“Opening Our Ears to Hear Jesus” Isaiah 50.4-9, Palm Sunday, April ‘17

1.       Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word this morning as we begin Holy Week with Palm Sunday 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.       For instance, it’s ironic, but a person could come to church every Sunday—including Palm Sunday and Easter—and not see the whole picture. The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and the glorious resurrection give us a picture of Christ we all love to see—seated on a donkey, radiant, worshiped, victorious. But if that’s all we see, we miss our very salvation. Forgiveness and eternal life look also like the rest of Holy Week: a weakened and bloody man, his back shredded by the whip, humiliated by the plucking one by one of hairs from his beard, cheeks and eyes dripping with the spit of mocking soldiers. Can you see that?  Can you hear that with your ears the passion and suffering that our Lord Jesus endured for you for the forgiveness of your sins? Jesus, 7 inch spikes fixing him to the cross, for every breath forced to lift his chest by pushing against those nails in his feet, pulling against those nails through his wrists, the wounds in his back being reopened with each struggle against the rough wood. Our word excruciating comes from the Latin meaning “out of the cross.” Can you see that? Can you feel that?  Can you hear the pain and suffering our Lord Jesus endured for you? As part of the humiliation of crucifixion, victims were usually naked, really naked, no tastefully-placed white loincloth. Mothers, can you picture your sons made a public spectacle like that? We’re not allowed to see that in our stained glass windows. But our salvation looks like that. Without it, there’s no reason for Palm Sunday, and there’s no Easter for us. That’s Jesus giving us glory and victory. So we should see it and hear it, this week.

4.       Do you remember studying your memory work when you were in Lutheran Day School, Confirmation class, and Sunday School?  Why did you do that?  Why do you suppose that we go through the observance of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter year after year, after year?  So that your ears, your heart, and your mind are focused on the Word of God and on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  When you’re younger, you may not think that your Bible memory work means a whole lot, 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.

5.       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.

6.       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.

7.       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.

8.       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.

9.       Like hired servants, we rebel against God’s Law.  We don’t want to learn and listen to our master’s teaching.  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.

10.   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.

11.   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.

12.   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.

“The Promise of a Cosmopolitan Exodus,” Isaiah 11.11–16, Lenten Midweek # 6

1.       Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer.  Amen.  The message from God’s Word in our Lenten Midweek series, “Coming Home from Exile: The Exoduses of the Scriptures,” is taken from Isaiah 11:11-16 and is entitled, “The Promise of a Cosmopolitan Exodus.”  Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.       Sometimes it sounds as if God has promised more than he can deliver. We might even wonder whether he’s just joking around with us. I mean, what military planner wouldn’t have to stop his laughter upon being told that the walls of Jericho would be blown down by lung power alone? Did God laugh when he gave that order? Or what doctor wouldn’t chuckle at heaven when Moses bid dying Israelites gaze up at a bronze snake to be cured of their snakebites? There’s no way he could be serious, is there? And we’re even told that Lot’s sons-in-law thought he was merely joking when he informed them that God was going to reduce Sodom to one big ashtray by sunrise. It sounded far too far-fetched. But as we know, the Lord was not speaking tongue in cheek to Joshua, Moses, or Lot. He was serious, dead serious.

3.       So also, as impossible, even laughable, as it seemed, the Lord wasn’t kidding when he told old childless Abraham that through him would arise descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore. God meant what he said. Through this one man, Christ would bless all the nations of the earth. It sounded as if God had bitten off more than he could chew. Why, Abraham was—if you’ll pardon the expression—a prime candidate for Viagra! And Sarah, his wife, dazzling though she was, would’ve been cashing Social Security checks! In fact, when eavesdropping on her husband’s visit with God, Mrs. Abraham began to giggle when she overheard that she, at her age, was to be a mother. So about a year later, when Sarah, at the youthful age of—ahem—90 years, held a baby boy in her arms, Abraham gave him the name Isaac, which means laughter (Gen 21:3). You see, it was God who had the last laugh, as he always does. While his skeptical people chuckle and shake their heads, he comes through and does what he says, without fail.

4.       But always without fail? What about this promise preached by Isaiah, that Abraham’s descendants, scattered here and there and everywhere, would be gathered once more to Jerusalem? Sure, in days of old the Lord brought the Israelites out of one nation, Egypt. But the prophet says here that another exodus is coming, one in which God will extend his hand to recover the remnant of his people not only from Egypt, but from Assyria, Pathros, Ethiopia, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands of the sea. Hey, Isaiah, while you’re at it, why not tack on America and Australia, Germany and Mexico, Russia and Japan? And why limit it to just the Israelites? Why not include the Gentiles as well in this cosmopolitan exodus? “That’s exactly what I’ve done,” Isaiah might well respond, for he goes on to preach that “[God] will raise a banner for the [Gentile] nations and gather the exiles of Israel . . . from the four quarters of the earth” (11:12 NIV).

5.       But how could these things be? How could the heavenly Father rescue his captive children from all over the globe, remove every barrier that stands in their way, build a highway for them to travel upon, and lead them safe and sound to the holy city? How could men and women, Jews and Gentiles, young and old, be so closely linked together that jealousy departs and harassment ceases? How is it possible that these folks could overcome every enemy, represented by Isaiah as Philistines, Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites? Stand beside giggling Sarah if you’re so inclined, laugh at the seeming impossibility of it all, but remember who it is that always has the last laugh.

6.       But hold back your laughter, all you Sarahs, long enough to enter with quiet awe into that rustic birthing room in David’s hometown. There in a feed trough lies an infant like all other babies, yet also unlike any other. For here is God in the flesh, come down to reign over a nation whose citizens are scattered over the 4 corners of the world.

7.       Hold back your laughter, all you Sarahs, long enough to listen to what this One preaches, that when he is lifted up on the crucifix, he “will draw all people to [himself]” (Jn 12:32). Hear him when he says that he will be a shepherd not only over the flock of the Jews, but the flock of Gentiles as well, so there will be one flock and one shepherd (Jn 10:16). Give ear to the words by which he sends out his apostles, that they go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to observe all that he has commanded them (Mt 28:20).

8.       And all you Sarahs, zip shut your lips, stifle every hint of laughter, when the Seed of Abraham undergoes his own bloody exodus from the city of Jerusalem, up the mount called Golgotha, onto the tree of the knowledge that God loves you. Let the demons laugh, but you keep silent at the sound of Roman hammers driving Roman steel through royal flesh; at the sound of his preaching, even while dying, from the pulpit of the cross; at the sound of his final breath, as those lungs, which breathed life into Adam, now breathe life back into all of us creatures of dust. Keep silent, all you Sarahs, laugh no more, as his holy corpse is laid to rest. Wait one day. Wait two. Wait three.

9.       And then, if you want to laugh, then by all means, when our resurrected Jesus climbs out of the grave on day three, then laugh with all the joy you can muster as the soldiers guarding his tomb faint like dead men. As demons shriek in astonished horror, as the world strips off her garment of mourning to greet the Creator and Savior of all, alive once more, never to die again! Laugh, Sarah! Laugh, Abraham! And laugh, all of you, their sons and daughters! Laugh joyfully and triumphantly, for God has accomplished the impossible. And all of it, every last bit of it, he has done for you!

10.   Now is fulfilled all that Isaiah foretold. Lift up your eyes and behold all the nations turned upside down.  See spilling out of them men and women, boys and girls, every color of the rainbow, spilling out and streaming to Jesus. From Assyria to America, from Egypt to Japan, from the 4 corners of the globe, those once fettered in sin are freed in Jesus. In his own bloody exodus from the city of Jerusalem, the Son of God has paved the way for all of you to enter the heavenly Jerusalem, the Church of the living God. The demons are demolished; hell is vanquished. All our enemies tuck their tails between their legs and head for the hills when our new and greater David marches before us with the decapitated head of the devil, hell’s Goliath raised high in his hand.

11.   You join them, you children of Abraham; no matter who you are or what you’ve done, you are a member of this pilgrim throng. Sin, death, shame, regret, failure—all of you, be gone! You have no power, no claim over the children of God. You are drowned in the waters of the Sea reddened by heaven’s blood. Sin, accuse no more! Death, die! Satan, burn in hell! For our new and greater Moses has rescued us from the deepest depths of the deepest dungeons in the deepest, darkest, most depraved Egypts of the world. It is done. It is finished. The exodus of exoduses has been accomplished by the Lord of lords, all to bring you into the Holy of Holies above.

12.   Without fail, Jesus has done it all. And he who sits in the heavens, at the Father’s right hand, he laughs. And we laugh with him. Yes, even in Lent! For he has kept his promise. The last laugh is his, as well as ours, for God has kept his Word, now as always.  Though we laugh to ourselves at God’s promises, we laugh with God as He keeps His promises through Jesus.  Amen.