Isaiah 5,1-7 1721
Reminiscere 025
The Nursing Martyrs who died caring for the sick during the Plague at Alexandria, 261-63
28. Februar 2021
1. O Lord God, Heavenly Father, grant us, we beseech You, by Your Holy Spirit, that He may strengthen our hearts and confirm our faith and hope in Your grace and mercy, so that, although we have reason to fear because of our conscience, our sin and our unworthiness, we may nevertheless, with the woman of Canaan, hold fast to Your grace, and in every trial and temptation find You a very present help and refuge. Amen. (Veit Dietrich)
2. »1Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning His vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; He built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard. 4What more was there to do for My vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5And now I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it will be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down. 6I will make it a waste; it will not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds so that they rain no rain upon it. 7For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant planting; and He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!«
3. The Prophet Isaiah describes Israel with the imagery of a vineyard. Yahweh had done everything to make Israel the best: good land, bountiful harvests, a crossroad for international trading, a beautiful temple with a covenant of gracious forgiveness and many other blessings. Q: What more was there to do for Israel? A: Nothing, for Yahweh had blessed His people abundantly.
4. Yahweh expected a people who feared, loved and trusted Him, a people who will be loving and virtuous to their neighbors. But the people in Isaiah’s day were wild and rebellious. Instead of justice they meted out bloodshed; instead of righteousness they caused their neighbors to cry out in sorrow. God sent Isaiah to call them to repentance, but Israel refused to listen to Isaiah and continued on with their wickedness. So Yahweh told them: I will remove My protective hand from you; I will turn My beautiful vineyard into a wasteland. I will drive out Israel from the land I had given them.
5. Just before Israel entered the promised land hundreds of years earlier, Moses reminded the people of the covenant: »If you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God that I command you today, by loving Yahweh your God, by walking in His ways, and by keeping His commandments, His statutes and His rules, then you shall live and multiply, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, then I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, so that you and your offspring may live, loving Yahweh your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him, for He is your life and length of days, so that you may dwell in the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, to give them« (Deuteronomy 30,15-20). By Isaiah’s day, Israel had chosen to consistently live contrary to that covenant, and Yahweh was now invoking the punishment clause, that is, the curse: exile from the land. Yahweh is merciful and long-suffering, but there comes a point when a person or a people has taxed Yahweh’s patience and He responds with disciplinary punishment.
6. One wonders if we, as humans on planet Earth, have reached this point with God. His Word and Gospel have been preached to the farthest corners of the globe, yet by and large people have rejected the gospel. Like Israel in Isaiah’s time, today justice gives way to bloodshed and righteousness yields to outcry. God is replaced with idols of our own making, the neighbor is ignored, morality and virtue are redefined. We can only challenge God’s patience for so long before He disciplines us.
7. Unless we repent, we will all like likewise perish (Luke 13,5). The Prophet Isaiah begins his book by declaring the Word of Yahweh: »Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause« (Isaiah 1,16-17). »Seek Yahweh while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to Yahweh, so that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon« (Isaiah 55,6-7). »Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become wool« (Isaiah 1,18).
8. Yahweh remembers His mercy and steadfast love (Psalm 25,6). Our sin is forgiven and the ransom price was paid by Christ on the cross. God’s grace is lavishly poured upon us. Christ has given us redemptive justice, and we now pray for justice to reign in our families, the Church, in our nation and throughout the world; as we are able, may God help us to bring such justice about. Amen.
10. Let us pray. O God our Heavenly Father, You have shown Your love for us in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners; send forth the Holy Spirit with this gospel of grace and mercy, so that all the world hears it and believes it. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2019 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2020 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands.
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