Anointed Redeemer, Set Us Free

Rev. Alex Sloter Isaiah 61:1-4 Anointed Redeemer, Set Us Free! Advent 3 (12/13/2020) Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Last week, we heard how God sent his people into exile because of their sin. The Babylonians came, destroyed Jerusalem, and tore down the temple. But we also heard God speak words of comfort to his waiting people. This week, the prophet Isaiah has a vision of a renewed Jerusalem. God sent his people into exile, punishing them for their sins, but now he has redeemed his people by bringing them home to rebuild. And rebuild they do. The physical structures of the city are restored, such as the temple and the walls, and the people are restored as well. Jerusalem is beginning to return to normalcy. One can almost see the old city again. Unfortunately, one can see old sins returning as well. Old Sins Reappear From chapters 56-59, the prophet details the sin he sees, “No one enters suit justly, no one goes to law honestly. They rely on empty pleas, they speak lies” (59:4). Israel was a litigious society where people tried to use the law to steal from others instead of doing justice. He also writes, “The shepherds (the leaders of Israel) have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each to his own gain, one and all” (56:11). The leaders of the people are too busy taking care of themselves to take care of their citizens. Political office is used to get rich instead of to serve. Again, Isaiah writes, “Your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness” (59:3). Lies are everywhere. No one knows what to believe or who is trustworthy. Violence and oppression are common. But it is not as though the people are blind to the wickedness of their nation. Most people know evil when they see it. So Isaiah writes, “Justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom…We hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.” God disciplined his people. He punished their sins. Then he redeemed them and sent them back to their land. But the same evil that condemned them before the exile condemns them again, and even though the people long for it, no solution is in sight. The problems of Israel keep resurfacing because they arise from the sinful human heart. Instead of God ruling the hearts of his people, sin does. So Israel can change leaders, the leaders after the exile were different from the ones before it, but corruption continues. It can get new judges, but spurious lawsuits and corrupt judgements still go on. It can give birth to a whole new generation of people, but the violence, oppression, and lies of the old generation reappear. Why? Because the root of the problem is the rule of sin in the human heart. And no power, policy, or person has ever devised a solution to that problem. God’s people were disciplined. God’s people were restored. But the problem of sin continued. In the words of the prophet, “We hope for salvation, but it is far from us.” The More Things Change… If you heard echoes of our own situation in the problems of ancient Israel, it is because we aren’t so different. As the proverb teaches, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” We too live in a litigious society where justice seems to depend more on the skill of the lawyer than the merits of the case. No one would argue that our leaders are corrupt. We complain every election that the choice is between bad and really bad. There are no good options. We don’t even need to mention the lies and violence that fill our news cycle. But while we are good at noticing societal evil, we are terrible at finding solutions. As soon as we solve one problem, another reappears. This happens because the evil we see on a societal level can’t be truly solved through power, policies, or people. The problem is the sinful human heart. That was the problem in Israel. And that is the problem today. To think on this just a little further, let’s pick a societal issue that most of us agree is sinful, and that we usually try to solve through power, people, and policies, such as abortion. This is a hard topic to talk about, but if you hang on over the next few minutes, I think you will see something you don’t expect. Most of us would agree that abortion is a sin. It is a sin because it denies another person the blessing of life. Sometimes, a person will choose to do this for convenience. Perhaps, the mother, or maybe more often, the father, didn’t plan to bring another person into the world, and the addition of a child would change their lives for the worse, or so they think. Other times, this path is taken out of fear. Maybe the mother or the father is afraid that they won’t be able to create a good life for themselves or for future children if they have one now. Maybe they are afraid of what other people will think or how they will be treated, and this choice gives them an avenue of escape from a bleak looking future. Fear and convenience, these are two common reasons for this sin, the denial of the blessing of life to another person. And it is an avenue sanctioned by our laws as being good, or at least necessary. As Christians, we often approach this problem as though it can be solved through power, policies, and people. We try to create legal restrictions on this act. That is a policy change. We also try to elect leaders who will appoint supreme court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. That is trying to solve the problem through power and people, winning elections and using the courts. This isn’t necessarily bad, and I hope that this will someday be illegal in our country, but we will not ultimately succeed in stamping out the sin of denying the blessing of life to another person through power, policies, or people because it arises from the sinful human heart. And there is no power, policy, or person that has been able to solve the problem of sin. If we look closely, we may even see that sin, the sin of denying the blessing of life to another person, lurking in our own hearts. Let me give you an example. Ashlie and I went out to lunch with a group of friends after church one Sunday. Alexander was about 10 months old. If you haven’t noticed yet, that boy is the joy of my life, but this particular day we placed our orders and waited for the food to come. Alexander likes sour food, so he sucked on the lemon wedges that came with our drinks. After about 20 minutes, our food arrived. My burger came with a pickle spear, which was one of my favorite parts of the meal. This place had great pickles. We prayed, and I shared a couple of french fries with Alexander. Then I reached for the pickle. Right before I put it in my mouth, I glanced at my son. He was looking at me with hopeful eyes. He wanted the pickle. And for a single moment, I wished he wasn’t there. That is terrible thing, to wish a person out of your life long enough to keep a pickle for yourself. Is it so far from denying the blessing of life to another person? Yes and no. On the one hand, it is not the same as abortion. But on the other hand, it is on the same spectrum of sin. Abortion is just an extreme example of a sin that lurks in every human heart, even my own. When faced with a choice between another person and itself, the sinful human heart will choose itself, often from fear or convenience. This shows up when a father wishes his son away over a pickle. It shows up when a child abandons an elderly parent because he has become a burden. It shows up when a person who is able to help someone in need refuses to do so. Sometimes these sins are motivated by convenience. I want to keep something for myself, like a pickle. I don’t want to care for a parent because my life is too busy already. Sometimes, they are motivated by fear. I don’t want to offer help because I am afraid that this other person may come to rely on me or take advantage of me in some way. Whether from fear or convenience, we often find ourselves denying the blessing of life to another person in our heart or in our actions. Abortion is just an extreme example of this sin. And who among us is guiltless in this area? Like the people of Isaiah’s day, we hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. There is no power, policy, or person who has been able to solve the problem of sin in the human heart. The Anointed Redeemer But to his waiting people, God speaks a message of hope. He will send an anointed Redeemer to free his people from their sins. In our reading this morning, the Redeemer speaks. He says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God. To comfort all who mourn in Zion…to give them the oil of gladness instead of mourning.” At first glance, the anointed Redeemer appears to be concerned with social ministry. He is preaching to the poor, opening the prisons, releasing the captives. And when the anointed Redeemer, Jesus Christ, arrives on the scene, he uses this text from Isaiah to describe his ministry. In Luke four, Jesus enters the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth and selects Isaiah 61 as his sermon text. He reads it, and every eye is fastened on him, waiting for what he will say next. And he declares, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” The anointed Redeemer had arrived. But then Jesus does something strange. Instead of rebuking Israel for social sins, or visiting prisons in order to demand the release of the captives, he begins to preach forgiveness. He casts out demons. He calls men and women to follow him. Why? Because he is attacking evil at its root. He is attacking sin in the human heart. Sin is the prison that truly enslaves us. It is the poverty that makes us truly poor. It is the disaster that makes us truly broken-hearted. If Jesus had come with a social program, he would have done no better than our current leaders, and they are all failures. But Jesus came with forgiveness. That is the key which unlocks every prison. He came to cast out demons, to overthrow the rule of sin in God’s human creatures. He came with healing, to bind together hearts broken by the evil that dwells in them. The anointed Redeemer came to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Where power, policies, and people fail, the anointed Redeemer succeeds. He sets us free. To every person trapped by sin, the anointed Redeemer proclaims release. To every person held in bondage to Satan, the anointed Redeemer commands freedom. To every person mourning the evil he sees in himself, the anointed Redeemer comforts and relieves. The anointed Redeemer, Jesus Christ, comes to his waiting people, you and me, to give us renewal. To attack sin at its source so that we can be free. There is no sin so small that Jesus doesn’t care enough to forgive it. There is no sin so great that the anointed Redeemer can’t wipe it away. That is true freedom. There is no heart so hard and shattered that it can’t be healed by the Redeemer’s hand. There is no grief so overwhelming that the Redeemer can’t replace it with joy. That is true renewal. Where power, policies, and people fail, the anointed Redeemer succeeds. He comes to set us free, even you and me. Go in peace, people loved by God, Amen.