Sexagesima CTK 2026

Good morning, to many of you, we have had the joy of meeting and there is no need for introduction, for some of you I am a stranger, and I will just quickly say I am Father Andrew, and it is a joy to worship with you. Please come say hi after the service if you would like to connect, it would be an absolute joy to make your acquaintance.

In this moment we bring our focus to the reading of the day and where we are in the church Calendar. I am sure it goes without saying that we now sit in a hyperspace between epiphany and lent, and those three Sundays are known as Gesima Sundays. Last week Septuagesima, was focused on the toil and the labor that is ours on this side of the fall of man in the garden, next week will be quinquagesima, and our focus will be the Holy Spirit animating love with us, and in his gif tof a love unlocking in us what we need to follow after God.

This week Sexagesima, we are specifically focused on the necessity of God’s word, and how if creates the faith in us to follow after God and to please him, as the book of Hebrews states, without faith there is no pleasing God.

Our Old Testament reading shows us a hearing of God’s word that creates in us obedience. Lets examine this text together.

Firs the context, we are in the book of Isaiah, in the second half. This matters because the chapters 1-39 of Isaiah are prophecies to the people contemporary to Isaiah. He was talking to the kings that ruled in his time and the people of his time. This changes in Isaiah 40, where he begins to give prophecies of comfort to later Israelites who will be returning from exile 150 years in the future. And this second half of the book their are these songs of the servant, these songs of the suffering servant, that faithful Israel who will do what Israel could not to, remain faithful in hard times.

King James Version (Chapter 50) 4  The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned.That I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.

We will see God act 5 times in these verses and each time the faithful servant will do what is right by God in response.

God first gives him a tongue, a learned tongue to speak the word of God as a comfort for the weary. This is in opposition of the faithless Israel who spoke not to the weary but used the religion of Yahweh to court favor with those in high places and became corrupt.

And look at this phrase, “He awakened morning by morning…” Is Isaiah giving us a picture of a God who sleeps. We worship a God who has no need, no hunger no tiredness, who is always vigilant, whose eyelids do not block his vision so that even his eyelids try the hearts of men. Why would he be described as sleeping. It is no that he sleeps, it is that like a man waking up and prioritiazing his day with the most important things first. God has prioritized the the hearing of the learned. This becomes important when we see God’s second action.

5  The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, And I was not rebellious, Neither turned away back. 6  I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.

Second action of God, he opened the ear of his servant, the faithful Israel, and in response the faithful Israel stood tall and was unashamed by the mistreatment of others. We are going to see shame verses honor in a significant way in this text, as the opposition comes trying to bring this servant low. The faithless Israel of old was put to much shame, so much so that they are eventually conquered and evicted from the land that God had given them. God shames them because of their disobedience, misplaced pride. This faithful servant the faithful Israel responds in righteousness.

7  For the Lord GOD will help me; Therefore shall I not be confounded: Therefore have I set my face like a flint, And I know that I shall not be ashamed.

God helps his servant. And with Gods help the servant is not confounded, kalam. What old English called confounded, modern English translates into humiliated, in the Christian Standard Bible or put to shame in the ESV.

The servant has a face like flint and his enemies cannot shame his as God is is helper. God comes to his aid, what could one possible lack with the God of the universe coming to our aid.

8  He is near that justifieth me. Who will contend with me? let us stand together: Who is mine adversary? let him come near to me.

So I am at home reading in preparation for today and see this fourth help offered by God. I read it first in the ESV bible, just happens to be what I have to hand, and I read that God vindicates me, and this is important because the servant, in light of God’s vindication, is given strength to stand up to the adversary. “Who is my adversy?” he call out. “Let him come to me.” I stop and I read these verses again in the King James and the verb is not vindicate, but justify! and I sat up and took notice. To be justified, this obsession of the reformers, including those who give us Anglican Christianity and the Book of Common prayer. To be justified is to be vindicated and able to come before God, to stand in his presence.

God justifies Israel, in the presence of our Adversary the Devil, that serpent that liar from the beginning. The New Israel with its suffering servant will have what the old Israel could not. Righteousness before God, not my its own accomplishment but by God’s. This was so important to the reformers that Luther once loudly declared, “The article of justification is the article by which the church stands or falls.”

The devil would want you to believe that you are not right before God. That there is too much evidence for the prosecution and you are condemned. But we need not fear or falter. God justifies, he vindicates. “And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed his truth to triumph through us.”

What is this triumphal truth, the Son of Man, who has victory on the Cross, victory in the empty tomb, is ascended and stands victorious at God’s right hand. There he advocates for the saints, he presents the evidence for the defence. This ones name is written in the book of life. This one is a child of God, This one is hidden in Christ, this one ones sins have been satisfied, this one belongs to me. They are baptised

And when we understand that in our baptism we are transformed from being accused into being the accused and condemned to the acquitted of Christ.

9  Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; Who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.

And though much of what makes verse 8 wonderful is restated in verse nine, verse nine adds for us needed nuance. The victory of God is not just Israels vindication and justification, it is also the victory over the enemies of God who will wear away in defeat. Like a garment, eaten by a moth.

10  Who is among you that feareth the LORD, That obeyeth the voice of his servant, That walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the LORD, And stay upon his God.

The three characters of the text have this far been, God, the first mover, the main actor. The servant, the main beneficiary of God’s action, and we have the enemies of God who will be destroyed and subdued by God and no longer overcome the Servant, the New Israel.

Verse ten, turns from those three Characters and begins to challenge the audience. It has almost an altar call. Who is among you, that feareth the Lord. Who among you obey the voice of his servant. Who among you walketh in darkness, and hath no light.

Trust in the name of the Lord!, stay upon God. in the old english or lean on him relay on him

The Servant has given us a way to do what could not have been done without intervention, but now God expects that we get on board, we stop walking in darkness, but to turn and obey the servant. The hearer is expected to repent, and believe. Repentance, turning from an old way and facing and going a new way.

So what applications could we take from this text.

Application one: The Servant in his obedience does not avoid persecution, but is shown faithful in persecution.

If we are to be in the New Israel we need to understand that persecution is a standard experience for most Christians. I admit in my little Christianized rural county, being a person of faith continues tobe a social benefit most of the time. Even teaching in a public school I am rarely needing to be careful with my words.

And its easy to imagine the persecution of Christians to be a problem of the far off developing world, the things we read about like the killings and kidnappings in Nigeria, or Burkina Faso, we forget, what happens next door in places like Colombia.

A Catholic Country with a garuntee of religious freedom in their laws, yet in the far flung regions where the church stands up to war lords and drug king pins, they are visited with violence extortion, and murders. The persecution of Christians around the world comes home to our own back yard as there are equivalent persecutions in the remote ares of many Central American areas including Mexico, right on our border.

We must be ready to stand with the persecuted and even be persecuted our selves if God should call us to it.

Second There is an ancient Israel and as I have said it fails God’s tests. The tests of righteous speech, hearing, shamed by outsiders, and obedience. For their failure they have been split up scattered and exiled, and Isaiah is prophesying words of hope to the returning exiles.

But there is now a Newer and better Israel that passes God’s tests. Adam fails the test of food, but jesus tells the devil man does not live by bread alone, Abraham the father of many, lies about who his wife is, he forces himself on his slave hagar, afraid to die without an heir, but Jesus without marrying and having children is now our Abba, for all of us. Moses delivers a nation but is kept from the promise land, Jesus goes ahead of us to open the doors of heaven for us. David, the great king uses his power to visit violence on his own general and steal the mans wife. Jesus sets aside his power and is the object of violence and sets us free from our sings.

And if we are in Christ, that status granted to us in baptism, we are members of the new Israel and not exiles in Babylon but citizens of Heaven.

Third: The only right response to the Gospel is repentance, to turn from sin and to cling to Jesus. If God acts to open your mouth use it not for lies and treachery but to proclaim the goodness of God. If he opens your ears stand attentive to his word. If he comes to be your helper then you must come along side and help others, if he vindicates and justifies you then you must set aside sin and follow.

I know many of us come from backgrounds where the altar call was was not stewardarded with appropriate care. But we truly believe that this communion meal that we embark on is the Altar call given to us by the ancent church, that week after week we can repent from worldly pleasures and temptations and respond in faith to the God with our hands extended a new Israel of the servant.