✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
Isaiah 35,3-10
2. Sonntag im Advent 02 0213
Ad te Levavi
Joachim, father of the Virgin Mary
Gorgonia, Widow, † 369
1. O Ever-faithful and Merciful God, we render praise and thanksgiving unto You, that, by Your beloved Prophets You have promised to the Patriarchs of old the gift of Your Beloved Son, whom You did send into the world in the fullness of time, so that, by Him, Your holy will and counsel might be fully revealed unto us. He crushed the serpent’s head and has redeemed us from sin and death. All generations wait upon Him, and in Him are all the nations of the earth blessed. Prepare us, Good Lord, so that we may serve Him with undefiled hearts; and, when He arrives, to receive Him with joy; and, for this, we will thank You eternally in heaven (Löhe 443-44). Amen.
2. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart: „Be strong, and do not be afraid! Behold, your God comes with His justice and compensation. God arrives and saves you.“ Then the eyes of the blind are opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame man leaps like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sings for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand becomes a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass becomes reeds and rushes. And a highway is there, and it is called the Way of Holiness; the unclean do not pass over it. It belongs to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they do not go astray. No lion is there, nor any ravenous beast arrives up on it; they are not found there, but the redeemed walk there. And the ransomed of the Yahweh return and go to Zion with singing; everlasting joy is upon their heads; they obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing flee away.
3. As Isaiah writes chapter thirty-five, Israel was being oppressed by Assyria. In Isaiah’s day, Assyrian atrocities were well-known and feared. The Assyrians would conquer a city, or territory. All leaders who might rally a rebellion were killed. All the wealth was carted off to Nineveh. The local population was deported deep inside Assyrian territory and the soldiers responsible for taking the land married the local girls with the goal of imposing Assyrian values on the local population. They saw it and they trembled with fear, for Assyria had set its sights on the Promised Land with all its beauty and wealth. Israel saw sin, rebellion and evil personified in Assyria; Yahweh saw the same personified in Israel ... and in us.
4. Isaiah lays out the punishing accusations upon us under the law. In Isaiah 34 God unleashes the full might of His fury upon the earth. God’s anger smites the earth and the nations suffer. Rich farmlands became deserts and lakes dried up. Every thing is laid waste. Isaiah declares: For Yahweh is furious against all the nations, and enraged against all their armies: He has devoted them to destruction, He has given them over for slaughter. Yahweh’s fierce anger against the nations is the same anger that He had against us.
5. Isaiah longs for the Day of Yahweh. Yahweh’s law threatens punishment and condemnation, but His gospel promises acquittal and salvation. In the 8. century BC, all Israel could do was to wait and trust in God’s faithfulness. We, the new Israel, can only wait upon Yahweh and trust in His faithfulness. The Day of Yahweh is that final day when Yahweh consummates His Heilsgeschichte (salvation history). Isaiah and Israel looked forward to that day, although it was a distant day. Isaiah looked forward to that day as a day of judgment when wrongs were righted, the wicked were punished and the righteous rewarded by the Christ. The Church looks back upon that day as the day when sin was paid for, the wicked absolved and the sinner forgiven. The Day of Yahweh is the Day of Jesus’ crucifixion.
6. The Psalmist speaks of this day as: Unto You, O Yahweh, I lift up my life. (Psalm 25,1). The Evangelist proclaims: When you will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near (Luke 21,27-28). St. Luke the Evangelist reminds us that Jesus linked the Day of Yahweh, the arrival of the Son of Man, with great portents in the heavens. The Son of Man arrived in a cloud with great power and glory when He was born in Bethlehem and His arrival was fulfilled when He was crucified.
7. Advent is the preparation for the arrival of Jesus, who as the Son of Man Had His reign arrived on the cross. Advent connects us to both Jesus’ birth and His death. This is the wonder of Yahweh’s salvation: He advents Himself into our midst, and you cannot get more into our midst than with birth and death. Both events are pivotal events in our lives. Notice, that Jesus did not abstain Himself from His fallen creation. Jesus is born just as we are born. Jesus died just as each of us will one day die.
8. Therefore, the Prophet Isaiah proclaims: »Be strong, and do not be afraid! Behold, your God comes with His justice and compensation. God arrives and saves you.« This is the season of Jesus’ advent; He has arrived to justify us and to redeem us back to God the Father. He has paid for our sin, therefore we gladly repent and confess our sin knowing that we shall receive His absolution and forgiveness.
9. Isaiah assures us that such redemption is not only for fallen men and women, but also for creation that is in bondage to corruption. Isaiah proclaims that Yahweh will make big changes! The holy prophet describes this redemption on three levels: psychological, historical, and cosmological (Hummel 213). Yahweh will encourage us who tremble at the evil in this world. Yahweh will defeat the evil that infests creation. Yahweh will restore creation to its original purity and holiness. Yahweh promises that all these things will happen literally and completely on the Day of Yahweh, that great and glorious day when Christ comes from heaven to bring salvation.
10. As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we do so with the hope and joy that creation will be liberated, mankind will be restored in purity and that our sins have been forgiven, solely by Christ Jesus our Advent Lord. Amen.
11. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the world in Your righteousness and the peoples in Your faithfulness, You counsel us with the promise that Your words are more certain than the very heavens and earth so that we may endure the trials and tribulations of this fallen creation knowing that You will return and You will usher us into everlasting glory. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand.
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