the Law in Luther’s Small
Catechism.
The Law serves as
a curb, mirror and guide. God’s Law helps to control violent outbursts of sin
and keeps order in the world. It accuses us and shows us our sin. Finally,
God’s Law teaches us what we should and should not do to live a God-pleasing
life; and the power to live according to the Law comes from the Gospel.
So, if the Holy
One of God teaches that following God’s Law shows us how to control our
behavior, most reasonable people would agree that can be accomplished. On the
other hand, if the Holy One holds a mirror which shows us and accuses us of
sin, we may not be so agreeable with that. I mean, the mirror does not lie. It
shows us something about ourselves that we welcome or reject; in this case,
that we are sinning or missing the mark. Now imagine the Servant holding up
that mirror to an entire people and showing them their sin and accusing them
before God. How would “God’s People” respond to that?!
The Servant struggled
as he spent his strength carrying out what God appointed him to do. He had been
faithful, spared no expense, and saw nothing coming out of his effort. Nothing
has been achieved. All has been a waste of effort. Initially, he became
despondent, but it is revealed to him that it is not for him to decide. So, he
turns from his own “wisdom” and rests in the God who called and appointed him.
Resting in God is the antidote to the Servant’s despondency. It is also
revealed to him that it is the power of God that brings forth fruit.
What we see in the
life of Isaiah, we see in the life of Jesus. It is why Jesus prayed to His
Father in Gethsemane, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.
Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark
14:36). Before I move from Isaiah’s vision to John’s, I leave you with this
piece of advice I received many years ago when I was newly ordained. Later
today, ponder this: If you ever grew despondent being God’s servant in whatever
capacity that has been in your life (spouse, parent, adult, teen), did it dawn
on you to rest in Jesus and allow His Father to bring forth the fruit?
John’s Vision.
When the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him, he saw the Lamb of God. Sometimes
when we read the Bible we do not hang onto every word and phrase. That said,
let’s consider who John was. His parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were
advanced in age when he was born. His father was a priest, and his mother was a
descendant of Aaron. Upon his birth, Zechariah prophesied, “Blessed be
the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people and set them free. He
has raised up for us a mighty savior, born of the house of his servant David. …
You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go
before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1:68-69, 76-77).[1]
As a child, John
grew and became physically and spiritually strong. His parents were not poor,
but John embraced poverty. He lived in the wilderness, wore a sackcloth made
from camel hair held up by a leather strap, and ate grasshoppers with wild
honey.[2] Because he was dedicated
as a Nazirite and never drank wine or any strong drink. He was also filled with
the Holy Spirit even when he was in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15). John also
was a member of the Essene community, a Jewish mystical sect somewhat resembling
the Pharisees who lived lives of ritual purity and separation. In the
wilderness he preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
It's important to
know what kind of Jewish man John was because, like every one of us, John’s
vision was formed by all of this. His vision was unlike that of many of the
people who surrounded him. Think of John’s vision in this way. As a 65-year-old
white male whose descent is 100% Polish, raised Catholic, now serving as a
pastor in the Lutheran Church for ten years after twenty-some in the Catholic
Church, I see Jesus differently than other people. Since your background is
different from mine, you see Jesus differently than I do. Our own particular
backgrounds effect our vision of Jesus.
So, what did John
see when he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the
world!”? What is the Lamb of God? What is it to any Jew of John’s day?
What is it to you?
When a Jew heard “Lamb
of God” it brought to mind the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt under the
mighty hand of God. At that initial Passover, each family was to procure a lamb
that qualified for the redemption of the Israelites. It had to be a perfect one-year-old
male sheep, which was slaughtered and eaten. The head of every household
anointed the lintels of the house with the blood of the lamb (Ex 12). The blood
of the lamb was a sign to God that the people of this house belonged to Him so
that He would not kill the firstborn male when He passed over the house.
Later, in the
Torah when blood sacrifices were introduced, the Lord also explained why these
sacrifices were needed for the forgiveness of the sins of the Israelites. We
read in Leviticus, “The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have
given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the
blood that makes atonement by the life” (17:11). So, the blood of the
Lamb of God took away the sins of the people, but the sacrifices were executed repeatedly.
John proclaimed Jesus as Lamb of God because he saw him as the one who would be
sacrificed to take away our sins forever, meaning that Jesus was the perfect
and final sacrifice.
Now, keep in mind
that the blood of the lamb on the original Passover was also a sign that these
people belonged to God. Jewish males were signed through circumcision to
indicate that they belonged to God (Gen 17). Similarly, Roman soldiers were signed
with the tattoo of SPQR and other permanent dots to identify their allegiance to
the empire and their membership in a certain unit. And at your baptism, you
were anointed and signed with the Cross of Christ to identify you as belonging
to Jesus Christ.
Paul’s Vision. In
1st Corinthians today (1:1-9), Paul sees the Church, the people, as
sanctified in Christ Jesus, that is they were made holy by God through their
baptism. He refers to this repeatedly throughout the Letter. His vision of
these Christians was that they were saints joined to all the other baptized
Christians throughout the world. Through this Letter, Paul explained the
Church’s teaching and corrected the faults of erroneous teaching, but never lost
sight of the fact that the members were saints.
As saints today,
we all need to be reminded of the true teaching of the Church, which is why we
read, alongside the Bible, the catechisms and other writings in the Book of
Concord, which keep us from misinterpreting what the Bible says to us
today.
Our Vision. That
said, what is our vision of the Church? What is your vision not only of this
congregation, but also of our Eastern District, Synod and 35 Sister Churches
throughout the world? What is my vision?
My vision of all
of these Church bodies, and particularly this one is that we are all saints who
constantly sin. And as a friend of mine said, “I am the chief sinner among
you.” That is why I need God’s mercy and forgiveness that has been and is given
to me through Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. That is why I heed the spiritual
advice of Martin Luther.
Luther once wrote
that each day we should all do these four things. First, recite the Apostle’s
Creed because it tells us what we are to believe. Second, meditate on the Ten
Commandments because they tell us how to live. Third, recite the Lord’s Prayer
because it tells us how to pray. Fourth, ponder our Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper, which we should receive often, because they are the means of God’s
grace that strengthen us. That is my vision of saints who need and seek God’s
mercy and forgiveness.
Here is my hope:
that you heed Dr. Luther’s advice and take on this daily practice. I hope that
you would do it not because it will separate you from the world but because the
world needs you. You carry God’s message and God’s vision into the world
because nobody else is. Do this like Isaiah, John the Baptist and Paul did.
Spare no expense and embrace the struggle which God appointed you to do, and
then rest in God’s arms and you will see what God can do. Do that, and may the
peace of God which is beyond all understanding keep your heart and mind in
Christ Jesus. Amen.
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