Monday, April 14, 2014

“Opening Our Ears to Hear Jesus” (Isaiah 50:4-51:8) Sermon notes for Isaiah 50.4-9, Palm Sunday, Confirmation Day ‘14


1.      Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Well, today is the day confirmands you will confirm your faith you received at your Baptism.  You’ve had three years of instruction and now you’re ready!  But, I want you to know that this isn’t your graduation day.  It’s not the day you graduate from Church like you do from school.  No.  Your learning and growing in the Christian faith isn’t finished.  It’s my prayer, the prayer of your families, and of this congregation that you will continue to hear the words of our Lord Jesus all the years of your life, until Christ calls you to His heavenly home.  That you would remember the catechism that you’ve been taught and continue to put your faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior from sin, death, and the power of the devil.  The message from God’s Word this morning is taken from Isaiah 50:4-9 and is entitled, “Opening Our Ears to Hear Jesus,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.      Why do we have ears on the outside of our heads? Why not on the inside? Because we’re not supposed to listen to ourselves. I wonder how much of our misery stems from our almost religious devotion to our own thoughts and feelings. We spend every moment of our lives within a mental universe. The quality of that environment matters. Are our ears open to the Word of God? Do we understand what it means to listen to God?
3.      Confirmands, do you remember studying your memory work these past few years?  Do you remember how you worked so hard to memorize those verses of Scripture?  To learn the 6 chief parts of the catechism?  Why did you do that?  So that your ears, your heart, and your mind were focused on the Word of God and on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  You may not think that your memory work means a whole lot now, but you’ll be surprised at how it will reappear in your minds later in life when you’re faced with a difficult situation, where the words of the Lord will instruct you on how to act and live.  I’m still amazed at how the 80 and 90 year old homebound members I visit are still able to recite the catechism to me and the verses of Holy Scripture they learned so many years ago.
4.      In the New Testament we are told, “He who has ears, let him hear.” If the Bible urges us to use our ears, they must be important. Think of the words of the prophet: “Hear the word of the Lord” (e.g., Jeremiah 2:4). Go all the way back to the foundation of Israel’s faith: “Hear, O Israel” from Deuteronomy 6. At least 394 times the Old Testament refers to the word of God coming to us.
5.      The Christian faith has come to us in words, not images that we see on the computer or TV screen.  If God’s way of getting through to us is the Word, then we need to learn what it means to listen.  Isaiah brings us to the third of his four Servant Songs in Isaiah 50. It’s about listening. The nation of Israel had a hearing problem, and it was their undoing (48:8). But the Servant of the Lord was a good listener. He had an ear constantly open to God (50:4, 5). The one who fears the Lord also listens obediently to the servant (50:10). All who seek righteousness are good listeners (51:1, 4, 7). Dr. Isaiah is calling us in for a hearing check. He wants to retune our ears so we can hear the word of God again.
6.      The Lord’s servant appears first in Isaiah 50:4–9.  Here Isaiah writes, 4The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.  Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.  5The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward.  6I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.  7But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame.  8He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together.  Who is my adversary?  Let him come near to me.  9Behold, the Lord God helps me;  who will declare me guilty?  Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.”  Only Jesus can open our ears so that we may believe in Him and His Word and gladly hear and learn it.
7.      The truth is we’re disobedient servants.  We often despise preaching and God’s Word.  Being a Christian is hard work.  We’re constantly at war against our Old Adam, our old sinful nature.  Because of our sin we will often find other more entertaining things to do rather than hearing and receiving the life giving Word of God.  Our sinful nature wants us to despise the faith that was given to us in our Baptisms, to think that the Lord’s Supper is merely bread and wine and not also the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
8.      Like hired servants, we rebel against God’s Law.  We don’t want to learn and listen to our master’s teaching.  Confirmands how hard was it to come to class week after week for the past three years?  We rebel against our master in sinful disobedience.  We run away from our Lord Jesus if we feel that our lives are threatened like the disciples did when they abandoned him in his hour of need.  Our disobedience and unwillingness to listen to God’s Word has made us servants of sin.  Those who sin are servants of sin (Jn 8:34).  And, because we’re servants of sin, we don’t serve our neighbors in love.
9.      But, thanks be to God that Jesus is the true Servant.  Jesus is obedient to his Father’s teaching.  He’s given the tongue of those who are taught (v 4), and he speaks the Father’s Word.  He’s given the ear of those who are taught (v 4), and he listens to the pleas of his people.  Jesus is obedient to his Father’s will (v 5).  He actively obeys by serving God and his neighbor.  He passively obeys by giving his back to those who strike, his cheeks to those who pull out his beard. He didn’t hide his face from disgrace and spitting (v 6).  And what’s more?  Jesus is even obedient unto death all for you.  When he was accused and tortured, he “set [his] face like a flint” (v 7).  Jesus remained in faithful service to his Father, even though it ended in his death on the cross.
10.  Christ, the true Servant, serves us with his perfect obedience.  Baptism connects us to the obedience of Jesus.  Baptism gives us obedient ears to hear Christ’s Word rightly.  Baptism gives us obedient tongues to confess Christ’s Word to a disobedient world that surrounds us.  The true Servant serves us his body and blood to forgive all of our disobedience.  Christ’s Divine Service to us moves us to serve him and our neighbors in love.  As Christ’s perfect obedience was vindicated, so will we who are in Jesus be vindicated (vv 8–9a).  Christ was vindicated when he was raised to life at the end of this holy week.  We will be vindicated when, in the resurrection, all will see that God has declared us perfectly obedient by our incorporation into Jesus.
11.  The true Servant is the one we see on Palm Sunday, riding into Jerusalem in humbleness on the colt of a donkey. He’s the Suffering Servant, who goes forward to the cross in obedience to his Father’s plan of redemption. The hymns proclaim, “A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth” (LSB 438:1) and “Ride on, ride on in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die” (LSB 441:2). It’s for us sinful servants that Jesus obediently goes forth to die. The faithful Servant will die for us sinful servants, an exchange of sorts.  But, the true Servant is also the risen Servant, who is present here to serve us with his perfect obedience. Because of his Divine Service, we’re no longer servants of ourselves and servants of sin listening to our own sinful nature, but we’re transformed into servants in his likeness. We’re freed from listening to and serving our sin in order to serve God and our neighbor.  Amen.


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