Trinity 5 (Is 57)

We have walked through a few of the Gospel lessons in a row here in the first part of Trinity season and it seemed right that we take a moment and dig in on the Old Testament reading offered by our Lectionary.

We are in the book of Isaiah. Again Isaiah is a prophet to the court of King Josiah in the time of the Two Kingdoms. Israel after King Soloman had split into two kingdoms and though both had many bad kings, Israel seemed to strike out with only bad kings and God eventually sends the Assyrian army as his hand of justice to punish Israel by taking into exile and they do conquer much of Judah though God spares them the final step exile. That is Chapters 1-39 of Isaiah. In chapters 40-66 these are prophecies to people who would come 150 years later…Judah would eventually go into exile, Babylon not Assyria, and in his Mercy God would allow them to return from Exile. And this last half of Isaiah are oracles of comfort to those returning exiles.

In our section here today God is discussing what and eventual New Israel will be like and how it will be different from the Old Israel and how God will find a way to get past their Idolatry to allow them into Kingdom and Covenant life.

Verse 13: the critique. God is telling warning against their Idol worship. The wind will carry them off, a breath will take them away. This is hyperbolic but what God infers is that they are so useless and they are so fragile that small forces like wind and breath can over come them. This is put against the worship of the true God who will make good on the promise to give them land and his presence on the Holy Mountain.

Verse 14 prepares us for verse 15 in that God is saying the road to be one of Gods people come by contrition and bringing oneself low, prepare a road that is clear that the contrite might come before God. In tern God will see that contrition and act. Even though God is elevated, Holy, in the heavens he will respond to the contrite by condesending to the contrite. He will step off his throne and go to them…we need to remember that though this is written 600 years before Jesus, this is exactly what Jesus does. He condescends to us.

In fact this promise has so often caught the eye of commentators and is so wonderful to so many, it is one of the sentences we use to begin Morning and Evening Prayer. God does not watch dispassionate from his throne, he arrives, or as John 1:14 says.

These next three verses for me paint a great picture of Gospel truths that should be somewhere in our brains is we seek to share Jesus with our neigbor. We need to be able to tell people what happened on the cross.

And on the cross we see that God expresses perfect Mercy. Mercy is where you do not give someone what they deserve in the first place.

Or as Verse 16 says...

On the cross we see God’s perfect Justice. That is someone has to pay for the sins committed.

In verse 17 it says… and we know that in stead of fallen human taking that justice…Jesus takes on that Justice. He is the one who had God’s anger, he was the one who was struck out backsliding brought on him the violence of the cross

So we see that God is Merciful, we see that God is just…and then we see on the cross that God is Gracious. Grace is receiving a benefit that you do not deserve…it is different than mercy.

We are healed by the cross, comfort is restored at the cross. Our Mourning becomes dancing.

Verse 19 I will heal him!: That is there is a new nature given.

Main Point: Citizens of the Restored and Eternal Jerusalem are given new natures by God.

Isaiah predicts this work God will accomplish of making new creatures of us. And since we are talking in terms of creating new creatures, lets turn to Romans and see how exactly God applies this new life to his people,

Romans 6:3-4; we follow the condescended Jesus into his death so as to follow him into life. The new life that God grants in Isaiah is ours in Christ, he sealed it to us in the waters of baptism.

But see vs 5 we need to be united to Christ in these things and in its own way the waters of baptism do that. And for us who see this as an act God does completely on his own we apply it to infants. Not because they have an ability t respond but because they do not. The promise of salvation of God’s work alone is presented to the members fo his church who not only able yet to respond, but are not yet able to understand and yet it works because Gd is the worker and not the person. In this way the early reformers, saw baptism of our youngest children as the most amazing sign of God’s gracious work applied to those who have not ability respond.

Main Point: Citizens of the Restored and Eternal Jerusalem are given new natures by God.

Its hard that first time your kid lies to you and you know it. One time one of my kids just said “Well telling the truth just isn’t my thing. After that you just never know if they are telling you the truth for a while. Its usually when they are young and its usually about missing cookies crayon on the wall. But soon you are wondering about bigger things. Fights with sibs, grades and the like.

In the same way when we forsake the laws of God, when we brake the commandments the whole of our righteousness is affected. And not only do we carry the stain of our previous failings, we have inherited the fallen nature of our first spiritual father Adam. Our nature is fallen and our righteous deeds lack what is needed to be right with God. We need a new quality of Righteousness we need a new nature. And from where will it come. Of course the answer is given to us today in our Romans text. Our Baptism applies to us a new Nature. The old nature dies with Christ and there is a new resurrected nature put on us. We know have the quality of Character that is expected of the citizens of New Heavens, New Earth and New Jerusalem. We go from being the people at the beginning of Isaiah to the people at the end of Isaiah.

Jesus says in todays Gospel that our Righteousness needs to surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees. That level of righteous living will have to come from outside you. And because of his work on the cross it does come from outside you. On the Cross where Jesus dies on behalf of our old natures he also give us in exchange his righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees.

Main Point: Citizens of the Restored and Eternal Jerusalem are given new natures by God.

When asked what must we do Acts 2:38

Repent and Be Baptized...

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